cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
4456
Views
5
Helpful
9
Replies

RV130W doesn't work reliably, especially when using WIFI

thomas
Level 1
Level 1

I recently bought the RV130W router (RV130W-E-K9-G5). I have an ADSL modem to connect to the Internet and the uplink of the RV130W is connected to a LAN-port of the modem. The router uses the latest available firmware v1.0.3.28 and I didn't configure any "special" things on the router (WIFI is enabled, DHCP server is enabled and related IP-ranges have been set).

 

When I connect through the RV130W (wired and wireless) the Internet connection doesn't work reliably:

- Wireless connections do not work at all from time to time (I ensured that nearby WIFI networks do not interfere by selecting different channels etc.), e.g. I cannot connect to the Internet with my smart phone; I cannot establish a VPN connection from my laptop.

- Wireless connections "break down" quite regularly, e.g. the VPN connection from my laptop can be established, but sometimes already after some minutes I have to reconnect (and this happens over and over again).

- Wired connections work more reliably (I finally connected my laptop via LAN and no longer via WIFI). However, the router somehow seems to interfere especially with SSL/TLS connections: I regularly (not always!) get certificate errors when connecting to https-pages/services.

 

I also had a look into the router logs but I saw nothing that raised my attention in connection with the described problems (sometimes the unit showed "100% CPU load" though...).

 

After some time I had enough and replaced the RV130W router with a simple switch (only wired) and all problems disappeared immediately - so the ADSL modem is definitely not the problem.

 

I also searched this forum for a while and I seem to have similar issues as described here: https://supportforums.cisco.com/t5/small-business-routers/rv130w-wifi-stops-working/td-p/3077108

 

Does anyone have ideas what I should/could try before I send back the router?

Thanks a lot!

 

-Thomas Popp

9 Replies 9

cbjwthwm
Level 1
Level 1

Enabling bandwidth management is critical to this router working properly, whether you feel you need it or not. When enabling it, make sure you enter the correct speeds for your WAN connection or it will bottleneck at whatever speed cap is entered for values.

 

Enabling this functionality also caps the ultimate WAN speed at around 125Mb (vs its 800Mb WAN-LAN routing throughput rating, so this bug makes that spec effectively meaningless), but unless your connection is beyond that level this should make the router work reliably for you.  If your connection is faster than 125Mb, I would use a different router as Cisco has known about this issue for a while and I'm not confident they will ever fix it properly with a firmware update before they EoL the product.

 

That being said, I have multiple sites deployed with these (more RV130s than RV130Ws) and they work reliably with this configuration, but this device has low performance wifi regardless and I never use it as the primary source of wifi functionality.  There are also unresolved bugs in certain filtering rule configurations, but unless you are really trying to lock down specific IP access to port forwards, this probably isn't a relevant issue.

Thanks for the information about the need to enable "bandwith management" on this router. I guess this could solve the wireless connection problems.

 

But what about the problems I see with wired connections (interference with SSL/TLS connections), which are also quite annoying. Do you see any chance that by enabling "bandwith management" this problem could also be solved?

Yes, it stabilizes all of those problems.  My theory, which I've documented here for Cisco in the past, is that the router's hardware NAT type offloading (which gets disabled when you do bandwidth management / QoS) is the source of the instability but also limits its performance once disabled.  The equivalent architecture Netgear FVS318N also had even more severe stability and performance problems throughout its firmware development.

Many thanks for the clarification. So I'm giving the RV130W another chance and just reconnected it...

 

Just to make sure I understood everything correctly:
- On the RV130W, I enabled "QoS - Bandwith Management" and entered in line "Ethernet" the up- and down-stream speeds my ADSL-router (providing my connection to ISP) shows me: up 901kbps, down 10244kbps (so not anywhere close to the 125Mbps you are mentioning ;-)

- Please note that the WAN-port of the RV130W is connected to one of the 100Mbps LAN-ports of the ADSL-router...

- Please advise if I missunderstood something...

 

Side note:

After powering up and re-configuring the RV130W, I had a look into the logs: it shows 1x error "SQUASHFS error: Can't find a SQUASHFS superblock on mtdblock5" right during/after boot-up and 2x Emergency "CPU loading is 100%" a few minutes later.

Is this something I should worry about?

 

Thanks again for your great support!

 

Regards,
-Thomas

After 2 weeks of testing my RV130W with enabled "QoS - Bandwith Management" as described in the posts before, I can report the following:

 

- Connections via the RV130W really got more stable to some degree: VPN connections don't break regularly any more.

 

- However, wireless connections still don't work decently enough (in my case tested with a smart phone): wireless connections via RV130W show lags and sometimes data transfer hangs for up to 30 secs.

 

- Also, the most problematic thing in my view still persists: the RV130W obviously interferes with TLS connections/certificates, eg. when I start iTunes I get a message that it cannot connect to apple.com because a certificate problem occurred; or when I try to access the Office365 webservices (login.microsoftonline.com) I also get various error messages related to certificates.

 

As soon as I replace the RV130W by a "plain" Netgear switch, everything works without any problems.

 

Conclusion: The defects of my RV130W unit are unacceptable in my view so I will return it and ask for replacement (most likely not a Cisco product anymore).

 

Thanks for the helpful support in this forum!

What encryption configuration and standards support were you running on the RV130W's wifi?  Sorry I missed the last posting that you had tried to implement it with the suggested changes. 

 

I use these on multiple small offices (some with, some without DHCP and always with DNS relay/proxy disabled), although mainly the RV130 vs the RV130W since the wifi was so terrible on prior firmware (even for basic purposes).  I usually strip down the encryption on any wifi AP to WPA2-AES only, always run custom narrow channels (20mhz) for 2.4ghz and disable compatibility with Wifi-B devices while retaining G/N support.  That being said, I would never pay anything extra for the W version of this router as its performance is too low to have any value for my implementations.

My RV130W Wifi settings were:
- Wireless Network Mode: B/G/N-Mixed
- Wireless Band Selection: 20 MHz

- Security Mode: WPA2-Personal

- Encryption: AES

 

As already stated, the biggest issue in my view is the interference of the router with TLS on wired (!) connections (still happens even with enabled "Bandwidth Management").

 

Wireless connections should just work "decently enough" (wireless connection hangs up to 30 secs. is not "decently enough"). I'm talking about a small home office here, with only 1-2 wireless clients (typically smart phones). I don't want to install an additional, distinct Wifi-AP. This is why I'm aiming for a combined (wired + wireless) router.

 

I already contacted the retailer where I bought the RV130W and the replacement process has already been started. So please don't put any more effort into this topic. Nevertheless, thanks again for your great support!

Please explain how you enabled bandwidth management.

 

Thanks.

1. Login to the RV130W configuration website

2. Select menu "QoS" in the list on the left

3. Select sub-entry "Bandwidth Management"

4. Check the "Enable" box and enter YOUR values for up-/downstream speeds in "Bandwidth Table" in row "Ethernet".

RV130W.png

5. Save settings

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: