FS: Nexland ISB Pro400 Router

[Noevo]

Just an FYI for anyone who may be interested. I will be selling my Router shortly and wanted to give people here a chance to put the money together if they want to buy it from me.

Router is a Nexland ISB Pro 400 with Manual. May or may not have the original box still. Less than a year old. Looking to get $100 for it (firm). This a great deal IMHO, new retail they go for $259. Router is still in near perfect condition, even physically.

http://www.nexland.com/products/product.cfm?id=2

If you want me to post a picture, just holler. I will probably be ready to ship it out in a week or so.

PS- this is something that has to be sold ASAP, so if you really want it and need a bit of time i'm sure we can work something out :)

[Mark]

i have been looking for a router for a while, how much better is this one than say one of those $60 ones i can get at best buy or where ever ?

[Noevo]

Originally posted by the snake
i have been looking for a router for a while, how much better is this one than say one of those $60 ones i can get at best buy or where ever ?

YeOldeStonecat can give you a better more techincal answer to that than I can. But the simple answer is yes, it's much better. Stability, speed, and functionality. I have probably had to reset this router once since I have had it (and pretty sure that was because I doinked with something that I shouldn't have). I see people with Linksys and other routers having more problems on a regular basis than that.

If you are planning on running a server behind it than this is even that much more betta than others. Really is a business level router, so it's built from the ground up for stability.

And this thing rocks for running gaming servers, if you have a good enough connection. Processor is better than most and that has a big effect from what I have read.

[mwkirchner]

Originally posted by Noevo
... I see people with Linksys and other routers having more problems on a regular basis than that.

I personally have a LinkSys BEFSR41 Router and have had no problems with it. I have had it for over 6 months now and it has been flawless.

I know you are not putting them down ... just felt compeled to let people know that they are a good router ... even if I did only pay $70.00 for it. :D

[YeOldeStonecat]

I've setup an aweful lot of different brands of routers, and like every other component in computers, well, in anything in life, there are differences in quality and performance across the board. You will always have the less expensive models, and models varying in ranges up to the higher end models.

Basically for the home market routers, the brands I like are Linksys for entry level, Netgear for a more mid-range, and Nexland for those who want higher performance and quality. I've worked on most of the other brands, and don't really care for them.

I love the Linksys routers, and always use them in basic setups that I do, where I know they have a basic need just for internet access....nothing more robust is needed. Perhaps one, two, or a dozen or so computers in a small office just need to get the internet, POP e-mail, anti-virus updates, perhaps a remote user or two doing PcAnywhere....that's about it. I even have a network where about 50 workstations are on a Linksys, not heavy internet users though. If they all started pounding the internet.... the little Linksys would begin to reveal it's not cut out for that job. Or say at my office....I have a 6 meg DSL line, we push the hell out of that DSL line all day long....the service department downloads hundreds and hundreds of megs a day, our Exchange server downloads and sends tons of e-mail, we host websites, and the Exchange server has outlook web access....so our engineers on the road can do e-mail through a web browser. We often have our Citrix server dealing with traffic through the router also. If I had a Linksys router trying to to that job....well, it would have a meltdown, lockup, I bet I'd see smoke pouring out within minutes. Services like the website wouldn't work well, Citrix server clients would get flakey performance or errors, if someone in the service department was downloading huge files, other users on the network wouldn't be able to browse the internet well, or someone trying to access their Outlook Web Access from onsite somewhere would probably get errors or not even be able to log in...because the Linksys was struggling dealing with one huge download. Basic routers just aren't that powerful...they don't deal with concurrent usage well, they have entry level hardware under the hood. Routers all have their own processors, they have RAM in there, they have an operating system based in the firmware, then the built in switch that's in most of them. With each component...there are differences in performance across the brands. Even those built in switches.....the 50 dollar routers....well, some of that money goes to the router itself....so that switch that is in there....you can bet it's not a 700 dollar 3COM Baseline 3 switch, it's a 19 dollar switch.

Try connecting two computers...and measuring throughput on a 19 dollar 10/100 switch, then doing the same on a nice honking switch....you'll see a difference in performance. Now try connecting a dozen computers, and have them all do a massive data transfer at the same time, and measure throughput....now you'll see a HUGE difference in performance. That little 19 dollar switch will sputter and gasp for air. I did a lot of comparisons on the switches of routers using a program called NetCPS...showing that some brands ran quite faster than other brands....even when they're all "10/100" switches. Of the benchmarks I ran, the Nexland router was the fastest throughput of all the routers.

