need a new wireless router

[EnglishLion]

Poor me - all this talk of N routers is making my Linksys BEFW11S4 B router seem old! It's only 5 yrs now.

 

[niko084]

Poor me - all this talk of N routers is making my Linksys BEFW11S4 B router seem old! It's only 5 yrs now.

I have 3 of those, great routers!

 

[Pinchy]

good to know. the only reason i hesitate is because of the wireless issues all N routers seem to have. there is no standard yet and alot of manufacturers are making mistakes. i want a router that once i setup i never have to touch. it must do upnp and support all dnla (dlna?) devices. also, the 330N doesnt have wpa/wpa2 security.

I have read all the wireless issues with the N routers and was hesitant to get one. The main thing that put me off this 330N is that its not even draft 2.0 certified. Yet I went with it and do not regret it at all. As I said, wireless is on nearly all the time (between two laptops) and it has never cut out. Range is also great.

About security. It is a shame it doesnt have WPA, but if all your stuff supports PSK2, then your right . I was worried the laptops (esp the older one) wouldnt have PSK2 support but, turns out they did.

Linksys has become crap!

Yeah I have read lots of negatives about linksys, but I can say from what I have seen so far, they are great.

This is actually my first linksys and I would recommend it.

I would second that too, although I never deal with them personally, a lot of people are praising netgears newer stuff, same with belkin....

I dont like netgear very much. Which newer models are you talking about? (I assume its their "n" lineup?) I can honeslty say I have never used an "N" netgear router, but all the rest of them are crap. Their normal G, super G and Rangemax (I have used a couple of each of them) just have bad reception! I teamed up a netgear "rangemax" wlan pci card and router (with like 8 antennas) and range was literally pathetic. It never did cut out, but 2/5 bars a couple of rooms away was pretty poor IMHO.

 

[Easy Rhino]

I dont like netgear very much. Which newer models are you talking about? (I assume its their "n" lineup?) I can honeslty say I have never used an "N" netgear router, but all the rest of them are crap. Their normal G, super G and Rangemax (I have used a couple of each of them) just have bad reception! I teamed up a netgear "rangemax" wlan pci card and router (with like 8 antennas) and range was literally pathetic. It never did cut out, but 2/5 bars a couple of rooms away was pretty poor IMHO.

this is what is so frustrating. one person says that the router is awesome and covers their whole house and is really fast. another person says the exact opposite about that router. it is clear to me that wireless technology is still in its infancy. wifi may be going the way of buffalo anyway. wimax and 3g are getting a lot of research attention and may one day make wifi obsolete.

 

[ktr]

Try the 655, you will like it.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Try the 655, you will like it.

ok, im going to pick it up today from best buy. keep your fingers crosses!

 

[niko084]

this is what is so frustrating. one person says that the router is awesome and covers their whole house and is really fast. another person says the exact opposite about that router. it is clear to me that wireless technology is still in its infancy. wifi may be going the way of buffalo anyway. wimax and 3g are getting a lot of research attention and may one day make wifi obsolete.

Well I don't think anyone is saying much about something is bad and something is good... He said he is having his first linksys and it works great... Nobody said which netgears were good or bad, I just know some of them are pretty decent and get alot of praise.

I work with a team that is doing wifi isp access trying to get an entire city setup, about 40sq miles, we use all dlink stuff minus some Orinoco, Senao, and Microtek stuff, obviously antennas are a different company, 24db grids and such.

We have been going it for 3 years and have had zero problems with our dlink routers and access points *which are mainly used in businesses to boost signal in the buildings for coffee shops and bars.

 

[mrhuggles]

i like my router, and i like its wifi, but maybe my wifi is only good because i have good antennas?

 

[niko084]

i like my router, and i like its wifi, but maybe my wifi is only good because i have good antennas?

Good antennas are for signal which is for speed.

But the problem occuring with a lot of cheap routers "under $300" is that they like to lock up and you have to cycle the power on them.

 

[Easy Rhino]

well speed has been pretty good with the trendnet tew-633gr. it cost me 120 bucks and never held a reliable wireless connection. other people who have them love them tho. go figure.

