Our router began crashing 6 weeks ago. We put it down to our DSL provider and then to power outages that seemed to coincide. But the crashes increased in regularity and then last Friday our router crashed maybe 10 times in the one day. And we still don't know why. When the router crashes it becomes unpingable (internally or externally) yet the router lights flicker on just like they should. Since black Friday we have
- updated router firmware to latest version
- swapped the router for an identical model
- rolled back all recent edits to router configuration to a happier time
- eliminated the DSL lines as the issue
- ensured that our AV Eset Nod32 is up to date on all clients
- removed wireless access for all
The crashes have stabilized somewhat in that they now happen every 48 hours or so. We are syslogging router output but have found nothing, so far.
The router is a Zyxel P600 series, model: P-661HW-D1. We have a vpn with port forwarding and some firewall rules. Clients are xp, vista & win 7. Why are these crashes happening and how can we get to the bottom of it?
For business use? Replace it with something that doesn't suck balls. I can recommend the Juniper SRX220, or Cisco 1900 series with an ADSL HWIC.
Internet access is the life-blood of any business these days. Why save money on hardware when cheaping out can cause outages which are distruptive to both business activities and productivity.
In our offices we use Zyxel P660R-D set up in full bridge model to something more substantial for PPPoE and firewalling.
Your Zyxel P600 supports full bridge, so you can pair it with a more substantial firewall, like a Zyxel USG 100 or D-Link DFL-800 (great piece of kit, it is a re-branded Clavister, but now EOL - so Ebay only).
The issue you are having is very likely to be too many sessions open/connection tracking. Little SOHO firewalls like that really struggle if you've got multiple FTP/SSH/HTTP sessions active and they fall down with as little as 300 active sessions.
Ps. The Zyxel P660R-D is rated as being one of the fastest ADSL modems too (provider DSLAM/MSLAM chipset dependant). See http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4144-how-fast-is-your-broadband-router.html