Dear all, this is my first review on a 11n product for your reference.
Introduction
Feature Summary
SMCWGBR14-N is a top level and high performance broadband wireless router in SMC’s 802.11n series. It is designed to provide all-in-one network solution, and has built-in quite a number of hot features, such as 802.11n, WPS button, USB print server, gigabit LAN switch, StreamEngine, etc.
SMCWGBR14-N comes with a plastic stand, you can lay the device in an upright position, and tune the external antennas to its desirable direction. In the front panel, there are several diagnostic LEDs, including LAN and WAN LEDs which change to orange or green when they are running in 1Gbps or 10/100 Mbps respectively. The USB2.0 port can be used for connecting USB printers, a printer compatibility list which are copied from the user manual is available in Appendix A.
Figure 1: Front Panel - (Left to Right) USB Port, Power LED, WAN LED, LAN1 to LAN4 LED, WLAN LED, WPS LED and WPS button
Figure 2: Back Panel – (Left to Right) LAN1 to LAN4 ports, WAN port, Reset Button, Power Connector.
Figure 3: WLAN ON/OFF slide switch
Internal Components
After the front cover of SMCWGBR14-N is removed, you can find that the device is using Atheros wireless solution. The Vitesse chipset is responsible for the 4 gigabit LAN ports and the gigabit WAN port, while the Ubicom chipset provides the StreamEngine technology. In addition, it contains a MIRA P2S56D40CTP chip which should be 64MB DDR SDRAM.
Figure 4: Internal view of SMCWGBR14-N
The wireless solution of my SMCWGBR14-N should be based on Atheros AR5008 Solution. The baseband/MAC chip is AR5416 (PCI host interface), while the radio chip should be AR2133 (Max. 3 Tx, 3 Rx, single-band 2.4 GHz) although it is hidden by the RF shield.
For detail about Atheros AR5008 solution, you can refer to the following webpage:
http://www.atheros.com/news/xspan.html
Figure 5: Atheros AR5416 Baseband and Media Access Controller (MAC) chip
With Vitesse VSC7385XYV chip, SMCWGBR14-N provides four 10/100/1000Mbps gigabit LAN port and one 10/100/1000Mbps WAN port with auto MDI-MDIX. When the port is in 1Gbps, its corresponding LED will light up in orange color. While if the port is in 10/100 Mbps, its corresponding LED will light up in green color.
Figure 6: Vitesse VSC7385XYV 10/100/1000 Mbps chip
The Ubicom IP5160U chip provides StreamEngine technology which combines together a number of traffic managements and QoS mechanisms to provide QoS for different types of application. As stated in the datasheet of SMCWGBR14-N, the main function is to automatically prioritize time-sensitive applications, like online gaming, voice and video, to run smoothly without lag and breakup.
Figure 7: Ubicom IP5160U chip
The Mira P2S56D40CTP chip is a 200MHz@CL=2.5 256Mb (64MB) 4-bank x 4194304-word x 16bit double data rate synchronous DRAM.
Figure 8: MIRA P2S56D40CTP chip
Device Features
Firmware Upgrade
My SMCWGBR14-N is shipped with firmware v1.0.0.13, I have downloaded the latest firmware v1.0.1.2 from SMC website. The upgrade process is quite fast, it has finished within one minute. But you have to note that after firmware upgrade, the device will reset all the settings to factory default.
According to the release note, it only stated “802.11b/g/n + WPS Wi-Fi Certified firmware” in the Firmware History. It is not clear what has been modified, I think the change may be related to some wireless features. Nevertheless, I would like to use the new firmware for the wireless throughput test.
Figure 9: Firmware Upgrade: Warning message
Wireless Security Mode
Since I’m very concern about my network security, when I receive the new device, the first thing I always do is to change the default administrator password and set the wireless security. I personally do not suggest using WEP to protect the wireless network, as it is well known that WEP is vulnerable for cracking, actually you can find many WEP cracking tools over the Internet.
Anyway, if you set the device to use WEP, you will get a warning message, which tell you the device will ONLY operate in 802.11B/G mode. Similar warning message appear if you set Security Mode to WPA-Personal or WPA-Enterprise and choose TKIP as Cipher Type. But this warning message only pop up in v1.0.0.13, my wireless client can connect to SMCWGBR14-N at 802.11n mode by using WPA-PSK with TKIP in v1.0.1.2.
Figure 10: Warning message appear when set Security Mode to WEP (Both v1.0.0.13, v1.0.1.2)
Figure 11: Warning message pop up when set Security Mode to WPA-Personal and choose TKIP as Cipher Type (Only v1.0.0.13)
Figure 12: Warning message pop up when set Security Mode to WPA-Enterprise and choose TKIP as Cipher Type (Only v1.0.0.13)
WPS
Another setting I’m interested is the WPS, because I have never used this before!
WPS is abbreviated from WiFi Protected Setup, by using WPS, it makes wireless connection to the AP simple. SMCWGBR14-N provides two WPS methods, the first one is PBC push button and the second one is PIN configuration.
In order to use WPS, the wireless client software must also support WPS. My wireless client adapter is SMCWUSB-N, which is an USB2.0 802.11n wireless draft compliant client adapter. The client software also support for WPS-PBC and PIN configuration.
Figure 13: Wireless client software of SMCWUSB-N
To setup WPS-PBC is easy just push the WPS button of SMCWGBR14-N for about 4 seconds, then its WPS LED will light up and flashing. At this moment, click the PBC button in the wireless client software, then the wireless client will scan and connect to the AP automatically as shown in figure 14. No need to configure SSID, wireless security setting, etc., in the client software.
Figure 14: WPS - PBC: Connection is in progress
For the WPS-PIN method, it is secured than the PBC method, because of the PIN protection which prevents unwanted connection to the AP after the WPS button is pushed.
In order to make the connection, you have to find out the PIN Code of the wireless client first as shown in figure 15.
Figure 15: Wireless client software of SMCWUSB-N: PIN Code
Since it is not possible to manually set the PIN Code for both SMCWGBR14-N and SMCWUSB-N, the only way to setup WPS-PIN is to add wireless device through SMCWGBR14-T web management page as shown in figure 16. Once the PIN Code of the wireless client is input, the AP will try to scan for the client, at this moment, click the PIN button in the wireless client software. If no problem happened, your client will be connected to the AP automatically.
Figure 16: SMCWGBR14-N: PIN Configuration
Wireless Performance
The following configurations are used to setup the SMCWGBR14-N for testing wireless throughput:
1. 802.11 Mode: 802.11n only
2. Transmission Rate: Best (automatic)
3. Channel Width: Auto 20/40 MHz
4. Security Mode: None
A IBM Thinkpad T42 notebook (Intel PM 1.6GHz, 768MB RAM) equipped with SMCWUSB-N was acted as the wireless client, while another desktop PC with AMD Sempron 2600+ 1.61GHz, 448MB RAM and 10/100/1000 RTL8169S-32 PCI LAN card was connected to the LAN port of SMCWGBR14-N.
Ixia Performance Endpoint 6.5 was installed in both computers, while IxChariot 5.4 was used to manage the testing. The default Throughput.scr script was used, its file_size was set to 1000000, and the testing was set to run for 1 minute.
Figure 17: Uplink Throughput
Figure 18: Downlink Throughput
Figure 19: One Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (1 Uplink and 1 Downlink)
Figure 20: Two Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (2 Uplinks and 2 Downlinks)
Figure 21: Four Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (4 Uplinks and 4 Downlinks)
Figure 22: Eight Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (8 Uplinks and 8 Downlinks)
Figure 23: Sixteen Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (16 Uplinks and 16 Downlinks)
Figure 24: Thirty-Two Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (32 Uplinks and 32 Downlinks)
Figure 25: Sixty-Four Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (64 Uplinks and 64 Downlinks)
Figure 26: One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (128 Uplinks and 128 Downlinks)
Amazingly, the wireless throughput can reach a level which is compatible to the 100Mbps wired LAN. But you must note that my testing environment did not have any nearby wireless device, and the distance between SMCWGBR14-N and the wireless client was about 1 meter. In addition, I have to fine tune the position and angle between the AP and client in order to get those results.
If there were couple of wireless AP operating at similar frequencies in the surrounding, or if the position or angle between the AP and client was not ideal, the average throughput would be dropped to a level which was compatible to 802.11g.
Figure 27: Uplink Throughput in non-ideal environment
Figure 28: Downlink Throughput in non-ideal environment
LAN Performance
Since I focus the testing on wireless performance, I only did a quick testing about the LAN performance. In my testing, two desktop PCs each with a gigabit PCI LAN card were connected to the LAN port of SMCWGBR14-N. The testing software was the same, and I used default configuration of SMCWGBR14-N for the testing.
The average throughput of my testing was around three hundreds Mbps.
