Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

General what were you going to mention about the WIFI on an earlier post?

"I'll tell you about the wifi tomorrow because i am lying in bed watching iron fist atm"

---------- Post added at 08:42 ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 ----------

Also what does this mean and what will It do exactly?

" There are loads of fantastic features which will put the shub to shame but a biggy, and one of the first things you should do, is manually input new dns server entries which will override anything vm sends down by dhcp. I have used 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for years and never had a single problem."

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Not all ASUS routers do. My old RT-N66U doesn't. I use it as an additional access, but it won't imesh. The AC66U B1 does though. Full list at the bottom of this link.

https://www.asus.com/AiMesh/

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

If you want the best 5Ghz range, go with the R7800. Can usually pick them up pretty cheap

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

The General is referring to the DNS* server settings. If you do nothing then the router will use the VM DNS by default. However they are not the most reliable and also filter some sites and refuse to release the IP for them, directing you to an internal page in VM's network.

The settings 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are Googles DNS servers. There are several others that can be used but the Google ones are pretty solid.

*DNS = Domain Name Server. A server that holds a table of IP addresses referenced from website names.

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Ok superb how would this normally be entered?
Thanks btw

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

You log into your router at its base address:

mine is at 192.168.11.1 but most are at 192.168.1.1. You just enter that in your browser address bar.

That takes you to a login page from your router.

Once logged in there'll be a number of configuration tabs, here is the relevent one from my Buffalo router:

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...8&d=1536759714

The DNS is set here as Google primary and FreeDNS as secondary.

As a precaution I only allow router configuration from a wired Ethernet connection. This is set within the router on another tab.

Attachment 27538

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Ok thanks

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

you pay for what you get and the good thing about buying a proper router in addition to performance and stability are options. You have one menu for setting up "your" 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks with the ssids and passwords etc you want and then there is a completely different menu for guest networks. If someone comes round to your house and they ask for your wifi password because they want to do something you don't have to worry about them having access to everything on your lan or screwing everything up. You can setup multiple guest networks very easily with individual names which will restrict access to your lan and can be time sensitive whether it be for 1 hour or 1 day and when the time has elapsed (e.g. if your neighbour comes round for a coffee) it just disappears as if it were never there and you don't have to worry about a messy gui and having to delete everything and clean it up.



I'll try and keep it simples. When you ring your mum on your mobile phone you ring "mum" in your contacts list but you know your phone is actually ringing 07123 123456. Websites are the same and when you go to amazon.co.uk you are actually going to 52.222.239.109. When you type a website name (url) into your browsers address bar your pc fires off a request to the dns server (like an address book) for the ip address of the name you have entered.
You think of routers as the superhub or the thing you want to buy for you home network but there are obviously bigger ones and the thing which your vm connection connects to is VM's router (cmts) and in addition to providing your router with an ip address for your home connection it tells your router what it's default gateway is (the ip address of vm's router you are connecting to) and the dns server. One of the many reasons why the shub's are rubbish is because any good router allows you to set your dns servers manually but the shubs don't because vm want you to use theirs.
The problem is that if your dns server goes down you think your internet connection is down because your browser throws up an error message of some sorts. The thing is that your connection is actually fine and if you knew the ip address of the site you wanted to go to you wouldn't have a problem but you don't know the ip address of each and every site you want to visit.
Using the isp's dns servers isn't bad per se if they work but the problem is that vm's dns servers break far more than they should and if often takes them at least half a day to fix it. If you use another provider's dns server (e.g. google) which has a higher level of redundancy (and google care a lot more) it is just one of many things you can cross off your list of not having to worry about. This is what I mean when I say to people "you need to buy a proper router" and there are multiple reasons for it. Changing the dns server is a very simple thing to do and takes seconds but it is such a huge benefit which you probably won't even notice. The funny thing is that when vm's dns servers go down you won't even notice because you aren't using them and you'll be plodding along quite happily at home doing whatever you are doing. It is only if you visit this forum or equivalent that you'll see a tonne of people posting messages from their smart phones asking what is going on and you'll see smug ****s like me saying "buy a proper router".
In case you are wondering, the reason why VM don't let you set your own dns servers is because of what I have already described above; if you screw it up it can give the appearance that your connection is broke when it isn't. If vm let you change stuff like that around then it is one more thing for the ming mongs in India to have to deal when trying to troubleshoot network connectivity issues.
So, as an example, atm you are using vm's dns servers and if you go to a command prompt (windows key, cmd, enter) and type "nslookup" and hit enter you'll see the ip address of vm's dns server you are currently using. When you override that on your router when all the clients on your network retrieve their configuration information from your router by dhcp they'll get an ip address, the default gateway (the lan address of your router) and whatever dns server you specify and that will apply to all your pc's, tablets, phones, TV's etc so it is well worth doing. This is what happens when you change it so you know it is working properly.

