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Because If we (several wireless clients) download too much (that means "full speed" for several hours) the router (WRT160NL - OpenWrt 10.04 with two default 8 dBi omni antenna) just reboots randomly. Or are there any "watchdog" like solutions built-in OpenWrt so that if the router has too many load for too long time it reboots it?

LanceBaynes
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  • I'd say it's certainly possible that you are overheating it. Why don't you rule this out by running long cables to each of the devices for a while and see if the built-in switch handles it. That way you'll know if it's isolated to wireless traffic. – SpacemanSpiff Jun 28 '11 at 04:41
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    @SpacemanSpiff - how would using a large antenna overheat the AP? Increasing the TX power? Sure, that could do it, but adding a more efficient antenna? Nope. – EEAA Jun 28 '11 at 05:06
  • How about running syslogd on your router and configuring it to spit its output to another server. Maybe you'll find out from there what goes wrong right before it reboots. – lkraav Jun 28 '11 at 12:13
  • @ErikA - I was just postulating that extended use in general might cause some kind of overheating issue. I know for a fact if I boost the the power on my Netgear it will overheat. – SpacemanSpiff Jun 28 '11 at 20:25
  • @SpacemanSpiff - agreed that boosting the TX power could cause issues. That's a completely different thing though than using a larger antenna. – EEAA Jun 28 '11 at 20:26
  • I guess what I was trying to say is that it's the prolonged usage causing an issue, regardless of antenna, if that makes any sense. – SpacemanSpiff Jun 28 '11 at 20:29
  • Could it be some electric issue such as static electricity or bad grounding? – joechip Jun 29 '11 at 03:58

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Odd question.

If I understand this right are you asking if big antennas make it reboot or little antennas? Confusing. I'm still not sure how the antennas come into this question. If you do have wireless clients that are getting slower performance through different antennas then obviously there is less that they will be able to load up the broadband. Although this depends on the speed of your broadband too. Normally the broadband has less bandwidth than the local wireless network.

BTW, are you downloading with bit torrent?

I'd say your router is rebooting because it's filling up it's memory. You should be able to tweak the conntrack settings (tcp timeouts in iptables) in OpenWRT or reduce the maximum number of open connections? It's probably a good idea to limit the number of connections per local PC.

I'm not sure how you do this with OpenWRT but it's very easy with Tomato firmware. The options to do it should be available.

You could also try a different firmware or firmware version.

hookenz
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  • What is confusing?? The subject already has the question: "Could my wireless router randomly reboot if it has a too big antenna?" – LanceBaynes Jun 28 '11 at 05:14
  • But then you said it's got default antennas and still rebooting. If you said it was fine and then you changed the antenna and nothing else and it reboots periodically then it would make sense. – hookenz Jun 30 '11 at 22:39