Figure 29: Uplink Throughput
Figure 30: Downlink Throughput
Figure 31: One Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (1 Uplink and 1 Downlink)
Figure 32: Five Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (5 Uplinks and 5 Downlinks)
Temperature Measurement
My last testing was to measure the temperature of SMCWGBR14-N after it has been running for around five hours. I do not have any special thermometer for the measurement, so I just used a handy digital ear thermometer for my testing. Since the hottest part of the device was near the bottom side, therefore I measured the temperature of this part. Luckily enough, the temperature did not excess 50 degree Celsius, otherwise I could not get the reading, because my thermometer can only show Overheat if the temperature is above 50 degree Celsius. But I suppose the actual temperature should excess 50 degree Celsius if I removed the plastic cover and measured the chipset temperature directly.
Figure 33: Recorded Temperature from digital ear thermometer
Conclusion
Since SMCWGBR14-N is a feature-rich wireless broadband router, I’m not able to test all the functions within limited time. The main purpose of this review is focused on the wireless performance at 802.11n mode. Surprisingly, the device can reach a quite high throughput level. But you have to fine tune the position and angle between the device and your wireless client. If there are couple of wireless AP running from your neighbors, then you will be out of luck, because the device is vulnerable to interference, and the wireless throughput will be dropped drastically. Hope that SMC can release new firmware to improve this condition someday later!
Personally, I like the WLAN ON/OFF slide switch, not only it can save some electricity and reduce security risk, but it can also reduce “wireless pollution” if we do not need the wireless function at the moment.
In spite of these, I think it will be very nice if SMCWGBR14-N has built-in SIP/VoIP adapter. Since it has adopted StreamEngine technology for the QoS, the VoIP quality should have some extent of guarantee. But all in all, this feature is missing. Hope that the VoIP feature will be implemented to 11n product in the future.
Appendix A: Printer compatibility list
Hewlett Packard Printer Models Tested
Brother Printer Models Tested
Canon Printer Models Tested
Epson Printer Models Tested
SAMSUNG Printer Models Tested
*Lexmark and Dell printer models are not recommended for use with the SMCWGBR14-N.
Introduction
Feature Summary
- Built-in IEEE802.11n draft v1.0 compliant wireless AP
- 4-port 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit LAN switch with auto MDI-MDIX and 1 10/100/1000Mbps WAN Port
- Intelligent Stream Handling with StreamEngine technology
- Supports 64/128-bit WEP, WPA/WPA2, and WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK
- NAT firewall with Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI)
- Three 4dBi fixed antennas (2.412 to 2.462GHz frequency band operation)
- Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button
- WLAN On/Off slide switch
- USB2.0 Multi-function print server
SMCWGBR14-N is a top level and high performance broadband wireless router in SMC’s 802.11n series. It is designed to provide all-in-one network solution, and has built-in quite a number of hot features, such as 802.11n, WPS button, USB print server, gigabit LAN switch, StreamEngine, etc.
SMCWGBR14-N comes with a plastic stand, you can lay the device in an upright position, and tune the external antennas to its desirable direction. In the front panel, there are several diagnostic LEDs, including LAN and WAN LEDs which change to orange or green when they are running in 1Gbps or 10/100 Mbps respectively. The USB2.0 port can be used for connecting USB printers, a printer compatibility list which are copied from the user manual is available in Appendix A.
Figure 1: Front Panel - (Left to Right) USB Port, Power LED, WAN LED, LAN1 to LAN4 LED, WLAN LED, WPS LED and WPS button
Figure 2: Back Panel – (Left to Right) LAN1 to LAN4 ports, WAN port, Reset Button, Power Connector.
Figure 3: WLAN ON/OFF slide switch
Internal Components
After the front cover of SMCWGBR14-N is removed, you can find that the device is using Atheros wireless solution. The Vitesse chipset is responsible for the 4 gigabit LAN ports and the gigabit WAN port, while the Ubicom chipset provides the StreamEngine technology. In addition, it contains a MIRA P2S56D40CTP chip which should be 64MB DDR SDRAM.
Figure 4: Internal view of SMCWGBR14-N
The wireless solution of my SMCWGBR14-N should be based on Atheros AR5008 Solution. The baseband/MAC chip is AR5416 (PCI host interface), while the radio chip should be AR2133 (Max. 3 Tx, 3 Rx, single-band 2.4 GHz) although it is hidden by the RF shield.
