Router advice

[Mussels]

Short version, i scored two wireless N routers at dirt cheap prices.

Now i need to decide what to keep, and what to sell.

TP-LINK TL-WR841ND - $40 USD, i got it (new) for $25 Au

and

TP-LINK TL-WR941ND the 'model up' ($50 USD) for $40 Au (new, but damaged packaging)


The only real differences i can see, is that the 9 has 3 aerials while the 8 has two, and the 8 is listed as 'wireless N 300Mb' while the 9 is listed as wireless N draft 2.0

the question is: do i keep the one with more aerials (better signal?) and 'only' draft 2.0, or do i go for the final N standard one?



Oh, i'm only really using them for the wireless access point - the routing features will mostly be ignored/disabled

 

[CyberDruid]

Final N standard

 

[Phxprovost]

test both and keep the one that has the best signal/throughput?

 

[Mussels]

test both and keep the one that has the best signal/throughput?

the one with best signal is the 3 aerial one (9), but i dont know the difference between N draft 2.0 and final

 

[Batou1986]

Figure out which one works well with dd-wrt and keep that one apparently the 841 works well and stable.
With dd-wrt the only real thing that would be a deciding factor would be the wifi performance ie signal strength.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices#TP-Link

 

[Mussels]

Figure out which one works well with dd-wrt and keep that one apparently the 841 works well and stable.
With dd-wrt the only real thing that would be a deciding factor would be the wifi performance ie signal strength.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices#TP-Link

i had not considered that. interesting idea.


edit: from some research, they're both draft N 2.0 so that doesnt really matter. i'll just keep the 3 aerial one, maybe DD-WRT it.

what can DD-WRT do for me anyway?

 

[Batou1986]

what can DD-WRT do for me anyway?

Anything a router is possibly capable of doing
Its like comparing a p45 dell bios to a p45 gigabyte bios

In short its open source firmware with all the goodies that gives you full control over your router and you can play with all the options.
No need to depend on the mfg's crappy/buggy firmware to support a feature like vlan,ddns,bandwidth monitoring, QoS etc.
Best part is its well maintained and updated frequently with new features, my router don't even advertise ipv6 support but because of dd-wrt it does.

In my personal experience i bought this Netgear WNR3500v2 specifically because of the ability to use DD-WRT firmware.
And it is by far the best router i ever used it never skips a beat.

 

[Mussels]

Anything a router is possibly capable of doing
Its like comparing a p45 dell bios to a p45 gigabyte bios

In short its open source firmware with all the goodies that gives you full control over your router and you can play with all the options.
No need to depend on the mfg's crappy/buggy firmware to support a feature like vlan,ddns,bandwidth monitoring, QoS etc.
Best part is its well maintained and updated frequently with new features, my router don't even advertise ipv6 support but because of dd-wrt it does.

In my personal experience i bought this Netgear WNR3500v2 specifically because of the ability to use DD-WRT firmware.
And it is by far the best router i ever used it never skips a beat.

yeah but the router already has a lot of fancy features (bandwidth control, push button QSS wifi crap, etc), and i have a smoothwall for the rest (SIP proxy, bandwidth recording)

i just want to know the main uses of DDWRT, cause i wont bother flashing without good reason to.

 

[Mussels]

due to some poor firmware design* with these routers i'm gunna go DD-WRT one one to test it out.


problem is... i cant find the damned download link for it.

Batou1986 posted a link showing both are compatible, but neither model shows up in the router database on the main DD-WRT page, so i cant get the files to try and flash it.

any help?




*i need this to work with the WAN port passing through the IP addresses from the initial router/modem, as opposed to subnetting it and spitting out different IP addresses. it simply refuses on the stock firmware, and only works with DHCP disabled if the router is connected to the LAN ports on these routers (which means all its fancy features dont work at all)

 

[AsRock]

One works 5db x2 while the other at 3db but with 3 Antenna's. Don't know 1db in difference makes though. Maybe with 3 it shares better but with 1db less lol.