NTP66's thread of IT

[NTP66]

We just started including Chrome in our default build as of last month, but it's still a secondary browser. It's absurd how many medical websites still require IE. We have to go as far as using IE Enterprise Mode to select site/compatibility modes for specific websites due to how poorly some of these companies build their websites. We shouldn't have to display anything in IE8 compatibility mode in 20 god damn 19.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Yep, one of the leading science publishers (Reed-Elsevier) requires IE to collect usage data for their publications. In 2019. It's absurd.

[Beveridge]

My card got compromised somehow, I'm usually careful where I use it online, but I got it closed right away a minute after my text alert came through on the charge.

The bigger issue is my email account (Gmail) is getting hammered with signup email obviously being done by bots.

1. Why?
2. How do I stop this? Any idea?

[DigitalGypsy66]

Hey @NTP66 - I've been very happy with that Asus router you recommended. I have it running directly from the modem and I have our old Netgear router running as a WAP in our mancave over the garage.

Here's my issue: When I have 2-3 devices streaming video - Twitch, Netflix, Amazon Prime - I get a ton of packet loss/variance when I play FPS (mostly Battlefield, but my son complains on COD or RS Siege). I've put the main Asus router in QOS gaming mode, and that effectively blocked Netflix on most of the devices on the house. I had to reset the router to get Netflix to work again.

My kids usually have iPads streaming this content, so I've limited their bandwidth in the Asus control panel to the minimum - 1 mb/s up and down. I've limited my wife's bandwidth on her Macbook Air as well. This seems to help some, as I've watched the bandwidth meter in the dashboard and these iPads have a tremendous variance in download speeds while streaming (30 kb/s up to 4-5 mb/s and then back down etc.) I still get the variance/packet loss warnings in game with the corresponding bad hit detection and rubber banding.

Do you know of any manual QOS settings that would help, just when I'm gaming? Of course limiting their downloads makes updating apps, downloading playlists etc extremely slow.

Could it be that the mancave WAP isn't carrying over the QOS settings from the Asus router? Do I need another router with more bandwidth?

We have 3-4 iPads (my kids' have their own and take home school issued ones), two Windows PCs, three smartphones, a PS4, a Switch, a PS3, a wifi printer, two Chromecasts, a smart thermostat, smart garage door opener, a Macbook Air, and a smart TV. Obviously, not all of these things are downloading/uploading at once, but on weekends we can have 15-18 devices hammering away.

I was thinking about something like this:

Although that particular model isn't well reviewed on Amazon.

[NTP66]

Full disclosure, I'm not a gamer, so I can't really speak to the performance in that arena. Also, the reviews of that router worry me because it seems they're all having the same identical issue. As a result, I'd avoid it.

I'm not 100% certain, but I highly doubt that any QoS settings that you configure would work properly going from a Netgear WAP to the ASUS. Do you actually need that WAP? Does the ASUS not have enough reach for you there? If you do need hardware there, my first move would be to get a second AC-68U and use ASUS's AiMesh to join them; QoS will absolutely work as intended in that configuration. That said, this doesn't mean that QoS will resolve your issue. I've never used QoS, but do know that they're all vanilla when it comes to what it can do. You'd really have to go to a custom firmware and custom QoS for your router to get into the meat of it. I run Merlin's firmware on my router, and would recommend it to anyone. Best to reset your entire router before moving to it, FWIW. You could give FreshJR's QoS script a try. It's by-far the most widely used for ASUS people, and they swear by it. I don't know how custom you want to get with this, though. It's not difficult, and instructions are provided on the page, but you'll want to write it all down in case you ever have to re-do it.

That was a long way of writing 'I'm not sure'. You have more people in your household than I do, though I probably have more actual devices on the network. Have you ever considered running CAT5e to some of your devices to get them off the wireless network?

[DigitalGypsy66]

Yeah, I need the repeater upstairs for the PCs and PS4. The Asus wifi does reach up there, but I like having another access point on that side of the house.

I may just get another of what I have; it's a solid router and I like the interface etc.