For detail about Atheros AR5008 solution, you can refer to the following webpage:
http://www.atheros.com/news/xspan.html
Figure 5: Atheros AR5416 Baseband and Media Access Controller (MAC) chip
With Vitesse VSC7385XYV chip, SMCWGBR14-N provides four 10/100/1000Mbps gigabit LAN port and one 10/100/1000Mbps WAN port with auto MDI-MDIX. When the port is in 1Gbps, its corresponding LED will light up in orange color. While if the port is in 10/100 Mbps, its corresponding LED will light up in green color.
Figure 6: Vitesse VSC7385XYV 10/100/1000 Mbps chip
The Ubicom IP5160U chip provides StreamEngine technology which combines together a number of traffic managements and QoS mechanisms to provide QoS for different types of application. As stated in the datasheet of SMCWGBR14-N, the main function is to automatically prioritize time-sensitive applications, like online gaming, voice and video, to run smoothly without lag and breakup.
Figure 7: Ubicom IP5160U chip
The Mira P2S56D40CTP chip is a 200MHz@CL=2.5 256Mb (64MB) 4-bank x 4194304-word x 16bit double data rate synchronous DRAM.
Figure 8: MIRA P2S56D40CTP chip
Device Features
Firmware Upgrade
My SMCWGBR14-N is shipped with firmware v1.0.0.13, I have downloaded the latest firmware v1.0.1.2 from SMC website. The upgrade process is quite fast, it has finished within one minute. But you have to note that after firmware upgrade, the device will reset all the settings to factory default.
According to the release note, it only stated “802.11b/g/n + WPS Wi-Fi Certified firmware” in the Firmware History. It is not clear what has been modified, I think the change may be related to some wireless features. Nevertheless, I would like to use the new firmware for the wireless throughput test.
Figure 9: Firmware Upgrade: Warning message
Wireless Security Mode
Since I’m very concern about my network security, when I receive the new device, the first thing I always do is to change the default administrator password and set the wireless security. I personally do not suggest using WEP to protect the wireless network, as it is well known that WEP is vulnerable for cracking, actually you can find many WEP cracking tools over the Internet.
Anyway, if you set the device to use WEP, you will get a warning message, which tell you the device will ONLY operate in 802.11B/G mode. Similar warning message appear if you set Security Mode to WPA-Personal or WPA-Enterprise and choose TKIP as Cipher Type. But this warning message only pop up in v1.0.0.13, my wireless client can connect to SMCWGBR14-N at 802.11n mode by using WPA-PSK with TKIP in v1.0.1.2.
Figure 10: Warning message appear when set Security Mode to WEP (Both v1.0.0.13, v1.0.1.2)
Figure 11: Warning message pop up when set Security Mode to WPA-Personal and choose TKIP as Cipher Type (Only v1.0.0.13)
Figure 12: Warning message pop up when set Security Mode to WPA-Enterprise and choose TKIP as Cipher Type (Only v1.0.0.13)
WPS
Another setting I’m interested is the WPS, because I have never used this before!
WPS is abbreviated from WiFi Protected Setup, by using WPS, it makes wireless connection to the AP simple. SMCWGBR14-N provides two WPS methods, the first one is PBC push button and the second one is PIN configuration.
In order to use WPS, the wireless client software must also support WPS. My wireless client adapter is SMCWUSB-N, which is an USB2.0 802.11n wireless draft compliant client adapter. The client software also support for WPS-PBC and PIN configuration.
Figure 13: Wireless client software of SMCWUSB-N
To setup WPS-PBC is easy just push the WPS button of SMCWGBR14-N for about 4 seconds, then its WPS LED will light up and flashing. At this moment, click the PBC button in the wireless client software, then the wireless client will scan and connect to the AP automatically as shown in figure 14. No need to configure SSID, wireless security setting, etc., in the client software.
Figure 14: WPS - PBC: Connection is in progress
For the WPS-PIN method, it is secured than the PBC method, because of the PIN protection which prevents unwanted connection to the AP after the WPS button is pushed.
In order to make the connection, you have to find out the PIN Code of the wireless client first as shown in figure 15.
Figure 15: Wireless client software of SMCWUSB-N: PIN Code
Since it is not possible to manually set the PIN Code for both SMCWGBR14-N and SMCWUSB-N, the only way to setup WPS-PIN is to add wireless device through SMCWGBR14-T web management page as shown in figure 16. Once the PIN Code of the wireless client is input, the AP will try to scan for the client, at this moment, click the PIN button in the wireless client software. If no problem happened, your client will be connected to the AP automatically.
