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Need a go-to rock-solid wireless router for home
Lunker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm tired of my older Linksys at home flaking out on us and failing to keep a signal properly, so what's the general consensus on a simple, reliable home wireless router? We're using WPA now, if that's any considering, but I don't know what newer encryptions are out there.
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Years 1-2 were rock solid,
year 3 we had some intermittent disconnects
year 4 flashed DD WRT, and it's been rock solid yet.
That being said, I did recommend some D-Link products to a friend, but I will be helping him set them up, and the type of wireless print server he was looking for wasn't offered by Linksys.
If I had to pick up a new wireless router for any reason (my FiOS one is working fantastic right now), I would either do Netgear (I feel they have better radios) or Linksys + Tomato.
I don't know how much they go to improving the signal quality etc but I've never had issues with range/crashing anywhere I've used any of them.
So between the overclocking of the router's processor, and the newly opened cache space for more persistent connections, network performance is hopping.
Belkin is kind of a crap shoot.
They make some nice routers, there is no denying that, but they also make the cheapest piece of shit routers you can buy.
I'm employed in a networking tech support call center and I can't even begin to tell you the number of calls I get where a piece of shit belkin from walmart is the problem.
Maybe you can suggest a few models that have had success with you?
You can find 'em on the cheap on craigslist and such.
Picked up a GL which works flawlessly for 30 bucks, flashed it with Tomato.
Not if you have DDWRT/TOMATO/Whatever open FW.
I have had a Linksys WRT54GC router for over 3 years, but it just stopped working. I have no idea what's wrong with it.
Linksys routers would give me weak signals when I was inside the house. Try to take it in the backyard and it was really flaky. With the D-Link range and signal strength is just great now.
My experiences with Linksys have been pretty crap.
Steam | Live
Everyone has their pet brand. Quite frankly, the fact that there are at least 3 brands being touted here is good news that the networking industry is teeming with good product (it's about damn time).
I think the biggest reason why people are enjoying the Linksys routers is because of the 3rd party firmware you can install on them. Also, they seem to have increased their reliability since Cisco picked them up.
Frankly, the hardware doesn't mean shit as long as you can load good third-party software on there.
I had a belkin for a few months. Fucker wouldn't stop overheating. What the fuck is a router doing that's so damn intensive, it regularly overheats?
*Every 3 or 4 months, it'll just decide to intermittently drop the signal for a day or two. Every 15-30 minutes, it'll just stop broadcasting an SSID for a couple minutes, which brings the primarily mentioned laptop browsing to a dead halt, and leads to a lot of swearing and yelling at our electronic devices. Then, just as suddenly as the problems began, and without any clue on what was done to fix it, it'll magically start working flawlessly again.
Nice Belkins are nice.
Cheap Belkins are cheap.
Poor designing and poor voltage control and cheap ass chinese capacitors will make any electronic component overheat under even minimal load.
Cisco is the company behind Linksys, and they've built some of biggest fucking routers that support the internet as an entity. Check out the newest Linksys or Cisco router that has all the hardware features you need/want and then install a third party firmware on it.
I'd hate to drop $100-150 for a router with the intention of it lasting me the half-decade, and have the next system come out six months later.
Edit: I see it's already been approved, and will be 802.11y, but can't find anything about when consumer devices will hit the market.
According to wikipedia, N is still a draft, so it's not finalized. So I doubt you'll have to worry too much about some new standard coming out soon.
Chock full of test numbers, bottom line for N is they like the Linksys/Cisco E3000. Not sure if you want that much router though.
I really hate being a broken record like this, insisting on DD-WRT post after post. But it IS that good.
The tabs and categories actually make sense, there is a TON more information, both about the current state of your device and how to configure it.
It also gives you many more useful options.
it's a win/win scenario, really. Better performance and better control.
Edit: Which would be better for that particular router; Tomato or DD-WRT?
Tomato is really easy to use, much easier than DD-WRT, and still provides more options than default firmware.
I personally prefer tomato at the present for bandwidth monitoring with the amount of streaming and downloading that goes on between the five of us here.
Having not yet done the due diligence, I can't see Y being anything more than a bandwidth/cap increase. However, I'm likely wrong.
I've never had a need for anything faster than G, and I've raided in WoW using a G connection, among other things. I can't foresee most people needing anything faster than an N connection for at least a few years.
Everyone's stance on value is different, but if you are able to get at least a year out an N router, I would say you at least got your money's worth.
You've obviously never tried to stream HD vids to an area of the house where you could not (or very difficult) install CAT6.
*Edit* Not from online, I mean from a media server