Hope this might help someone save some time !

[crucefix]

I recently bought two Duet Receivers and one controller.
Try what I may I could not get these to work, they would then they wouldn't.
I reset all to factroy defaults and re-configured so many times I can now do it in my sleep.
Add to this the fact I was running the server on a NAS box and we have a recipe for disaster.

Over three weeks I had tried everything I could think of and was starting to blame to NAS.
So eventually I set one up wired to the router and worked this way with a copy of squeezeplayer working on the laptop to (kind of) simulte the two player set up.
Re-configured router, re-installed firmware factory reset and set up all parameters again.
Once again played for five minutes cut out, started up again failed again and so on.
These devices got so close to going out of the window !

So I persevered and discovered something that may be very useful to people.
Having everything set clean, when the sound was cutting out it was cutting out on both the receiver (cabled) and the laptop (wireless).
This seemed to point to the router to me, so some digging around on the web gave me the pointer to a possibly over heating router.
Touching the router case it didn't seem hot just warm.
So with nothing to loose I took the top off the case and put a finger on the biggest chip I could see to check the temp.
Good lesson learned here, it was steaming hot.

I left the top off the case so that the chips could all cool in the open air.

Result ! I have now been streaming for about five hours with no errors no drop outs and can now get the other reciever to work. A long stretch on wireless.
I have run three independent streams, one to each receiver and one to the pc and all is good.
Touching the chips in the router with the lid still off they are all now a lot cooler than they were.

So my word of advice, if you are experiencing strange network results when trying these devices check your router it may be overheating.
Reasoning I guess is general pc usage is quite happy dealing with the odd drop of connection and also does not generally put that much strain on a router and doesn't continually stream data.
With all this music mullarkey we are continually passing data in a stream and giving the router a lot of work to do, more work more heat.

I just hope this helps someone else save some time and achieve their aims quickly.

Dave

[epoch1970]

I've seen a pocket wifi AP overheating, too. The thing would not operate for more than a few seconds of sustained traffic. Sometimes a reboot would fix it, sometimes it would lose all settings.
I fired up something like wireshark on the computer connected to the AP and saw lots of TCP/IP checksum errors before connection breakup.

Too much math for the little chip to handle made it overheat and get its math wrong, heating even more until failsafe shutdown. So, I was able to 'fix' it using a table fan, but it was much less pocketable, then

FWIW, here is another funny gremlin I've met and squashed, although I don't know the science behind it: I had a router that would frequently wedge with no specific reason. I figured it was connected to the same power line as a freezer, and that it would wedge when the compressor started. To isolate the router I simply added a 2-meter extension cord. No other change, and it started to work reliably...

[aubuti]

Thanks for posting that. The demands of streaming lossless music are often higher than ordinary home computing and networking, and exposes flaws in standard consumer-grade network hardware that would otherwise go unnoticed. And a lot of people still don't get that common fact. I had a Netgear router that was working perfectly well until I got into the SB world. After starting to use SBs it would occasionally lock up, even if I was only using the wired connections, and I have to think it was an overheating issue. Interestingly, the problem first cropped up not when I was streaming, but when I was copying massive amounts of FLAC files from my ripping machine to my server (again over ethernet).

[muggo]

A useful tip. Thanks.
I suffered from a similar fault for months with my Netgear router. I was forever switching it on & off to reboot. It was standing on its edge so no overheating I thought. I got fed up eventually & swapped it for the Thomson freebie router I got with O2. Same problem.
I noticed it was getting quite hot so I've raised it up to get a better airflow underneath, Seems to have settled down.
Home routers not fit for purpose perhaps? If so, not good enough.
Can anyone recommend a router that doesn't overheat under constant use?

[garym]

Brand and model?

I recently bought two Duet Receivers and one controller.
Try what I may I could not get these to work, they would then they wouldn't.
I reset all to factroy defaults and re-configured so many times I can now do it in my sleep.
Add to this the fact I was running the server on a NAS box and we have a recipe for disaster.

Over three weeks I had tried everything I could think of and was starting to blame to NAS.
So eventually I set one up wired to the router and worked this way with a copy of squeezeplayer working on the laptop to (kind of) simulte the two player set up.
Re-configured router, re-installed firmware factory reset and set up all parameters again.
Once again played for five minutes cut out, started up again failed again and so on.
These devices got so close to going out of the window !

