Roon seems to be very greedy with my bandwidth & system resources

[Snowdog]

Sorry to hear that @Michael_Harris. Hope everyone recovers quickly & completely.

Thanks @Axel_Lesch I could see you writing a reply, and I’m glad I waited before I posted this:

So I’m gonna take the hints & just bypass the VM router as so many have done. I’m thinking that something below might be good to go for, but…

I live in a small 2 bedroom flat so I have a couple of caveat criteria that means many of the available routers are not a good fit for me. For example, I need something discreet & upright with a small footprint and most of them appear to be flat boxes with a bunch of antenna. I’d have nowhere to easily put one of those. Also, I’m never more than 5 or 6 metres from it, so I don’t need a mesh system, there are no dead spots, etc.

So, if I were to go for the one below, which seems the best fit, I have a couple of quick questions (just call me Columbo).

Why is the 6 bedroom one cheaper than the 4 bedroom one, what’s the difference between them?

If it’s only the aspect of mesh capability & expandability, then it makes no difference to me.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083QSG6QK/ref=asc_df_B083QSG6QK1667460360000?tag=georiot-trd-21&ascsubtag=trd-gb-2269178609613665300-21&geniuslink=true&th=1

[Michael_Harris]

Al good here health wise thanks.

So I have Netgear Orbi and they were signed off by my wife as having an Art decor vibe.
They hide among her stuff and no antenna at all.

Work great with Roon and allowed my study to be full of tech stuff like the Roon server, Synology Nas etc

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-Tri-Band-Satellite-Extenders-Coverage/dp/B089NMH2WX/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=1ARYIVA3SL5KF&keywords=orbi%2Bwifi%2B5&qid=1667742107&sprefix=orbi%2Bwifi%2B5%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-5&th=1&psc=1

That Asus looks like a black version of the original Orbi I bought 4 or 5 years ago.

[Axel_Lesch]

@Snowdog

Why is the 6 bedroom one cheaper than the 4 bedroom one, what’s the difference between them?

I can only assume that the more expensive router is a newer model?
I myself have such a well-hidden single Asus ‘flat box with a bunch of antennas’ that covers the whole house, and unfortunately no experience with the Asus Zen wifi system. So I can’t advise you.
But if Michael Harris has such good experience with the Netgear Orbi, might that also be an aspect?

[killdozer (Brutalise me with music)]

So, annoyingly but understandably, when in modem mode the router settings aren’t visible. Right now going back to router mode will upset the internet hungry household so that’s not about to happen. I did do a bit of reading and both a set of screenshots for every router setup page and this article: Enable VPN Passthrough on Virgin Media - Liberty Shield lead me to believe that the Super Hub 3 lacks an explicit multicast setting Not so super after all…

[Snowdog]

Ah, well thanks for looking.

The Netgear ones do look cool and would fit the tiny space it would have to stand in, plus a satisfied customer working with Roon, but I don’t need a mesh system and I couldn’t find a solo device with payment options that would work, so I went for the black ASUS one. I can get it tomorrow and pay for it over 5 months. Feels like a bit of an impulse buy, but I’ll be glad to get this VM box out of the equation & see what changes.

Hopefully, at the very least, I’ll be able to properly troubleshoot the issue with the app.

[Michael_Harris]

No point buying a Mesh network you don’t need, so you probably made the right decision.
For me it allowed me to have an office with all the music and home control equipment connected on Ethernet and still have super fast links between without running Ethernet cables.

Good luck with this project.
You might want to export your current Virgin router configuration before you set it to modem mode, just in case you have to restore the configuration for some reason and it gets lost.

[Snowdog]

Great advice thanks.

[Axel_Lesch]

@Snowdog

so I went for the black ASUS one. I can get it tomorrow

So good luck with your purchase!
A few tips for setting up your Asus for Roon:

I’ve had good experiences with just activating 2.4 GHz and leaving 5 GHz inactive.
(Wireless/Professional/Choose band 5 GHz/Enable radio=No)

Check the other settings and correct if necessary.
I have IGMP snooping enabled because that works fine for me. However, since your router model is different, yours may not behave the same way. You would have to try that.

I did’nt leave the wifi channel on ‘Auto’, but set a fixed channel, channel 11 because it avoids wifi microwave interference.

Next, WAN settings, enable:
WAN, NAT and UPnP

Change DNS settings further below:
Connect to DNS server automatically = No
Enter two DNS servers of your choice in the fields below. (I took Google and Cloudflare)

Disable IPv6

Enable Multicast Routing
LAN/IPTV/Special Applications

[Snowdog]

Thanks so much for this! Really appreciate it.

The router arrived today but I’ll probably have to wait a couple of days until my wife’s current work deadlines have passed before I potentially destroy all internet capability in the house for several days.

Watch this space.

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

We (all the home sysadmins) have this responsibility.

[Snowdog]

Right, here we go…

First of all, the epic & embarrassing classic schoolboy error.

Upon dismantling the system to set up the new router, I discovered that the cable going from the switch to the VM router was a Cat5 & not a Cat5e or Cat6 cable. This meant there was only one light on by the plug & not two, so I probably only had a 100m or even 10m connection, rather than 1000m.

This would explain why the Roon app was struggling to reach the core & also why the internet connection on this laptop, the one with the core, had suddenly become so poor.

As soon as I switched it to a Cat5e cable, those problems went away.

So, you know, I probably didn’t need a new router after all, but hey ho. It’s done now.

Next, setting up my new router.

This was a breeze. The ASUS app is plain as day &, apart from one little hold up where I needed to restart the VM Hub 3 in modem mode before connecting the new router, everything just worked!

ARC seems a bit sluggish, but I can’t remember what it was like before. It’s certainly working okay, but if I go into “albums” & drag the scroller down to, say, G I just get a black screen for quite a while. That said, it’s probably trying to pull in several thousand album covers, so I’m not sure what to expect.

All in all, I’d say that’s a massive thumbs up!

[Michael_Harris]

@Snowdog

As soon as I switched it to a Cat5e cable, those problems went away.

We have all been there, most of us more than once

Well given the cost of the Asus you have probably given yourself a big WiFi upgrade at a fairly low cost and hopefully some performance upgrades around the apartment.
Hopefully all goes smoothly for you now.

[Snowdog]

Everything is suddenly like the proverbial sh*t off a shovel, that’s for sure.

[Axel_Lesch]

There you go!
Enjoy your music, that’s the main thing, and forget about fiddling around

[Snowdog]

Thanks so much to everyone who joined in to help. It’s very much appreciated!

[killdozer (Brutalise me with music)]

Glad there’s a happy ending. You’re still better with that hub in modem mode. Time to put a few tunes on and enjoy