I have returned ... with a question

[BouncingSoul]

Hi All!

Been about 8 years... I made the mistake of wandering into the Politics section all those years ago and I think I lost my faith in humanity. It hasn't been restored, but I have no idea how to solve this issue and I remember this site having TONS of smart/helpful people. So I'm swallowing my pride and returning to ask this .... Here goes.

I have a Linksys EA6350, it works for 99% of things, but 3 of my most used apps have super odd issues. But only on smart phones. When I log into Twitter, the app loads and all of the recent tweets appear, sans any images. Even if its a URL, the preview thumbnail isn't there. If I tap the images to make them full screen, a loading bar appears but it never fills. Not a deal breaker but annoying all the same. If I leave the app open and untouched, after about 5 minutes the missing media downloads and everything is normal. On Candy Crush (yes I know, I try to quit but I keep coming back) I can log in and play, but it won't sync any of my progress to Facebook until after (again) about 5 minutes of playing. Then all of a sudden, the little connecting icon appears and suddenly everything is synced again. Lastly, Hearthstone appears to load and play just fine but it has EXTREME disconnect issues. Sometimes it is completely unable to resume my game without killing the app and relaunching. By this time, I've lost due to time out. There are probably other apps with similar issues, but these are used a lot (I get bored easily). The router has been returned for a warranty replacement, I've checked every setting I can find in the (crappy) admin interface. Nothing works. Oh and I should mention this happens no matter how far away from the router I am. The only thing I can think of is simply buying a new router, but after all of this work on this thing, I just want to fight it until its fixed or it kills me. Any idea on what to try next? If your advice is to get a new router, which one do I buy?

TLDR ... router is sorta jacked, should I buy a new one?

 

[American Zombie]

Is this on the 2.4 or 5 band?

What hardware revision is the router and what firmware do you have on it?

The hardware version is located beside or beneath the model number and is labeled version, ver. or V.

 

[BouncingSoul]

Both bands have the same SSID, I've tried turning one of them off to ensure it was using a specific band, but the results remain the same no matter which was on. The hw revision is 2 and it is running the latest factory firmware. I couldn't find any alternate firmwares for this router, if there was I'd give that a try.

 

[American Zombie]

Latest firmware says:

Ver. 2.1.1 (Build 171422)
Latest Date: 04/29/2016

Do you have the media prioritization off or on?

Perhaps phones have low priority.

Could try turning that off as a test unless you already tried that.

Unless you really need WPA your security should be set to WPA2 only instead of auto WPA/WPA2 for the best speeds .

Channel width for 5GHz should be 40 only not auto 20/40.

2.4 band will fall back to 20 when it detects other networks around you as the 2.4 is just too crowded and why there is now 5GHz.

 

[BouncingSoul]

Media prioritization is off. Did test it on once upon a time and I assigned my Android's as high priority. Nothing changed though. I don't have an iPhone or anything else to test, but I'm sure its the router since this problem goes away if I turn off wifi completely and just use 4G all the time. Not that you asked about device OS, I just figured someone MIGHT ask about it eventually, so I threw it in. lol.

Everything else is as you mentioned except for the channel width. I took the 5GHZ from auto to 40, but I do see I have an 80 option as well. Didn't select that since I don't even know what that would affect.

As near as I can tell, this is something to do with how these apps send traffic on wifi and how the router handles it. I just don't know what else to look at. I've been eyeballing a new router anyway, but I got laid off a while back so any purchases I make need to be actual needs and not minor convenience improvements.

 

[American Zombie]

I took the 5GHZ from auto to 40, but I do see I have an 80 option as well. Didn't select that since I don't even know what that would affect.

OK I forgot this is an AC router so you will have 80 too. If you don't have any AC capable devices then you can leave it at 40 but if you have AC devices then you will need to leave it on auto so it can do 20/40/80 as AC devices are 80. Personally I feel the best routers right now are the Asus routers. I have a RT-AC68U and the RT-AC1900 or RT-AC1900P are the same model but faster processor.

Good place to compare routers: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view

Current ranking of routers: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/router/view

 

[BouncingSoul]

K I'm pretty sure I'm done with this thing. I'm going to Best Buy (my only option in this town) and I'll buy something decent, not sure if they'll have the Asus ones you've mentioned though. My main goal is to have a good device with a solid return policy. Cause if I hook it up and it still doesn't work right, I'm going to return it and try a mesh setup from Google or something. Even though my house isn't big enough to require that, I gotta try something. So anyway the question now is for ease of transfer, if I give the new router the same SSID and same WPA2 key, will my devices just connect to it and not even know its a different router or will there be issues? I'd love to have this as transparent as possible since my in-laws bring their devices over all the time and it is ALWAYS an ordeal getting them back on the wifi.

 

[American Zombie]

K I'm pretty sure I'm done with this thing. I'm going to Best Buy (my only option in this town) and I'll buy something decent, not sure if they'll have the Asus ones you've mentioned though. My main goal is to have a good device with a solid return policy. Cause if I hook it up and it still doesn't work right, I'm going to return it and try a mesh setup from Google or something. Even though my house isn't big enough to require that, I gotta try something. So anyway the question now is for ease of transfer, if I give the new router the same SSID and same WPA2 key, will my devices just connect to it and not even know its a different router or will there be issues? I'd love to have this as transparent as possible since my in-laws bring their devices over all the time and it is ALWAYS an ordeal getting them back on the wifi.

Best Buy carries the rt-ac1900p which is just the rt-ac68u with a faster processor.

Anytime I have changed routers I just use the same SSID/passphrase for the new one and the devices connect right up to the new router.

Comparisons of them are here: http://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac68u-rt-ac68p-rt-ac1900-rt-ac1900p.35759/

 

[BouncingSoul]

Sweet. Thanks!

 

[BouncingSoul]

Didn't get out and about yesterday, but planning on it today. Unless I can do this via Amazon that is ... Amazon has the 68u for about $25 less than Best Buy's 1900p. In your opinion is the faster processor/ability to have the router in my hands today instead of 2 days worth the $25 difference?

 

[American Zombie]

Faster processor will not matter that much and I don't think there are any 800 ones left so you will most likely get 1000 or 1400

There were three speeds of the 68U depending on the hardware revision and minor changes to the radios.

Tim Thiggins explains the differences pretty well: http://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac68u-rt-ac68p-rt-ac1900-rt-ac1900p.35759/#post-291624

Myself I have a B1 with 1 GHz processor.