Author Topic: terrible range/performance from my wzr-d1800h compared to 7 year old router...  (Read 7143 times)

manman

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I was pretty excited to get this router, but now that I have it, I find it performing far worse than my 7 year old wrt-54gl... range is worse, signal strength is worse at same distances, internet speed seems to be slightly worse (i'm guessing due to signal strength issue)... PS3 is on the same floor a few rooms away and signal strength dropped about 20% compared to the linksys.  my phone (on both 2.4 and 5gh) gets a huge drop- used to get about 75-100%, and now gets about 25-40%.  When I'm upstairs I used to get a poor signal on my phone, about 0-25% strength, now it's completely out of range.  

 

I experimented with using different channels/auto, throughput levels, 2.4 vs 5ghz... I'm not really seeing anything that is dropping my disappointment level. I had already planned to put the old linksys running dd-wrt into repeater mode uptsairs, so I didn't expect it to solve all my range problems, but I DID expect that for a router with wilress n, just released, and 180 bucks, I would see at least SOME bump in performance...  I don't think I can be ok with paying that much even to have the exact same performance, let alone a significant drop...   I know I'm paying for early adoption of ac as part of that price which is understandable, but not sure I'm willing to make the tradeoff for a decline in using the all the rest of my devices... not sure what gives here.   Has anyone else has had a good experience with this router outside of sitting directly in front of it?  

 

 


murph1329

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Sorry but I'm in the same boat as you.  I "upgraded" from a netgear WGR614v10 and my range dropped from 120 feet to about 30 feet.  Thinking it was maybe interference from the multi broadcast I disabled "Basic 11ac/n/a" but that didn't work.  I also checked the output power for the wireless and it's set to 100%.

 

It's really a shame that my 30 dollar netgear router is 100 times better than this thing.  I can no longer work outside and the last xbox 360 update I did had to be done with USB.  I really hope Buffalo fixes this fast or I'm going to send it back and go with a Linksys EA4500.


manman

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I could get no explanation on any other wireless forum I went to, and meticulously went over all the settings several times and experimented with different ones.. no dice.  I went back to my old router and was waiting for the ASUS RT-AC66U to come out- but just checked as I was writing this and it's already out! Will give that one a shot, as I imagine part of the problem may be that the buffalo has no external antennas(?). The ASUS specs have a higher theoretical top speed as well, so we'll see how that goes. 


ghz

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Hey. I know that this board is mostly for Buffalo related discussion but could you share your findings once you got your hands on ASUS RT-AC66U? Just to see how it competes with wzr-d1800h.


manman

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sure, will do.  If this thread doesn't get deleted first, haha


murph1329

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ok seriously this is horrible and i really want someone from buffalo to respond.

 

this router is ~170 bucks and even with the multicast rate set to 1 mbps over 20mhz i'm getting maybe 50 feet on 2.4 wireless.  My old **bleep**ty ass 30 dollar router from walmart got better range...and yes i'm using an open channel, same channel my 30 dollar router used which isn't looking so **bleep**ty these days.

 

My xbox can't even establish a connection if i get ~30 feet away from the router, i'm pretty much forced to just put the router ontop of the xbox.  Not only that but what the hell is up with all the reboots whenever you make a simple port forwarding change?  I spend half my day waiting for the router to do whatever it's doing....with linksys it's instant and there is no need for a reset and dropped connections all over the place.

 

If i dont' hear something soon then i'm off to newegg for my first ever negative review


davo

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murph1329 wrote:

ok seriously this is horrible and i really want someone from buffalo to respond.

 

this router is ~170 bucks and even with the multicast rate set to 1 mbps over 20mhz i'm getting maybe 50 feet on 2.4 wireless.  My old **bleep**ty ass 30 dollar router from walmart got better range...and yes i'm using an open channel, same channel my 30 dollar router used which isn't looking so **bleep**ty these days.

 

My xbox can't even establish a connection if i get ~30 feet away from the router, i'm pretty much forced to just put the router ontop of the xbox.  Not only that but what the hell is up with all the reboots whenever you make a simple port forwarding change?  I spend half my day waiting for the router to do whatever it's doing....with linksys it's instant and there is no need for a reset and dropped connections all over the place.

 

If i dont' hear something soon then i'm off to newegg for my first ever negative review


Have you tried contacted them on the phone? Sorry, i dont have this router myself so cant really help.

 

PM me for TFTP / Boot Images / Recovery files  LSRecovery.exe file.
Having network issues? Drop me an email: info@interwebnetworks.com and we will get it fixed!

Jotin

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Yeah, try calling them. You can also try resetting it and or flashing the firmware. Is the new router in the same spot as the old router?


manman

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if you're still in the return window I would just return it dude... is any router worth this much trouble when there are other perfectly good ones out there?  Even if you finally get it to work decently, but are locked down into some tiny subset of possible settings, what would be the point...

Maybe you will eventually end up having a better experience, but in my opinion this is flat out just not a good router.


purkiss

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This router does not perform as advertised. Wireless G and N signal strength and range are very poor. I had to connect my old router (Sitecom WL-309) again to get a much better signal on the G and N and kept the Buffalo just for the AC connection.

BuffaloNoRange

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I have all the same issues with Range even after upgrading to the latest version 1.90 firmware.  Using 2.4 band and no service after 30-35 feet.  Starts deteriorating at about 20 feet.  CNET and other reviews apparantly do not fully test range..  Buffalo has no planned fix but it appears there is much room for firmware upgrading unless this is just an antenna issue and this model cannot use an external antenna.  Thinking of returning it.  Hearing from more users might get some attention directed at a fix.  How about it Buffalo?