[Telex]

I signed up a few days ago to ask the community which router would be best for me. Although I haven't gotten a response, after countless hours of research, I think I've narrowed it down to two routers: the N16 and the WNDR3700.

For me, it's important that I find a fast and reliable router as a VPN client. The CPU in the WNDR3700 is an Atheros at 680 MHz, versus the Broadcom at 433 MHz in the N16. I know they are totally different and comparing clock speeds of different processors isn't the best way to gauge real performance, but one thread I came across said the E3000 (which uses the same CPU as the N16) provides OpenVPN throughput of 7-8 Mbps, while the WNDR3700 provides 11-12 Mbps throughput. Unless anyone says otherwise, I think I am leaning towards the WNDR3700.

However, the reason for this post is because of an issue I read about regarding the WNDR3700 and OpenVPN. Another user in this thread was having an issue where the connection was being dropped when any real load was placed on the VPN. After a little searching, I found someone else with this same problem.

BrainSlayer seems to have provided the only known solution to this problem, but I'm not quite sure what was done. Was it simply the matter of reassigning the WAN port to one of the switch's LAN ports, or was it more than that? Additionally, with this fix, was any functionality of the router lost, other than just one LAN port? In my setup, I have my own 16 port switch I plan to use instead, so losing one of 4 LAN ports isn't an issue for me. However, I absolutely cannot afford losing all physical LAN connections because going wireless is not an alternative.

Also, in that thread it says that the folks working on DD-WRT were working on a fix for this problem. Does such a fix exist yet (even in beta), or am I guaranteed to have this same problem? And if I do have the same problem, will you guys be able to just walk me through the steps of the fix (if there is one) once I buy the router?

If it's not worth the headache to deal with this issue, are there any other routers within the same price range as this one (up to $130) that you guys would recommend, but have the same (or better) performance without any hassle?

[Telex]

Anyone? Please?

All I really want to know is if it's possible to assign one of the four "LAN ports" as a WAN port, while leaving the other 3 as LAN on the WNDR3700.

And if it's not possible, I'm sure some people have fast and reliable routers to recommend for VPNs.

[jblack]

I've got a WNDR3700v1 that I'm using. Under Setup->Networking, there is a section about WAN port assignment. There doesn't appear to be anything in any of the sections that I see about running any of the LAN ports in separate VLANs, leading me to believe that when you switch this setting ALL the LAN ports (eth0) become WAN ports.

I'm willing to bet that after you assign eth0 (The LAN ports) to the WAN, that you can use eth1 (The old WAN port) and put it in br0 and use it as a LAN port.

I can't try it on my unit right now as it is providing Internet for my wife and she won't be happy about not being able to use it

[buddee]

Currently, with dd-wrt and Atheros hardware there is no port based VLAN support, so to answer your question, no.

And i don't use VPN so i am of no real suggestive help there, but i will say if you want to use dd-wrt and have VLAN support you would do good to use one of the newer broadcom units with dd-wrt like say RT-N16 or E3000.

[Telex]

Thank you for your replies.

You have both confirmed what I was anticipating - that it would come down to the lack of VLANs. It's a shame since the CPU in the WNDR3700 is pretty powerful compared to the Broadcom alternatives. I like the Asus N-16, except I read in another thread that the VPN throughput for the E3000 (same processor as the N-16 I believe) is only about 7 or 8 Mbps, whereas I've seen the WNDR3700 pushing 12 Mbps from two users.

I recall reading that OpenWRT has support for VLANs on the WNDR3700, so I'm going to start poking around their forums to see if it would be better to go with either different firmware or a slower router. Hopefully DD-WRT will support Atheros VLANs soon - I know you're all crossing your fingers with each build.

[buddee]

The newer linksys units. E4200 and E3200 in particular, maybe of some views as well, though i have no idea how its VPN ability is (throughput and reliability) but they do have faster CPUs than the older N broadcom units.

And you are correct, i would love for dd-wrt using Atheros hardware to have port based group switching and tagging fully functional, though i do not see that coming anytime soon. I used to use VLANs heavily in my network, but now i use multiple WLANs with my WZR-HP-G300NH to kinda compensate for it, but still would be very nice to have it on Atheros as well.

[tatsuya46]

The WNDR3700 in every way, shape, or form. If you are considering a Broadcom unit then make sure Tomato RAF supports it, DD-WRT (k2.6 at least) is terrible on Broadcom and nothing seems to be getting done about it, not to mention Broadcom QoS is in even worse shape.

[Telex]

Another question just popped into my mind...

Although the DD-WRT doesn't support VLANs on individual ports on Atheros hardware, would I be able to configure the LAN port on the router as an 802.1q trunk to a managed switch that supports VLAN tagging? If it's possible, I should be able to set up the WAN and LAN ports on the external switch, right? If BrainSlayer was able to set the internal switch for a single WAN connection, maybe I could make it a trunk instead? (Of course nothing else would be plugged into any of the router's ports.)

[jblack]

There aren't any options for vlan's anywhere in the GUI for the WNDR3700 (Not even for strictly port based vlans). So I'm thinking it isn't possible to do 802.11Q vlan tagging with the WNDR3700.

[buddee]