Need a wireless Router

[Delta6326]

I need a wireless router that can support 3 laptops that are mac books. and one Pc that has Vista on it. need to carry a good signal threw the house and can support xbox live also but that will be on cat5 internet speed for the home will be around 756KB/s down and 356KB/s up.

Budget Under $80 prefer a cheaper price

would like it to be a easy setup Thanks!

 

[BroBQ]

For around $50-$60 you can get a decent D-Link to do what you want it to

 

[Delta6326]

Does anyone know if this is a good Router its for my cousins that have dial up i finally got them to go to my internet provider com-waves

 

[mrhuggles]

WRT54GL with tomato firmware

 

[Delta6326]

I do like the WRT54GL but i forgot to say i probable need it to be Wireless N all there laptops are

 

[newtekie1]

WRT54GL with tomato firmware

Definitely, was going to suggest exactly this!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190

There is no need for Wireless N if those are going to be the internet speeds, unless they plan on transferring huge files between the computers(G will be fast enough to stream any media they would want).

If they want to move to wireless N later because they find G not to be fast enough, they can always add a wireless N access point later down the road:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156232

 

[mrhuggles]

do you really need crappy N over good G? also, everybody is going to be shareing, thats alot of people and i would want something as stable as possible, i might even go with openWRT whiterussian + X-Wrt with that kind of load.

 

[Delta6326]

well the only reason i was thinking they may need N would be for the range but other wise i do know they will be fine with G they don't know much about computers and stuff so there really hopping that i get something good. i really like the WRT54GL i don't understand the "with tomato firmware"

 

[newtekie1]

Tomato firmwire is just a 3rd party replacement firmware you load onto the router to replace the stock linksys.

It adds a bunch of features, and really makes the router rock solid stable. One feature that will probably interest you the most is the ability to increase the radio power, increasing the range. It is what I had to do to cover my whole house.

And I've found that the range on N is not that much greater than G, it is advertised as being a lot better, but in practice isn't, especially not with cheap routers/access points.

I actually got better range out of WRT54GL w/ Tomato and some high gain antennas, than I did with my wireless N DIR-600.

 

[Delta6326]

Well i think i will tell them about the WRT54GL i don't think im going to add any 3rd party stuff seems to complicated and if something did go wrong i have to go back out to there p;ace takes to long. also was wandering for best signal in a home were is a good place to put it?

 

[newtekie1]

Lower level, as centerally located as possible seems to be the best for me.

 

[MohawkAngel]

low budget buyt effective D-link DIR-615 N router or better the DIR-625 up to you. D-link have an easy setup wizzard in their router configuration even easy for a beginner.

 

[mrhuggles]

default software is really bad, and fails bad under heavy use, openWRT + X-Wrt i can say never fails ever, and always performs well. no reboots no crashes no nothing it just does its job flawlessly
tomato is supposed to be almost as good but way more simple, and dd-wrt is like, sorta like openWRT but with alot of broken parts, but a better user interface than the default interface [X-Wrt is a replacement interface for openWRT]

EDIT: sorry didn't see what you said about third party stuff, yeah most people say the exact same stuff but then come back later wishing they hadn't spent like 500 dollars on 20 different routers because they were trying to find one that works good, in the end it comes down to this, good linux = good, bad linux = bad, and VXWorks = horrific

 

[Delta6326]

after thinking for some time i think i will put 3rd party on, what do you think is good to put on it? tomato firmware? i read lots of reviews people like DD-WRT alot i just need it so they can surf the web and play some xbox live not much thow

 

[wiak]

get this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127215&Tpk=dir-655

 

[mrhuggles]

hmm, I'd say, openWRT + X-Wrt whiterussian, whiterussian is nice and mature and the X-Wrt interface on it is mature as well

dd-wrt is a broken version of openWRT with a GUI strapped on it like X-Wrt but not as good

tomato is uhh, well ive heard its very reliable, its supposed to look like the original firmware i guess but be more reliable and a few extra features

i personally use openWRT + X-Wrt i highly suggest it since it lets you get done whatever you need and is quite polished

i would advise against DD-WRT except it has a really big user base and that means youd have an easier time finding help on IRC or message boards

i would definatly say that the vast majority of people ive seen that use tomato swear by it and make it sound really good, as long as it wont crash when youve got your tracked connections maxed im all in favor of that, it cant do even half the stuff openWRT can, but it DOES have that cute little thing for monitoring your bandwidth usage, that sounds pretty darn useful

 

[wiak]

11n ftw

 

[Delta6326]

so you say openWRT + X-Wrt. well do you know how to install it and what not i dont know how to do that i dont want it to be to hard

 

[mrhuggles]

it will be super easy, hang on I'l get a link sec.

http://downloads.x-wrt.org/xwrt/fir...ily-build/default/openwrt-wrt54g-squashfs.bin

its fine you just put that on there and your good to go, you should even be able to flash it from the interface

EDIT: also it should be able to keep 99% of your settings yay

 

[Delta6326]

oh ok cool thanks! i still will have to order it from newegg but wont take long. i dont know but i may need help to know what to change settings to so it run good, the one thing i suck at with computers is networking

 

[mrhuggles]

if you have any questions feel free to pm me or gimme a thread to follow and I'l make sure to pay attention'

having a good router rules, you get it configured and then you walk away and it stays up for like 10 years without crashing or dropping any packets.
ive seen people physically loose them while they are still operating years later.

 

[douglatins]

i have a tew-633gr

 

[Delta6326]

ok cool thanks i currently have a WRT300N at home i love it it took me a long time to figure out but once i got it, it runs really good only have to reset it once in a whille like once a month

 

[wiak]

just get the DIR-655 its a little more expensive but you get 4 port GbE LAN switch, GbE WAN, 11n wireless and its one of the fastest for its price range

 

[Delta6326]

ok im getting ready to purchase a WRT54GL and 100ft Cat5 for the desktop wish 3 day shipping home everything works good