Router question

[danny.guitar]

I'm using a LinkSys router (BEFSR41) firmware version: 2.00.1, and I can't seem to open any ports to accept connections (for hosting servers).

Every time I try, I'll keep getting a "Network cable unplugged", then it will reconnect. This happens every so often and it's annoying. It signs me out of MSN, Yahoo messenger, or whatever I may be connected to.

I haven't been able to run servers for awhile now (sometimes I like to run small web servers from my computer, or FTP servers). I'm pretty sure my ISP doesn't want me running these, but I don't know.

Knology came to setup the internet here, and they messed with the router settings. But I don't see anywhere on here why this could be happening, and I've gone through all the settings.

Anyone else know why this could be happening, or experienced the same thing?

 

[danny.guitar]

I think it's fixed.

I talked to LinkSys live support on their online chat thing, and wasn't expecting much, but he took me through some of the settings and now it seems to be working without problems.

 

[dgatwood]

It's a good thing their tech support is good since their hardware often isn't. We used Linksys hubs on our desks at my previous employer for a while as a cost-cutting measure. The d*mn things would just stop talking upstream to the main router about once a day. We'd power cycle them and get networking back. Eventually, we binned the whole lot of them and replaced them with Netgear.

Of course, I'm starting to think that Netgear equipment isn't that good, either. Their new consumer Ethernet switches blow goats from what I've seen. I picked up one of them a few months back and returned it because it was showing something like 85% packet loss. Replaced it with one from D-Link and haven't had a problem since. I've also had to cycle out all my Netgear 10/100 (multiple models) ethernet cards because they last about three years and then crap out. Junk, junk, junk.

*sigh*

Anyway, glad you figured out a solution to your problem. The words that came to my mind were "buggy Linksys firmware", so I doubt there's anything anyone on here (even us networking nerds) could have done to help....

 

[danny.guitar]

Yeah this is the 2nd LinkSys I've got, the other one just simply stopped working. LinkSys used to have good reliable routers from what I remember.

My friend has a very cheap little D-Link hub and it has never stopped working. I think if this one goes down then I'm going to go with a D-Link. It looks like a small, cheap, plastic thing that wouldn't last, but I guess it does.

 

[dgatwood]

My friend has a very cheap little D-Link hub and it has never stopped working. I think if this one goes down then I'm going to go with a D-Link. It looks like a small, cheap, plastic thing that wouldn't last, but I guess it does.

Weird, that. D-Link has always been on my "good guys" list because they tend to make Mac drivers available even for their PCI cards. Not necessarily out-of-the-box-working Mac drivers, mind you---I had to spend a few minutes hacking up the Info.plist to get them to load under 10.3 and I actually emailed them a diff for their own driver---but drivers.

*sigh*

Frankly, I've about concluded that nearly all networking hardware sucks, no matter who makes it---Cisco, Linksys, D-Link, Netgear---they all produce train wrecks of products at times.... The key is to choose your equipment carefully so as to minimizes the level of suckage....