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/09/3.jpg

Following on from what other users have described above this is the screen in the Asus gui where you would set it along with the other things I have talked about in previous posts such as addressing schemes and setting static ips for the known devices on your network. It is very easy, you click on lan and dhcp and everything is there.

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Hi general once again thanks for your very detailed explanation can I just ask though how do you know my mum's number lol?

Seriously though I am going for Asus router so so long as I literally put in all the relevant numbers on the screen shot you provided I will be good yeah Literally copying everything like for like?

Do I have to change these regularly or once they are in they are in yeah?

The manually assigned ip dhcp do I have to do that as well or does it generate the name and details manually once you enter everything above in in screen shot first?

Obviously don't want mine generalmaximus lol

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

you don't have to copy any of the above at all, it was just an example of the options available and how the fields can be populated. 99% of people will leave the address pool at the default which will be something like 192.168.1.100. Unless you know what you are doing networking wise you wont gain anything from changing it and I do it for pure novelty.
The reason why I mentioned the static ip addresses/dhcp reservation in the beginning is because you mentioned switches running off to different places and different devices and normally people who make the effort to setup networks that work properly take an interest in their management. You can't see it but if I clicked on that drop down list it would have displayed the device name and mac address of all the devices that had connected to my network, both wired and wireless, and it is easy to see what is what. General Maximus is my pc, the Sky boxes say something like BSkyB bla bla, anything which is set to default settings with say Galaxy Tab A, Galaxy S7, Sony Bravia TV etc.
You don't have to do any manual assignments at all and you can leave your router to sort everything out and everything will work fine forever. The only reason why I suggested it is going back to networking enthusiasts again, there is an accepted standard how you assign devices ip addresses on your network if you want to keep track of what is what and what things are doing, it just makes everything easier to read.

Anyways, the beautiful thing about having a proper decent quality router is that once it is setup it works, nothing ever goes wrong, you never have to reboot it and everyone lives happily ever after (unlike the shub's). Priority number one is to change the dns server, setup your wireless networks, have a look at everything else and once it is done you are sorted and you'll never have to login again. It prompts you to setup a password on initial startup so either write it down or choose something you'll remember because you'll be logging in so so rarely that you are likely to forget it. I made that mistake and ended up having to do a factory reset a year later and setup everything up from scratch again :)

I doubt you'll be doing it but if you going between tabs changing lots of settings make sure you click on save at the bottom of each tab before you move onto the next tab otherwise any changes will be lost when you navigate to a different page.

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Quick final question general when I go over to virgin hopefully early 2019 the way work progressed and get my Asus would I be able to private message you to get it just right please it would mean a lot to me?

Jason

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Sure

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Much appreciate to you general and everyone else here that has answered my post it has really helped me no end.

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

If you are on DSL now and your current modem/router can be run in modem/bridged mode you could set everything up now then when you get VM just replace with the SuperHub switch that to modem mode and nothing else really needs changing.

Re: Best Router to Use with Home Hub 3
 

Hi I’m on sky fibre at the min with a sky sr2 router and wouldn’t have a clue how to do it lol