Not so Superhub

[StevenJohnson]

I've had this Superhub installed over a week now and never in my entire life of owning such a device have I had to mess around with Wireless settings so much.

I was previously using a Motorola Surfboard SB5100 Modem and a DIR-655 Router on a 10mb connection which I had no problems with. I bought the DIR-655 about a year ago and once I set it up, that was it... never had to mess with it again! but this Superhub is a different story all together.

I upgraded from my 10mb connection to the 30mb and was told I had to use the Superhub. The Superhub has been placed in exactly the same location as my old Modem and Router and the wireless signal is terrible. I used to get at least 90%+ signal from my DIR-655, but the best I get from the Superhub is 50%+ and rarely gets above 60%. I've used all available channels but still never get above 60%. When you talk with Virgin Media it's like talking with a Robot.. they say the same thing over and over and really don't listen to what you are telling them. It frustrates me when they blame the layout of your house... "Look! The Superhub is in the same location of my previously working router, I haven't changed the layout of my house at all...."

They even tried telling me to use my old Router with the new Hub... "WHY?" they might as well be telling me that they know the wireless on the Superhub is naff.. I shouldn't have to mess around like this.

You only have to look on the VM Forums to know that something isn't right with the Superhub, but yet again VM seem oblivious and carry on business as normal.

[Hugh]

Sorry to hear about your problems.

Have you tried some of the suggestions offered elsewhere in the forum, such as -

Switch off ipflood
Switch off firewall (in the SH)
Change 802.11 to 145Mb/s

[StevenJohnson]

Thanks Hugh,

To be honest, I've tried everything, but haven't switched off Firewall.

Is it safe to switch that off?

[Hugh]

As long as you have one on your PC/laptop, yes.

[joveonmars]

I agree the superhub has less wifi range than your previous setup, the Netgear WNR2000 router for me. IMO if you didn't upgrade to it this time you would have next time you changed your broadband speed.

It should see us through all the way upto 400Mbps so we'll have it around for a while so some options i can think of are;

1, wait for the firmware update that will allow a third party router to be used with better wifi range without double NATing,

2, lay cat 5e cables through your house, this i've done but is the most difficult option & not an option for many,

3, use homeplugs (200Mbps), these work well as long as they are on the same ring main you can get maybe 20-80Mbps (huge overhead) low latency. (plugs operating on seperate ring-mains lower throughput performance)

4, having a wifi dongle plugged directly into a pc or laptop can suffer reduced range being so close to electrical equiptment, try having the dongle on a 1-1.5m usb cable away from the pc/laptop. Built-in laptop wifi can suffer similar signal problems that will have an even harder time with the superhub's shorter range. If it's a phone, find out where it's aerial is & avoid covering it with your hand.

The superhub's auto wifi channel feature isn't so super & tends to sick to channel 1, other people in range using the same channel as you can lower your range so manually choosing a channel that isn't in use could help.

I've found for maximum throughput with available signal, setting your superhub wifi encryption to WPA2-PSK(AES) and any devices to use WMM (WiFi Multimedia) will allow fastest speeds at least with N (300Mbps) otherwise you may be capped to G speeds. (using 145Mbps mode can apparently trade throughput for increased stability)

You may already know some or all of the above, hope it can help.

[zekeisaszekedoes]

You see, if the Super Hub were a wireless G device you might be able to describe the range as slightly above average. The problem with that is, being a wireless N device it should be at least double that.

Right now it's probably better to cut your losses and fall back on your old setup. Plenty of people have wasted hours trying everything to work around the numerous failings and been made more mad instead, so I'd say don't be one of them! :)

[qasdfdsaq]

Actually a bit of a common misconception here. 'N' doesn't really have longer range than 'G' in practice and often will have less. Range is really dictated by transmit power and receive sensitivity and in neither of these terms is 'N' any different from 'G'. It'll often achieve higher speeds at the same range, but total range will not be increased. Due to the relative immaturity of 'N' still (most gear is still "draft-N" and not final) it can be a little more unstable as well.

[harveyadam]

I briefly had a MiMo wireless router a couple of years ago and it was terrible. Tried all the channels and messed around with different modes to no avail. It was expensive and pretty-looking but ultimately a step back from the cheap US Robotics router (with bunny ear antennaes) I'd had for years and went back to after messing around with the MiMo. Is it just this style of antennae which is a bit pants?

[StevenJohnson]

... Due to the relative immaturity of 'N' still (most gear is still "draft-N" and not final) it can be a little more unstable as well.

You're not wrong there...

Well, got up on Sunday morning, turned on laptop and PS3... NO CONNECTION! and wasn't even showing in the list of Wireless Devices. Thankfully a reboot solved it, but still frustrating!

[Chrysalis]

when I last checked the cpu usage on my superhub (in ssh), it was 14% when idle and 75% when running speedtest.net :)

[StevenJohnson]

when I last checked the cpu usage on my superhub (in ssh), it was 14% when idle and 75% when running speedtest.net :)

Not sure what that means, is that a good thing? :)

[qasdfdsaq]

No. If the CPU's at 75% load running a speedtest on 30mbit...

[Chrysalis]

to me thats quite bad, as speedtest.net is only 4 connections and it doesnt bode well for higher speed services. I want to retest but sshd doesnt work on it now :(