Router Upgrade

"AdverseMartyr" (ewilliamson) 03/10/2020 at 01:05 • Filed to: None

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So where I am currently working (it would be a very long story to explain everything about everyone who was working here previously and left) there is no one who has been working here for more than a year. It’s a small branch of a non-profit in Osaka, Japan and it’s filled with mostly home electronics. The amount of people staying in the building varies from 5-30 people (sometimes meetings have 50+).

That janky Asus router was what the building has been using for a number of years. sometime in the last 2 years the power button broke, and the solution was to tape it down. I moved here in November, and at the time it was held down with black Gaffer’s tape, so I did not see the tape.

3 weeks ago the internet started dropping out. It turns out the tape was stretched, and people were just re-situating the tape. I replaced the old bandaid with the nearest tape, but the cutting out continued. I’m guessing age (the intarwebs shows it to be an 8 year old model) and constant stress from tape has started to mess up the internals.

So I told the people in charge of money that we needed a new router. A week ago they gave me the money to get a new router. Not being an IT guy I’m not competent to try and figure out business level solutions, and we need something sooner rather than later so I picked up this:

It arrived 5 days ago, and I set it up easily enough. Changed the wifi names to match the old one, let it do the dynamic internet settings (in the hope that it would just talk with the IP modem since I don’t have any of that information.)

Everything connected, but no internet. A bit of research into NTT modems for Japan showed that it needed a username and password for the IS P (which is not NTT, but Softbank, Rakuten, or some other ISP). Ok, that’s a question for the director of the building who still stops in once a week and has been here for 8 years.

“ I’m not sure about any of that. I’ll ask the guy who set it up.”

A few hours later I receive a generic username that is clearly not for an ISP, and the password for the router “ pa55word”... really?

Eventually I got the contact info of the person, and he told me that he left the information about the ISP account in an accordion folder in the office.

After 30 minutes of searching I did indeed find it in a random pile of stuff that was a “we aren’t quite certain if we need this so we didn’t toss it just yet.” Sigh

This is a document that we need to even get the ISP to talk to us if there is a problem. Without it they’ll just tell us they can’t tell us anything. It was also with a number of other important documents that might be needed in the future (warranties for ovens, refrigerators, electrical diagrams, and other semi-important documents).

It took about 60 seconds to get the new router working with the correct username and password (the randomly generated one that no one changed thankfully (probably because they couldn’t read/write Japanese to figure out how to do it.))

My neighbor’s Subaru for your time:

pip bip - choose Corrour > AdverseMartyr 03/10/2020 at 06:22

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genuinely surprised that folder wasn’t in the bin years ago then.

Jayvincent > AdverseMartyr 03/10/2020 at 07:00

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that’s one clean Subbie!

XC99TF00 > AdverseMartyr 03/10/2020 at 10:10

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Have two of those old asus routers in a mesh network. 6 years old and are just absolute workhorses. Never a hiccup with either.

facw > AdverseMartyr 03/10/2020 at 10:49

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Ooh Wifi-6...

My router looks like your old one, bu t I can’t tell if it’s the same since your tape covers the model (RT-68U) :

Hasn’t ever given me even a bit of trouble, though I do use the Merlin firmware rather than the stock stuff.

I’ve been tempted to upgrade, but I don’t want to pay that much for Wifi 6/AX gear, especially since it seems like Wifi 6E (they couldn’t make it one generation before they messed up their new “clean” naming standard!) will be a nice improvement, and it’s not clear existing gear will be able to upgrade (though apparently existing antennas will work so it’s not impossible)

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > AdverseMartyr 03/10/2020 at 12:11

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I’ve loved my 88U, but the time has come, and the desire has taken over...all of my equipment is getting switched over to Ubiquiti Unifi. I’m quite happy about it.

MaineAssassin > AdverseMartyr 03/10/2020 at 19:02

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Those old Asus routers are good but need to have the firmware kept up to date manually and have a limited supply of ram that a large number of users can easily overwhelm. Default max is 64 users though the machine will struggle after 40 or so simultaneous connections.

Hope the tp link unit works out. 

AdverseMartyr > pip bip - choose Corrour 03/10/2020 at 21:14

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Well, since we’re still cleaning out accumulated junk from the last 40 years, and this folder has recent dates on it, they kept it.

There was a hoarder in charge of the building for a decade from 2000-2010, and it costs to throw anything away. Two l aundry baskets of broken roofing tile was ¥2000 to drop off at a trash place.

AdverseMartyr > Jayvincent 03/10/2020 at 21:15

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It’s probably only got 50,000 km on it as well.

AdverseMartyr > XC99TF00 03/10/2020 at 21:16

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Well, evidently, this one must have suffered some falling damage at some point.

XC99TF00 > AdverseMartyr 03/11/2020 at 09:06

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Oh for sure it happens. Just was pleased with mine over the years, and not looking forward the invariable issues of setting up a new system when mine gives  up the ghost.