Hi,
As we've had the odd disconnect problem with our Hub 1 here, and I see that's not unusual, I thought I'd seek an alternative router to see if I could overcome these issues. Browsing in here I noticed that the TP-Link TD-W9970 got good reviews, so thought I'd give it a go, especially as it's not expensive. I bought the latest one and went through the process. It was easy and all connections in and out were made ok. But when it came to checking the actual performance it failed in one area, wifi download speed...
It was not the modem as that was reporting 40Mb/s download and 8.5Mb/s upload, but was on the wifi side, where it would max out at a lowly 1.6Mb/s download, while wifi upload was as it should be, at about 7Mb/s. The internal wifi speed is between 35Mb/s and 95Mb/s, depending on where I'm sitting, so that wasn't getting in the way. I've used two speed testing methods, an app and a browser-based one, both reporting similar figures.
I returned the first W9970 thinking it was faulty, but buying a second has repeated the problem, so it seems inherent to the V4.
This W9970 device is meant to be easy, fast and reliable, but there's obviously a problem here. I picked up on one person saying that the chip set has changed, and that is the sort of thing that it feels like.
I have upgraded to the latest firmware version ( from Firmware Version:1.0.0 0.9.1 v00a1.0 Build 191204 Rel.69554n (on Hardware Version:TD-W9970 v4 00000000) to Firmware Version:1.2.0 0.9.1 v00a1.0 Build 210220 Rel.36504n), but that made no difference. I'm now reverting back to the Plusnet router and, apart from the once or twice a day it drops out, it performs ok. Maybe I'll get a V3 W9970 to see if that works ok...
So, this is both a request to see if anyone else has found that same problem with the V4 version of the W9970, and maybe fixed it, and also a heads up on anyone who is thinking of buying one so that they are aware of this possible issue.
Cheers,
Ian