 

[mrhuggles]

300 dollars?? omg.... if you are gonna spend that much you should get a avila gateoworks with a 500mhz xscale, and 128mb ram, 32mb flash space,...

the only reason im useing a WRT54G v2.0 is because i got it for 25 bux and i can run linux on it.

 

[niko084]

300 dollars?? omg.... if you are gonna spend that much you should get a avila gateoworks with a 500mhz xscale, and 128mb ram, 32mb flash space,...

the only reason im useing a WRT54G v2.0 is because i got it for 25 bux and i can run linux on it.

Well thats the point.... .Anything "home" edition routers that have a overly nice easy going web interface and install setup disk generally are not quality enough...

 

[mrhuggles]

X-wrt is a great interface for new users :?

 

[Easy Rhino]

i picked up the d-link 655 and will set it up when i get home from work. i noticed it comes with an install disc (they all do these day) and im just gonna skip messing with a dumb install disc.

 

[ktr]

Don't use the cd. Just login via web browser (192.168.x.x) and there should be an online wizard to setup.

edit: here is an emulator of the web console: http://support.dlink.com/Emulators/dir655/login.html

 

[Easy Rhino]

Don't use the cd. Just login via web browser (192.168.x.x) and there should be an online wizard to setup.

edit: here is an emulator of the web console: http://support.dlink.com/Emulators/dir655/login.html

im checkin out that emulator. looks exactly like the trendnet one i use except the trendnet one doesnt limit things like QoS to 10. it should suit my needs just fine tho.

 

[Pinchy]

Ive heard some good things about the 655 .

Only reason I didnt get it was because I got a great deal on the 330N .


And in regards to why people always have differing opinions on routers: I totally agree. You read one review it says its great and the next says its poor. I have the same problem when looking for routers. The best thing you can base it on is hands on experience lol. (Which is fairy hard)

 

[Easy Rhino]

well the 655 is up and running. a painless setup since all the options are the same as the trendnet. now we will see about uptime...

 

[mrhuggles]

does it keep track of uptime its self?
also, how is your clean performance? and i guess how will your performance be in a month or so

 

[Easy Rhino]

does it keep track of uptime its self?
also, how is your clean performance? and i guess how will your performance be in a month or so

yea it keeps track of it's uptime. what do you mean clean performance?? there is a stats page and a router log. both the laptop and this pc get excellent connections from a good distance.

 

[mrhuggles]

well i mean, some routers performance degrades after its been up for a while, like, i had a netgear that would be ok for a couple days then slow down, and crash after about 12 days, but by the time it crashed it was really getting slow

its good that it keeps track of uptime

 

[jonmcc33]

with the wrt54g the earlier the better as far as opensource firmware goes [STRONGLY suggest openWRT + X-Wrt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G

this shows what versions have what stats, the most important parts are, how much flash space it has, and how much memory it as, as you can see the WRT54GL is pretty weak, and the WRT54GS v1.0 to 3.0 is awesome.

Yes, and there's a big part in their support forums about what to do when you brick your router too.

I will never touch a Linksys router again after my nightmares with them. I got a D-Link DGL-4300 a year and a half ago and it has never once had any problems. I highly recommend D-Link routers.

 

[mrhuggles]

when you were having your nightmares with your routers were you running openWRT?

 

[jonmcc33]

when you were having your nightmares with your routers were you running openWRT?

Who said that I had nightmares running WRT?

I had a BEFSR41 v2 and BEFSR41 v3. Both were horrible and couldn't handle too much traffic (torrent P2P or gaming). The routers would reset all the time.

 

[mrhuggles]

i was just wondering if you had it on there, i am kind of curious if you would link WRT54G with linksys firmware to a WRT54G with openWRT, i hear alot of ppl complaining about them so i wonder if people ever tried

bef's wont run it tho i had one of those too, its firmware performed exactly the same as the default firmware for the WRT54GS v5 tho

my router gets like ~ a year uptime with no performance drop ever

i guess im a benchmarkwhore, i think the thing i like most about X-Wrt is being able to update it without rebooting