You see Nexland talk about the power of their routers...with over 8 megs of bi-directional throughput. Linksys routers are around 4 or so, Netgear around 5-6 if I remember right. Now, most people have a broadband connection that is say 1.5 at the max, so the above doesn't really matter. But it's nice to know that your equipment can handle more, that your equipement isn't the bottleneck. And when a business office is concerned, or say a hardcore gamer at home is concerned....every bit of performance counts. Also stability is important, if you ever have to "reboot" the router or not. Part of this has to do with the brand of the router, which firmware version it's on, what type of loads it's dealing with, etc. Years ago, Linksys routers had a reputation of locking up, but to give them credit, since I've been with them since the very first firmware versions, I've seen them mature quite well with Linksys's aggressive firmware updates. I don't get calls like I used to from my clients using them...complaining of the connection dropping. I've also noted other brands which have always run stable...Netgear for one, and Nexland for another....I'm simply amazed at the one I run at the office....and we push the hell out of that little router, plus I have our accounting department hooked up to the 8 port switch....running a SQL based application through it...so that router gets pushed VERY hard, adding to it's chores what I listed above that I have the office LAN doing.

I'm rambling a lot....I'm really hung over bad, but I'll move on to another angle...gaming. Two years ago I was very invovled with runegame.com and planetunrealtournament.com....in the search for good gaming routers. Many peeps on the forums complained about issues they had trying to run servers from home...glitches, errors, bad performance. A few others from the forums, and myself, spent a lot of money trying out different routers looking for some good ones. You basically always saw problems with the less expensive home routers. Linksys router firmware at that time had well known issues with servers running games based on the Unreal Tournament engine....spawning upside down, ghosting, really odd stuff graphics wise. Netgear routers had issues with random WAN client boots...where all clients logged in from the internet to a server were suddenly booted all at once. I ended up plopping 300 bucks down on a honkin Netopia R series router....and all problems were gone....everything I ran on it ran like a dream. The thing was pure rock solid performance. Best router I've ever had. I ran a Rune server from my home, and clients who logged in when I had the Netopia router mentioned how smooth it ran for them...compared to when I had other routers. I'd swap them out back to back for some good comparisons. Games ran slower and flakier with other routers. Nexland was just getting well known back then, and a buddy of mine tried one...also no problems.

Now another angle of testing I did, using my network at the house. Take a router...fire up your favorite game (I used Q3 and UT), log onto your favorite server out on the internet, and check the ping. Now have a buddy fire up the same game from another computer on your same network at your house, log onto the same server, and note the ping...also note the ping of the first computer that logged on..see if it went up. Now have a 3rd person do it, and a 4th, and a 5th. Now I had the luxury of owning and running a public gaming server back then, which was co-located at the ISP I happen to use for my DSL...so I have literally 1 hop to it, and a brutally low ping. This eliminated a lot of variables, which really let me truley verify the performance of the routers....not having to deal with other issues like varying internet performance if I just logged onto another server out there anywhere. It was pretty much like having the server in my own house, not across the state. Also my best and lowest ping was 15. Linksys routers...1 person pinged at 25, 2nd person logged in, they pinged at 30, first persons ping went up to 30 also, 3rd person logged in, all pings went up to 50, 4th person logged in, all pings at 150, 5th person....all at 200. Tried a 6th.....(had a little LAN party going on at my house that weekend), but now my DSL bandwidth was taxed...became unplayable. Next I tried the Netgear....1st at say at 20, with 2...now at 25, with 3...say 40 ping for all, with 4...say an 80 ping for all. Notice with the Netgear, the initial ping was lower, and with each person logging in...pings went up less for everyone? Than I tried the Netopia....15 ping with 1, 15 ping with 2, 15 ping with 3, 20 ping with 4, 50 ping with 5...at this time my bandwidth limits are kicking in. What was important to me, was that my initial ping was lowest of all, and additional people logging in didn't bog down the router. I could monitor it's CPU utilization...it wasn't even past 30%.

So in my hungover state, hopefully I was partly successful in illustrating the differences in routers. Now to another point....does everyone need a honking router? No, most people who just use the internet for web browsing, e-mail, basic downloading, perhaps only a single computer gaming online, or a couple of casual users...a Linksys, or any other lesser entry level router for that matter like a DLink or Asante or SMC or Belkin or whatever, for those people, those routers will do just fine. Intel Celeron's work fine for most people...and there's nothing wrong with that, you have to look at what you expect out of it. But for hardcore gamers who insist on the best performance, or small offices, etc....you want a higher end router that can handle the job better.

[YARDofSTUF]

Originally posted by mwkirchner
I personally have a LinkSys BEFSR41 Router and have had no problems with it. I have had it for over 6 months now and it has been flawless.

I know you are not putting them down ... just felt compeled to let people know that they are a good router ... even if I did only pay $70.00 for it. :D

the linkyis teh best of the cheapo routers, but nexland and netgear has some that are much more stable and that have more options to play with.

the isb 400 is suppose to be a very nice router, for more than a average home user even.

i have the isb soho and i recomend the rnexland routers to friends and others.

but no the linky isnt bad.

[Mark]

YeOldeStonecat, thanks for the long reply, saving this for future use :)

[Noevo]

Sold! thanks for playing


Thank you very much for your post YOSC! awesome read! :)

[YeOldeStonecat]

Begs the question though....why are you selling it? Wha-cha replacing it with?