So I persevered and discovered something that may be very useful to people.
Having everything set clean, when the sound was cutting out it was cutting out on both the receiver (cabled) and the laptop (wireless).
This seemed to point to the router to me, so some digging around on the web gave me the pointer to a possibly over heating router.
Touching the router case it didn't seem hot just warm.
So with nothing to loose I took the top off the case and put a finger on the biggest chip I could see to check the temp.
Good lesson learned here, it was steaming hot.

I left the top off the case so that the chips could all cool in the open air.

Result ! I have now been streaming for about five hours with no errors no drop outs and can now get the other reciever to work. A long stretch on wireless.
I have run three independent streams, one to each receiver and one to the pc and all is good.
Touching the chips in the router with the lid still off they are all now a lot cooler than they were.

So my word of advice, if you are experiencing strange network results when trying these devices check your router it may be overheating.
Reasoning I guess is general pc usage is quite happy dealing with the odd drop of connection and also does not generally put that much strain on a router and doesn't continually stream data.
With all this music mullarkey we are continually passing data in a stream and giving the router a lot of work to do, more work more heat.

I just hope this helps someone else save some time and achieve their aims quickly.

Dave

[aubuti]

Can anyone recommend a router that doesn't overheat under constant use?

Well, it is very old-school, but the Linksys WRT54GL (especially note the L at the end) is a dependable workhorse. Moreover, it accepts 3rd party firmware (Tomato and DD-WRT). On the other hand, it is only a G class router, so if you have N devices on your network you won't get the benefits of higher speeds from those devices. Newer consumer grade routers have more features than the WRT54GL, but I'm not aware of any that match the quality.

[muggo]

Well, it is very old-school, but the Linksys WRT54GL (especially note the L at the end) is a dependable workhorse. Moreover, it accepts 3rd party firmware (Tomato and DD-WRT). On the other hand, it is only a G class router, so if you have N devices on your network you won't get the benefits of higher speeds from those devices. Newer consumer grade routers have more features than the WRT54GL, but I'm not aware of any that match the quality.

Thanks. I might try one of those. £37 in the UK.
I assume you have tried it under heavy workload eg streaming FLACs?

[aubuti]

Thanks. I might try one of those. £37 in the UK.
I assume you have tried it under heavy workload eg streaming FLACs?

Yes, that's what I replaced the flaky Netgear with several years ago. I have 6-8 SBs scattered around the house, and regularly send multiple FLAC streams simultaneously without difficulty. The current uptime for the Linksys is unrepresentative because we had a power outage two weeks ago, but I generally go months and months without having to reboot it.

[toby10]

...... I assume you have tried it under heavy workload eg streaming FLACs?

FLAC is not exactly a heavy workload for a WiFi router, but yes the WRT54GL will do that just fine. My WRT54GL can stream full WAV's (not transcoded) to four SB players (3 via WiFi, 1 via wired) all connected to my WiFi laptop running LMS, plus use the laptop for basic internet purposes, all without even a hicup. Obviously environmental conditions will vary, like if you are surrounded by other WiFi's or other sources of radio interference, but it will work fine under most ordinary conditions.

[garym]

FLAC is not exactly a heavy workload for a WiFi router, but yes the WRT54GL will do that just fine. My WRT54GL can stream full WAV's (not transcoded) to four SB players (3 via WiFi, 1 via wired) all connected to my WiFi laptop running LMS, plus use the laptop for basic internet purposes, all without even a hicup. Obviously environmental conditions will vary, like if you are surrounded by other WiFi's or other sources of radio interference, but it will work fine under most ordinary conditions.

+1 on the WRT54GL, I've had two of these work horses for years with no problems (and I just use the official firmware). I'm no longer using as primary router because they are not "N" nor gigabit (they are now just extra WIFI access points). I use a netgear N600 wnr3700 and a netgear N300 wnr3500L (one at each of two locations). I've used for a couple of year or so and they work very well. I stream FLAC a lot, for hours at a time, to 2 or 3 players synched. I also occasionally do some copying jobs where it may be copying files from one place on the network to the other for 8 or 9 hours straight. No issues..... One of these is inside a cabinet, where it *could* get hot if it was going to....it hasn't.