question about rebooting router and modem

[steve2470]

When I reboot my modem and then my router, I seem to get better online performance. Does this correlate with your experience also ?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I've always done them that way

your router has to receive a signal from the modem to be able to do it's job, so I've always done the modem first

[Sentath]

2. How Often?

How often are you having to reboot to restore performance?

How long does the boost last?

(Yes, I work tech support at an ISP)

Oh! What sort of modem? (Cable? DSL?)

I'm trying to gather clues where we should look next to keep your performance high. Errors on the line? An overheating modem? An older modem beginning to fail? Malware or forgotten file sharing software that takes a while to reconnect? (Interrupting a torrent client can free up bandwidth for a little bit)

[steve2470]

3. answers

The reboots are definitely optional, not mandatory. It's really for ONE application I have which is bandwidth and graphics-intensive.

The boost lasts maybe a week. The boost is maybe 10% in quality terms, if that much.

Cable modem. My pingtest.net and speedtest.net results come back excellent. I'm not aware of errors on the line. The modem does not overheat to my knowledge. The modem is only like 2 years old, at most. No malware or file-sharing applications. I scan for malware pretty regularly and as of today (with 3 apps) I have none at all.

My theory (technically uneducated as it is) is that by rebooting the modem and then the router, I get a "fresh" signal from the ISP and the router reboot clears its memory. If I'm wrong, I stand corrected.

As you can see, I'm not having any significant problems really, more of an optional thing.

[Sentath]

4. Yeah, it clears out the router's RAM type memory.

At that level of change it could easily be about cleaning up the routing table.

[steve2470]

5. ok thanks for your time, that explains the performance boost for a while nt

[AgingAmerican]

6. You can always install DD-WRT

which is an alternative firmware. Besides extra security features it allows you to strengthen the wifi signal AND you can set it to automatically reboot once a day for peak performance.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

You can also put your router on a timer and have it restart once a day when you are not at home, or asleep.

[Phillip McCleod]

7. so fucking cool!

Thx for this I'll try it out.

[steve2470]

9. yea I have this already, I might try the reboot feature, thanks nt

[sir pball]

10. If your router supports it...if not, just get a new one.

My old Netgear POS (that couldn't be flashed) was getting extra-POSy so I went shopping for a new one, and much to my delight Cisco STILL sells the good ol' WRT54 - best router EVER. And $40 with free shipping!

I run Tomato, though.

[CK_John]

8. I think the browser cache needs to cleared. CCleaner is a good tool to use.