[NTP66]

I think that's a good solution. I don't know which firmware it first became available in, but you will be able to search for other ASUS routers on your network in order to add them as AiMesh nodes. That way you can centrally configure everything as opposed to controlling them separately.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Do you have any experience with ASUS repeaters like this one: https://www.asus.com/Networking/RP-AC1900/ ?

It’s actually linked on the same Amazon page as the AC-68U and it’s $20 cheaper. It has the AiMesh tech that will work with the router, and it appears I can hardwire it via CAT5 from the router downstairs.

[NTP66]

I don't, no. Of those reviews, only 4 are for the repeater. I think I'd probably still go with the router option running in AP mode, personally. You probably already know this, but you 100% have to connect your current main router to whatever you buy with an Ethernet cable - no switches in between - for any of this to work properly.

[NTP66]

@DigitalGypsy66: Did you already purchase the AC1900? If so, did you unbox it? Amazon has a refurb AC1900P (faster CPU and more memory than the normal AC1900) for $88, which is an absolute steal:

If you haven't unboxed it or anything, I'd return it and grab this instead.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I hadn't bought it yet. Thanks for sharing!

[Kane]

[skullman80]

People that reply all to a mass email saying "remove me" or "stop replying all!"..... should be immediate terminated.

[NTP66]

People that reply all to a mass email saying "remove me" or "stop replying all!"..... should be immediate terminated.

[skullman80]

The email that came out today was sent out on purpose by a employee(not for long) basically trash talking their manager for how they were treated. It was all in a different language so I had to translate it via google but you can see it below. In this email was included a screenshot of the conversation with their manager.

Still I got a total of 78 messages of people replying all saying "remove me", or "stop replying all!" etc. I made an outlook rule just to dump them all in a folder, but still people are dumb. Most of the DL's this was blasted to other than upper management was the engineering groups *sigh*.

I wasn't expecting that kind of argument on your part if you have any people against me I don't know why?
As the print of the conversation below seems to me that you, and others want a justification and / or excuse to send me away for just cause, and if so, feel free to go to HR, and as the conversation flowed with several witnesses I get quiet in all the words I told you.
This is not the role of manager of a large multinational company that values ​​ethical concepts.
And I repeat, I did not expect this clowning from you.

[DigitalGypsy66]

So after replacing the old Netgear router I was using as an WAP, I was still having buffering issues with streaming and gaming at the same time. I did some research into the modem I was using - a Motorola/Arris Surfboard that was almost six years old.

I ordered an ASUS CM-16 - that pairs up well with the two ASUS routers, and the results were excellent right off the bat. We'll see how it is under full load this weekend - both kids gaming/streaming Twitch/music, my wife streaming Hallmark Christmas movies, and me gaming as well.

Prior to switching over, I was getting 82/93 MBps download speeds on a couple of the regular tests I use. We're supposed to get 100+, but Spectrum doesn't guarantee speeds with customer owned modems and routers ( ). After the new modem, with the ASUS AiMesh enabled properly, the same two tests yielded 115/112 MBps. My kids were watching stuff on their iPads, the MNF game was streaming on Chromecast via the ESPN app, and I was gaming with few problems. Hit registration seemed to be spot on for a change.

So in short, you probably should replace your modem once in a while.

[NTP66]

In short, you should have mentioned that you had a cable modem to begin with............

[DigitalGypsy66]

Well, in my area, it's AT&T DSL at 6Mbit/s down (!!), cellular internet, US Satellite internet (sucks for gaming), or cable internet.

Not all of us live in fancy areas with fiber service, unfortunately. I'm still shocked we have internet as fast as we do.

[NTP66]

I love my sweet, sweet gigabit internet.

[count2infinity]

Potentially stupid questions... in the search feature on chrome or PDF, is there a way to search for a word and to denote you want just that word, not necessarily that word contained in another word?

Example: I have a huge program from a symposium and I want to search for the word iron without it bringing up every time it sees the word environment

[count2infinity]

Figured it out if I open it in adobe acrobat reader... haven't figured it out if I'm chrome though.

[Kane]

Firefox lets you search whole words only, if that is an option for you.

[count2infinity]

Thanks... just figured it out in chrome too:

You put a space in front and after the word.

[Kane]

Yeah, that's pretty dumb.

[faftorial]

That won't find "iron" or (iron).