Martin Jones

Hello, got a little issue here with my ISPs hardware. Connection is wireless due to the lack of fibre cables and telephone lines, meaning only option is wireless. This is achieved with something like this (don't know the model, but the brand it the same and outside looks similar): https://www.senetic.cz/product/RBSXTG-5HPND-SAR2?gclid=CjwKCAjwwab7BRBAEiwAapqpTFnhK5k-tSKTKv2v-W8uAZUJT24UQsGKzWZQEUvU4do6LYUC3dwunhoCkfYQAvD_BwE Network had issues with clients being disconnected. I thought it might be a bad router, so we bought a new one, but the issue persists. Turns out, router was set in AP mode, meaning the router didn't take care of connected devices, DHCP or NAT, it just broadcasted the radio signals and the product I linked took care of everything. The issue is, it disconnects connected devices every 30-90 minutes, which is horrible for real-time video streaming as it lags for a good 5 seconds or more. Sometimes stream close and I need to establish a new connection. I don't have access to the wireless AP on the roof top and it can't be accessed though web browser, using their Mikrotik's special software is probably the way to go as I remember the ISP using this program when they configured the AP. Even then I probably wouldn't know the credentials. If I set the router to a default router mode so that I can use parental control, DHCP, NAT, etc. it works for that 30-90 minutes and then suddenly disconnects. Only way to make it work again is disconnect the Ethernet cable and connect it back in. So the issue is that the ISP's satellite AP disconnects either devices on the network or the router depending on the mode the router is in. Now ISP claims they got no clue what's going on. I suggested disabling DHCP on the AP and assigning static IP address to the router so maybe that could help. But they do not agree. And from what I read, devices should ask DHCP to renew their IP half way the lease life time. So, any ideas? My ISP's hardware keeps disconnecting devices and ISP got no clue what that could be. And they seem like they do not want to come over to take a look and fix it. Maybe if I knew the issue, they might be more interested to come and fix it.

The thing is, when I told him to go show me on his laptop, he was connected to the same wifi as we were and his speeds were also shitty. He had this malicious smile on his face though so perhaps he did something on his phone to throttle himself down or something. Idunno. But he showed me a screen from like a month ago, where he was downloading 10+ MB/s which is like 80Mbit. On his shitty 5Mbit connection? Like bruh. Yeah, I'll try to use a wifi analyzer to see if there are any hidden networks without an SSID. This was also the first thing I thought about. Though when he showed me his laptop for evidence, it didn't have any saved hidden networks and connected to the same WiFi.

How do i connect to the "higher level" router if there's one? 192.168.2.1 (default gateway) doesn't show anything and when I used port sniffing tools to find all connected devices on the network, it only showed the default gateway (as Mikrotik device though it was a TP Link router) and then my phones and a friend's phone. Nothing else.

We're neighbors. I'm from the Czech republic. Though if you're not living in a flat or in the center of the city, there's usually no way to get cable internet. We both live in a Village houses. I live in a 10 year old house (the Mayor is dumb and saved money by not planting an internet nor DLS cable - awesome stuff, gotta love politics) and she lives in like 100+ years old house. We both got no wired connectivity. And getting your cable to your house not only costs fortune, but you also gotta get like 50 signatures from neighbors that are also interested. This is a world wide issue. Get a big house with garden or live in a flat with 50 families and get fiber.

Yes, I know that for sure. Though I have no clue where the cable that carries the electricity from the PoE adapter goes. I can only presume on the roof but it's possible that it goes under the roof, where a secondary router could be, which then is connected to the AP on the roof. But why would it be already amplified with the PoE? Can it like daisy-chain the theoretical router under the roof and the AP on the roof to power both?

Nope. It's not on an electric copper for sure. The router has 1 occupied LAN port, in which an PoE adapter is connected to, which then leads on the roof, where I presume is the long-distance-transmission AP. Weird thing is that the internet drops out (though wifi still visible) when disconnecting from the LAN port and doesn't work in the WAN port. Like why wouldn't it be connected to the WAN port? I got similar setup home, because the same ISP, but mine goes: Router->WAN port->PoE adapter -> AP on the roof -> some ISP AP 5km away.

They have the same ISP and I get 50Mbit, this ISP doesn't really have speed tiers. Either you have internet or not. But depends on the time of the day. Sometimes it goes 20Mbit, sometimes 50. If he didn't do anything with the network, why is the to link router acting like a Mikrotik device and the GUI is inaccessible?

Wait, so... Let's try to figure this out. You're saying that the router I had in hands was acting as a wireless AP, meaning there must have been another router that had a hidden SSID, which the router was connected to wirelessly. Then explain why there was a cable connected to the LAN port, which when disconnected, lost the internet connection? It it were a wired AP, then it would surely be connected to the WAN port, when in wireless mode, then anything connected to the LAN port would be a client device, though the only cable connected to the LAN port had PoE adapter connected to it and was going on the roof, probably to the satellite dish AP to connect to the ISP. The wireless AP on the roof then would have to be connected to the another "hidden router" and not the one in the room. This all doesn't make sense.

It's an old house, like really old. I doubt it even had a phone line in the first place. They got a dish on the roof, which connects to an AP over a few km distance. And that AP is connected to the LAN port on the router and a PoE adapter. That adapter just injects electricity into the Ethernet cable that goes on the roof - I've checked.

