Ideas for bandwidth management at home

[j924]

I've read for hours on the internet about possible solutions to my scenario and have yet to come up with an affordable & likeable solution.
My dilemma is I live with 3 other ppl who use the internet heavily to download big files (torrents) & it's not an option for me to just block torrent traffic or go onto their computer & lower transfer speeds because 1) they pay for part of the internet 2) they will never let me touch their computer & mess with settings & 3) they wouldn't like the idea of me lowering bandwidth settings anyway so the best bet for me is to somehow limit traffic from the router since I own the router & provide the internet connections to everyone in the house.
First off I've tried QoS on my D-Link 4500 & older D-Link model. And to sum it up I just don't like it. It doesn't do what I would like & that is to just strait up limit a connections bandwidth. I'd like to be able to put in a static ip address & tell the router this connection can only have 100/300/500mb download speed tops. I don't care what they are downloading/watching/uploading I just want to be able to put in some numbers for max DL/UL speeds and have it like that.
I've looked into some older cisco switches but the problem there is those are for wired connections & every thing in the house besides 2 computers are wireless.
I've looked into creating a Linux box as a router but my problem there is I don't have a spare tower I can dedicated to being on 24/7 for internet routing.
I've looked into buying some of the Linksys/Asus routers that are capable of flashing the firmware with tomato or equivalent firmware but from what I've read they only offer better QoS settings which again I've tried and didn't like as I saw no improvement while using it. I'm hesitant to go out and buy a new router & put different firmware on it only to have a slightly better working QoS.

 

[qu4k3r]

I think the best QoS is with DD-WRT firmware (pls somebody correct me if I'm wrong)
Check if your router is on its compatiblity list, so be careful flashing your router becuase you can brick it if you dont know what are you doing.

 

[j924]

^^^
From what I see in the screenshot this is exactly what D-Link routers offer aside from your specific traffic management from the wired ports on the router. Most of my users are wireless connections, if they were all wired then i'd probably have bought a cisco switch by now and have been done with it but I'd really like a router that is capable of specifying each associated ip addresses DL/UP speeds. The QoS features on my router & from what I can see of yours will only "prioritize" traffic as it goes through the router, it doesn't really limit or traffic shape, at least not in a way I'd like it to.
Also torrent traffic is encrypted so in my experience QoS does jack **** for me. Putting an ip address with the lowest priority on all traffic types & from all remote ip connections doesn't seem to do anything. (please correct me if I'm totally off on this)

 

[N-Gen]

DD-WRT (which I use) has an option to set speeds via MAC addresses, as you can see in the screenshot above "MAC Priority". The only difference between that and the wired tab is that you have to type in the download and upload speeds manually.

 

[Jetster]

DD-WRT will do bandwith shaping. Not just QoS it will also schedule times to shut down ips. It basicly has all the features
of a Cisco