"Once you throw money at a problem, you've lost." (attrib to Jacob at ERE I think).
We have this wireless router, the
D-Link DSL-2640B. It's 2 years old, and about a month ago we had issues with it.
It all started when we tried to connect the apple time machine to back up pictures/ data / etc. Stuff stopped working, we cycled the D-link router power (a few times), and then it just stopped working. So I logged in as admin and re-configured it. It seemed to work, for all of ten seconds. Then - no connection. Tried again. And again. Lastly I tried without setting up any security options. Still failed. Ugh.
So I called the support line and they asked me to connect to the router via a physical ethernet cable (not over wifi). Well, we have no computers with ethernet ports, so that wasn't an option. They sent a guy out (for free - yeah). He connected his laptop via ethernet cable and configured the router and got it working.
He said that sometimes the settings don't take over wireless admin access. What? I mean, if I can get to it over wireless, and hit save and it says the settings are saved, I assume they've been written into flash memory. Why would the connection over which I made the settings matter? So I've looked at some of the documentation on this device but haven't really rolled up my sleeves to discover exactly the answer to this question. I mean, clearly, it is the case so move on, right?
Then, Ruzaimi, the support guy, said we could buy a new router for 160 ringgit ($50 USD). We said we'd just go with the old one.
Okay now we have two problems.
- The connection is slow. We used to get 3-4 Mbps and now top out at 1.7Mbps. This causes all kinds of problems, esp when multiple people are on their devices.
- Sonos doesn't work. Ergh. I love listening to our sonos. It not working sucks.
Debugging sonos: at first I thought it was the low internet speed, but online resources say we should be okay as long as the speed is > 1Mbps. Okay. Logged onto the router and discovered our support guy had set restrictions on bridges. So I found the ethernet MAC address of the sonos bridge and the sonos player - set them as exceptions and saved. Guess what - it saved. Weird. But... the sonos controller can only set up the bridge now. Aggh. Mind you, this paragraph is a concise summary of what, in reality, was >60 debug / test steps so 'aggh' hardly capture the aggravation (but I thought I'd spare you the details of all 60ish steps. You're welcome).
I'm at a point where I just want to throw the $50 at the problem and get a new router and, hopefully, will be done with it. But then I keep hearing the words in my head, "once you throw money at a problem, you've lost."
Pre-MMM I wouldn't have given this a thought. I would've simply asked "how much is the router?" and then handed over what ever the guy asked. But now, I don't want to be that loser, who just gives up and chucks money at it.
So... anyone care to co-sign my bullshit and say, 'get the router'? If not, what do you recommend?