Exactly! That's how I felt as well. It literally made my brain hurt. I felt really dumb for not being able to solve it. When anyone I knew had issues with their network or wanted to connect new APs to extend the range or whatever, I was always the one who got it done within an hour including the cable routing.

Alright, so a friend of mine wanted to download a game, just to realize, that a 4GB game takes nearly 5 hours to download! She has an older brother, so I asked him what going on, because 5Mbit speed is just... Not a Norm in 2020. We both have the same ISP. I took a look at the router, it was some TP Link cheapo router, but there were couple of odd things. Firstly, the router wasn't connected to a WAN port! It had a single cable coming from the roof (wireless AP to connect to the ISP) to a LAN port? What the hell? I tried to plug the cable into the WAN port, but that made the internet not work, wifi was still broadcasting though, so that confirmed the router I had in hands was the one broadcasting the signal. When connecting to other LAN ports, it still worked. Another thing I tried was connecting to the router admin web panel. To my surprise, when I checked for default gateway and tried to connect to it using my browser, I got "refused to connect" message. That meant one of 2 things. The router had IP or MAC limitation on who can load the admin panel or it had the GUI disabled and was only accessible using telnet or something similar. I used a phone app to scan for all devices connected to the network and it listed the router as a Mikrotik device, which made me believe that it was probably flashed with custom firmware. This all is really odd because her brother refused to elaborate and was acting dumb, but I think he set a limit for his family so he can use all the bandwidth for himself. What is your take on this? Is there anything I could try or something I have missed? This setup is really odd, not only because the "internet" cable is not connected to the WAN port, but also because the router reports itself as a different brand than what it really is and also the inability to connect to the admin panel.

No way! If this is true, then I'm sending valve a fat check to pay for my heart attack I got.

I have GTX1060 6GB, bought it like 2 years ago brand new. I kept it on default settings, didn't change anything. My monitor also flashes from time to time (once per month or 2) and I've also seen some screen artifacts. Those are really scary. Those suggest overhearing but when i check, the card is completely fine under 80°C

180W is really low. I guess with those OEM computers theres no way to replace the power supply, right? Depends on the other components you have in your system. If you have just an ssd and a low power CPU, then maybe? If I were you, i would ask in the shop if you can return the card at no cost in case it doesn't work or ask a friend who has similar card to make sure.

Hey, this just happened to me. Suddenly a dead pixel appeared on my screen, tried everything I could have found on the internet to fix it(rubbing pencil on the screen, etc) but nothing helped. Then I thought I might try to restart the system and upon showing the blue logout screen, the dead pixel was no more! I checked for malware, but windows defender didn't find anything. Could that be an issue with the driver or something, that caused this, or is there some prank/malware on my PC that wasn't detected by AV? I don't download or install random stuff from the internet, but my OS install is now about 4 years old, so nobody knows what a mess is hiding in the system. Did this happen to anyone else in the past?

I have some spare Asus routers which can be configured to "AP mode" automatically. Do you think having a main Asus router and hooking up additional 2 routers to it configured in AP mode would satisfy my needs? APs should be far enough (one would be in a garden house where the signal is almost dead. Would clients switch automatically and wouldn't be there any issue with multi-NAT environment and would all devices connected to different APs appear as on the same network? The main router would also have radio enabled.

So I am building a network solution for my home and I want ONE huge network for both LAN and WLAN. The issue is, my router only has 4 ports, so I was thinking of buying a switch. This introduced a new issue as I discovered there are L2 and L3 switches and I'm not quite sure which one of those suits me. I would like all devices on the same subnet so they are all discoverable. Is this even possible? Multiple APs connected directly to router and 1Gbit switch for 4 of my PCs? Can AP connected to my router "extend" the wifi signal by setting the same SSID and changing the channels? Is there anything crucial I should know before buying anything?

They are young compared to HDDs. You can't say "SSDs can last 8-12 years" just because they are out ONLY 10ish years, while HDDs have been there since forever. When talking about the life span, you can only guess since they are so young that we don't have any data of how well they age.

My concern is whether the "server grade - long lasting" is just a marketing turn or if the server grade SSD are better in holding the data in the cells for as long and possible. Because as I understand it, it only differs in technology (3D nand, QLC, TLC...) and number of reads and writes but even the consumer grade ones from Samsung can last almost forever taking in consideration that the average data transfer per day wouldn't exceed 10GB. And even that is an overkill. So is the life span determined only by the reads and writes or is there any value for how long can be the chips powered on?

I meant a constantly spinning drive never going to sleep. Those tend to wear out pretty fast unless they are server grade drives. I had one and it broke after 2 years working 24/7 If I were about to buy an SSD into a NAS, Is there any advantage buying NAS dedicated one over a consumer one, let's say Samsung EVO? Despite the number of read/write cycles.

Since SSDs are quite young on the storage market, I was wondering how reliable they could be in a long-term storage. Let's say you have a NAS you only use for small data transfers and you store your family pictures etc. You won't ever reach the limit of reads/writes (being about 300TB for 1TB drives AFAIK) Once upon the time, there were rumours about SSDs losing data when unplugged for a few months, which has been proven wrong, but how long will it last plugged in 24/7 barely reading or writing any data? I know mechanical drives DO have hard times staying idle as they can only last about 2-7 years (depending whether it's a consumer grade or server grade drive) before the reading head wears out. I also know that SSDs have a controller chip that's the most likely to fail, so how many idle hours can an SSD stay powered on on average? Is there any real data or study considering it's a young technology? Thanks so much in advance for answers. Every comment appreciated.