Belkin f5d7230-4 Problem and General Router Question...
Sorry for the long thread title.
This post will be in a few parts, firstly explaining what seems to be a problem with the belkin 7230-4 router ( version 1000 .. dont know about others as i dont have any more ), continuing to how to fix your 7230-4 if you broke it, and finishing on a question intended for those who use wireless and are on the 20mb trial.
Belkin (suspected ) problem...
I Strongly suspect that my belkin 7230-4 is being somewhat overloaded by the 20mb coming down the WLAN port, Tested this by removing the router from my setup and got 17mb downloads. Put router back on and get 4-6mb downloads. Tried with some other D-Link router and got 11-13mb downloads.
I am curious as to if the port is half duplex or something ( belkin tech support babbled and wouldnt give me a real answer ), and am presuming that its running at 10mb, so 10mb half duplex = chaos on a 20mb line.
So...
My First attempted solution...
After reading about the belkin 7230-4 it would appear that it would accept the firmware with a little 'modification' of the 7231.. well nothing ventured nothing gained .. so out comes the hex editor and the firmware is patched and installed.
OK so the router bacame unstable and seems to be a little worse, 'no problem' i think, 'i'll revert it back to the original firmware.
This now became the fun part...
Wont accept its original flash back, wont update at all, every flash for the 7230-4 is apparently incorrect...
Repair of the 7230-4...
To cut a long story short i installed PumpKIN ( available from download.com ) which it s tftp transfer program..
I set the lan port on my laptop to 192.168.2.2 with subnet 255.255.255.0 and default route of 192.168.2.1
Went to the belkin support site and grabbed the oldest firmware available for the router ( apparently the 4.x firmwares have some stupid bug to do with packet loss )
Set PumpKin to try and dump the image to the router ( 192.168.2.1 ) and power cycled the router, 3 seconds later .. router restored to former glory.
General Question about router ....
I am obviously now looking for another router as this one obviously can not cope with the connection speeds involved...
which leads me to ....
Anybody who is on the 20mb trial, and happens to use a wireless router in their setup, please would you advise to what router you are using?
( also if you use WPA, does it ass an extra 20-30ms to your ping times ? )
Sorry for the babble, just hope someone can help with the router question, and the first 2/3 of the post acts as a deterrant for anyone foolish enough to try to 'modify' their router ( it dont help at all people .. trust me ( and as for the option of running 125mb wifi ... the option does not appear in the menu under SSID .. the claims that it does are false ))
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