Figure 16: SMCWGBR14-N: PIN Configuration
Wireless Performance
The following configurations are used to setup the SMCWGBR14-N for testing wireless throughput:
1. 802.11 Mode: 802.11n only
2. Transmission Rate: Best (automatic)
3. Channel Width: Auto 20/40 MHz
4. Security Mode: None
A IBM Thinkpad T42 notebook (Intel PM 1.6GHz, 768MB RAM) equipped with SMCWUSB-N was acted as the wireless client, while another desktop PC with AMD Sempron 2600+ 1.61GHz, 448MB RAM and 10/100/1000 RTL8169S-32 PCI LAN card was connected to the LAN port of SMCWGBR14-N.
Ixia Performance Endpoint 6.5 was installed in both computers, while IxChariot 5.4 was used to manage the testing. The default Throughput.scr script was used, its file_size was set to 1000000, and the testing was set to run for 1 minute.
Figure 17: Uplink Throughput
Figure 18: Downlink Throughput
Figure 19: One Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (1 Uplink and 1 Downlink)
Figure 20: Two Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (2 Uplinks and 2 Downlinks)
Figure 21: Four Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (4 Uplinks and 4 Downlinks)
Figure 22: Eight Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (8 Uplinks and 8 Downlinks)
Figure 23: Sixteen Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (16 Uplinks and 16 Downlinks)
Figure 24: Thirty-Two Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (32 Uplinks and 32 Downlinks)
Figure 25: Sixty-Four Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (64 Uplinks and 64 Downlinks)
Figure 26: One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (128 Uplinks and 128 Downlinks)
Amazingly, the wireless throughput can reach a level which is compatible to the 100Mbps wired LAN. But you must note that my testing environment did not have any nearby wireless device, and the distance between SMCWGBR14-N and the wireless client was about 1 meter. In addition, I have to fine tune the position and angle between the AP and client in order to get those results.
If there were couple of wireless AP operating at similar frequencies in the surrounding, or if the position or angle between the AP and client was not ideal, the average throughput would be dropped to a level which was compatible to 802.11g.
Figure 27: Uplink Throughput in non-ideal environment
Figure 28: Downlink Throughput in non-ideal environment
LAN Performance
Since I focus the testing on wireless performance, I only did a quick testing about the LAN performance. In my testing, two desktop PCs each with a gigabit PCI LAN card were connected to the LAN port of SMCWGBR14-N. The testing software was the same, and I used default configuration of SMCWGBR14-N for the testing.
The average throughput of my testing was around three hundreds Mbps.
Figure 29: Uplink Throughput
Figure 30: Downlink Throughput
Figure 31: One Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (1 Uplink and 1 Downlink)
Figure 32: Five Pairs of Simultaneous Connection (5 Uplinks and 5 Downlinks)
Temperature Measurement
My last testing was to measure the temperature of SMCWGBR14-N after it has been running for around five hours. I do not have any special thermometer for the measurement, so I just used a handy digital ear thermometer for my testing. Since the hottest part of the device was near the bottom side, therefore I measured the temperature of this part. Luckily enough, the temperature did not excess 50 degree Celsius, otherwise I could not get the reading, because my thermometer can only show Overheat if the temperature is above 50 degree Celsius. But I suppose the actual temperature should excess 50 degree Celsius if I removed the plastic cover and measured the chipset temperature directly.
Figure 33: Recorded Temperature from digital ear thermometer
Conclusion
Since SMCWGBR14-N is a feature-rich wireless broadband router, I’m not able to test all the functions within limited time. The main purpose of this review is focused on the wireless performance at 802.11n mode. Surprisingly, the device can reach a quite high throughput level. But you have to fine tune the position and angle between the device and your wireless client. If there are couple of wireless AP running from your neighbors, then you will be out of luck, because the device is vulnerable to interference, and the wireless throughput will be dropped drastically. Hope that SMC can release new firmware to improve this condition someday later!
Personally, I like the WLAN ON/OFF slide switch, not only it can save some electricity and reduce security risk, but it can also reduce “wireless pollution” if we do not need the wireless function at the moment.
In spite of these, I think it will be very nice if SMCWGBR14-N has built-in SIP/VoIP adapter. Since it has adopted StreamEngine technology for the QoS, the VoIP quality should have some extent of guarantee. But all in all, this feature is missing. Hope that the VoIP feature will be implemented to 11n product in the future.
Appendix A: Printer compatibility list
Hewlett Packard Printer Models Tested
Brother Printer Models Tested
Canon Printer Models Tested
Epson Printer Models Tested
SAMSUNG Printer Models Tested
*Lexmark and Dell printer models are not recommended for use with the SMCWGBR14-N.
