I’ve had a Netgear R7000 for six years. It was one of the first things I purchased after I moved back to Salem in 2014. At that time, the poor router was relegated to transmitting packets over a satellite link, a dismal job for any self-respecting networking device. Not even this powerful router could make HughesNet a pleasurable browsing experience.
Eventually, we moved partially into civilization when a wireless internet service provider built a service tower near us. We felt like a whole new universe had opened up to us, and this router stood as our gateway to that vast world wide web. But, our new internet service was not without its own problems. One of Mary’s favorite past-times is watching YouTube videos, and one of mine is video gaming. Let’s just say that on a 3 mbit/s internet straw, that is not a good combination!
Around the same time I was trying to find ways to maximize our limited bandwidth, we also decided to renovate our home. I took the opportunity to wire our house with ethernet cabling to bring it “into the 21st century”. But now, I no longer had one single point of entry for our network, I needed some more technology to connect all of that new wiring and to make sure WiFi extended throughout our new home. So, I purchased some new equipment and set it up.
The trusted old R7000 kept on radiating WiFi through hammering, demolition, dust, and dirt during our remodel. But afterwards, I set it on the shelf and didn’t use it for a while. I was still having trouble with my internet, despite all the work that I had done, so I decided to try something a little more radical.
I put aftermarket software on my router (gasp!).
I used a router firmware called Tomato, which is known for its Quality of Service (QOS) settings. Basically, it make sure that all of the internet traffic (YouTube, Facebook, Playstation, etc) does not interfere with the rest of the traffic. Internet links are like a highway, and bandwidth (speed) is how many lanes of traffic the highway has. What QOS does, is make sure that all of the “cars” (internet traffic) don’t try to go on the highway at the same time, causing collisions and traffic jams (network latency/delay and packet loss).
And, it worked! It really helped both me and Mary enjoy the use of our internet at the same time.
I liked this new software so much that I decided to pull out the old trusty R7000 and try it out on that (I had purchased a cheap $30 router for the initial experiment… in case things didn’t go as planned). So I installed the software, but I was never able to get it working the same as my cheaper router, so I again placed it on the shelf.
Finally, a few weeks ago, I went on a mission to eliminate WiFi dead zones in our house. Enter, again, the old R7000. I dusted it off, reinstalled the original Netgear firmware, and used it as an extra access point.
This worked great until about a week ago. Our internet had become unusable in the evenings. I was at a loss for what was wrong, so I replaced the Tomato router with the traditional R7000, to no avail. So, once again, I unplugged the router and saved it for a day when I had more time to set it back up again.
Well, that day was yesterday. I pulled it out and hooked it up to my laptop. I had big plans to try something new: to set it up as a wireless repeater so I could place it anywhere in my house! I worked through the problems over an hour or so; it was tedious but nothing too difficult. Then came the final reboot to get it up and running. That’s when everything went wrong.
It never came back online.
It was stuck in a “boot loop.” It would turn on, then shut off. It would not accept any commands or even respond to basic pings (a computer’s way of saying “hello!”). I tried everything to get it back. Regular reset. 30-30-30 reset. Dancing. Praying. It was no use. My trusty R7000 was now a brick.
Dejected, I announced my failure to my wife, “I bricked my router.”
“What does that mean?” She said.
It is kind of a funny term, I am not surprised she needed clarification. Did I decorate it with a nice new masonry finish? I wish. Instead, it meant I had turned my very expensive electronic device into nothing more than a very expensive plastic and copper brick. Worthless, except for holding down paper.
Thankfully, I didn’t really need it anymore. Nevertheless, it was sad to see it go. It was the end of an era. But, 6 years is a long time, and there are much improved new technologies available today. The options are endless, really.
So, yesterday, I bricked my router. But today, I’m getting by just fine without it.
With this final display, my Netgear R7000 makes almost a perfect metaphor for the course of my pharmacy career, especially after things came to a screeching halt a month ago, despite my best efforts. That is life, and life goes on. Today, I’m doing fine, and for tomorrow, the possibilities are limited only by my imagination.
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