Thomson Router slow to start in mornings

[#1]

Our Thomson router is in our bedroom and we switch it off overnight so we are not distracted by the lights.

Lately, when we switch it back on in the morning, it is taking up to 45 minutes before we have a wi-fi internet connection.

It never used to take so long. 

Any idea why or what we are doing wrong? 

Thanks.

We have been with Plusnet and the same router for about 12 years now ...

Lee

[#2]

@Sapphie If your Thompson is old then, especially as you are turning it off every night - not a recommended procedure for a number of reasons - I would say it is almost dead. Constantly switching on/off will wear it out electronically.

[#3]

@Sapphie 

See my response to your other thread.

Short term - leave the router switched on but put some tape across the lights.

Brian

[#4]

Hiya @Sapphie, thanks for getting in touch.

I am really sorry for the issues that you are having with your router and it is very likely that the age of it is a factor here!

Thank you so much for your loyalty to us over the years and whilst your router has served you well over the last 12 years, I think it is time for an upgrade and so have sent you out a newer router.

As a heads up, the other users are right and we wouldn't recommend turning the router off at night but will warn you, the Hub One does have quite a large blue light on the front so may be a little more distracting than your current one!

I have sent you an email out with some further information and if there's anything further we can help you with, just get back to us.

[#5]

@Sapphie 

Good luck with your new router, you should be fine.

12 years must be a record, I don't think I have ever had a piece of electrical equipment last that long! You should definitely notice an improvement in performance with a new router.

[#6]

If you switch it off it at night then back on, it has to renegotiate the network and perhaps even resolve settings.

And if it's off for long periods it may indeed lose your settings due to the little CMOS battery inside that helps the EPROM chip that retains those settings getting drained of power and thus data.

It's generally not good practice to turn a router off due to these factors.

But I do like how some routers like the German Fritzbox! series that can power down some aspects of the network (wifi in particular) and/or turn off the glaring lights when in sleep mode.

For the hub one you can change the blue active light to darker, or even put some electrical tape over that part.

But generally, keep it on, they don't use that much power over a year.

[#7]

I just retired a Netgear ADSL2+ router after around 11 years of 24/7 use.

A few years ago it started crashing & rebooting, it was overheating, so I opened it up and reapplied some thermal paste between the main chip and it's heatsink, it worked great upto the other week when it was no longer needed.

Brilliant settings, really nice.

But no VLAN ability so it had to go. Sad.

[#8]

Yeah routers can pass away in strange ways sometimes.

I remember one of my routers, the ADSL sync light wouldn't come on. So naturally I thought I was a problem with the connection, not the router.

It was only when I tried it over my sisters (our PlusNet connection), it was working fine with the original router before I swapped it over to my one. Still no ADSL sync light and then I thought "Well it can't be the connection then, must be my router has died".

Swapped it back to my sisters router and that all worked fine.

Ordered a new router to my place, when I plugged that in it all worked.

Worth having a chepo spare, so if your router does play up you have something else to use as a backup until you find a more permanent solution. If your router has died you can always say to yourself "Well, I was looking to upgrade it anyway". 🙂

[#9]

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from ADSL Broadband to My Router.

[#10]

I've got a few boxes of old routers, BT homehub, Talktalk hub (never once used) and that Netgear one and even an old BT voyager modem that uses USB only for power back when 2mbit/sec was considered acceptable.

I've even got some 10/100 ISA network cards with BNC connectors, yes BNC connectors!

Maybe someone will want them for a tech museum in 20 years, so I better keep them.

[#11]

@Sapphie 

If you go on to an auction site you can get a BT Smarthub for very little money. These are better than the Plusnet Hub One and you can switch the light off.

You will find setting instructions and other useful stuff pinned at the top of this board.

[#12]

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@YouKnowIThatGuy wrote:

I've even got some 10/100 ISA network cards with BNC connectors, yes BNC connectors!

3C509s ? Used to buy them by the box full when computers didn't come with built-in networking.............

[#13]

Remember back when Windows 95 was just a new thing and TCP/IP was new too?

We used Novell Netware on the IPX network protocol to network up the company I was working for.

And those cool little BNC network cabling systems were like plumbing, with terminator pieces and stuff.

Pretty much guaranteed to work 100% of the time!

[#14]

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@YouKnowIThatGuy wrote:

Pretty much guaranteed to work 100% of the time!

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Until someone disconnected the T piece to clean under the computer and brought the whole network down, happy days........

[#15 · Accepted solution]

Hi Lauren

Thanks very much for the prompt and efficient service. I have received the new router already and can confirm that all is working ok.

Thanks again,

Lee