Need a wireless N router.

Faricazy · September 2008

I'm fed up with my ghetto ancient network and am looking to buy a new router. N would be nice, since my macbook supports it. What's the difference between N and draft-N?

The real question is what brand to go with. I keep hearing that Linksys went to shit. Should I avoid them? How about D-Link? Belkin? Netgear has always been shitty, i doubt i'll go in that direction.

how does this one look?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127220

Grobian · September 2008

There is no N. The IEEE 802.11n standard is still not finalized.

I recently bought the Linksys WRT 610N because it can do dualband. That means I can use my new hardware in the 5Ghz band to avoid overlap (I have like 17 different networks at my house) and still get some use out of the old hardware that can only do 802.11g (in the 2,4Ghz band).

I have not yet installed it, so no personal experience so far, but I have heard good things about it.

syndalis · September 2008

Airport Extremes or Time Capsules are always a great option for mac users; you know the N network is gonna work for you, and it handles mixed mode N/G so other people can play as well.

Grobian · September 2008

syndalis wrote: »

Airport Extremes or Time Capsules are always a great option for mac users; you know the N network is gonna work for you, and it handles mixed mode N/G so other people can play as well.

Any Draft-N-Router should do mixed mode (it's in the draft). The problem is that this might hurt your throughput. Dual Band spans two networks (in different bands) so you can separate the slow and the fast clients.

mastman · September 2008

I just got a new dlink dir-655, it's pretty tits.

maximumzero · September 2008

syndalis wrote: »

Airport Extremes or Time Capsules are always a great option for mac users; you know the N network is gonna work for you, and it handles mixed mode N/G so other people can play as well.

Time Capsule is easily the best thing on the market. Not only to you have a USB port for wireless printing and attaching a external hard drive, but there's also a hard drive in the thing itself.

It'll be my next router if I can ever get my damn express to die.

Which at this point looks like will be never.

Faricazy · September 2008

Well I would like to keep it below 80 dollars, for one. And I have no need for network storage.

Faricazy · September 2008

would it be worth bothering with DD-WRT?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124277

it's only $67 and has a good featureset, but i don't want the firmware to be doing retarded things.

Faricazy · October 2008

bumppp

so the current plan right now is to ditch verizon (cause god knows when FIOS will get here), get back on optimum (15/2 base package), but before that buy this router:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127215

Dlink DIR 655

all routers seem to have their share of shitty reviews but this one maybe less so. decent feature set, at any rate. i am hoping the gigabit WAN port will provide some benefit with the fast cable connection. any objections?

exoplasm · October 2008

Faricazy wrote: »

bumppp

so the current plan right now is to ditch verizon (cause god knows when FIOS will get here), get back on optimum (15/2 base package), but before that buy this router:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127215

Dlink DIR 655

all routers seem to have their share of shitty reviews but this one maybe less so. decent feature set, at any rate. i am hoping the gigabit WAN port will provide some benefit with the fast cable connection. any objections?

Gigabit WAN port? What? Why would that even be useful on any consumer routers? I don't think that would even benefit anyone in Europe or Japan where fat pipes are common. If it were Gigabit LAN ports it would be useful, though.

And for what it's worth, I have a Linksys WRT150N and it's the best router I've used (the last good one being a BEFSR411 or something).

mastman · October 2008

this router worked great for the first couple days, and last night sucked major asshole. dc'd all the time during WoW.

kept having to reset it. A few people have suggested turning it to G only or setting it upright to help so Ima try that. I am worried, but I'll give it a week to see if I can't fix it.

Faricazy · October 2008

exoplasm wrote: »

Faricazy wrote: »

bumppp

so the current plan right now is to ditch verizon (cause god knows when FIOS will get here), get back on optimum (15/2 base package), but before that buy this router:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127215

Dlink DIR 655

all routers seem to have their share of shitty reviews but this one maybe less so. decent feature set, at any rate. i am hoping the gigabit WAN port will provide some benefit with the fast cable connection. any objections?

Gigabit WAN port? What? Why would that even be useful on any consumer routers? I don't think that would even benefit anyone in Europe or Japan where fat pipes are common. If it were Gigabit LAN ports it would be useful, though.

And for what it's worth, I have a Linksys WRT150N and it's the best router I've used (the last good one being a BEFSR411 or something).

it does have gigabit LAN ports

googling says that with 10+ Mpbs connections a gigabit WAN does help

t mastman: you got the DIR 655? just got it?

mastman · October 2008

Yeah, the DIR 655. Was very upset with it last night. But it worked great the first 3 nights. So I still need more time with it, maybe it was a fluke, the WoW servers have been very spotty this week. Unfortunately I am out of town for 4 days so I won't be able to update you on the progress of my further testing until Sunday.

Faricazy · October 2008

try updating the firmware. i checked and there is actually brand new firmware only a few days old, and another release from august, which is pretty impressive considering some companies (AHEM LINKSYS) let problems in firmware stagnate for years.

you could have just gotten a faulty unit, also. it seems that there is no way avoiding that, you'll find everyone bitches about every single router out there, but dlink seems to have slightly less bitching.

mastman · October 2008

Yeah, I got the 1.20. They released 1.21 yesterday, which doesn't show any bug fixes. I'll have to see, was only one night of crap

Faricazy · October 2008

oh shit

they added NAS ability through the firmware? that is really neat.

Torso Boy · October 2008

I can't find many N routers with USB ports...are there any modestly priced ones out there? Is this feature likely to become common anytime soon?

Faricazy · October 2008

the very router i'm talking about just had NAS capability added via firmware

it's $95

Torso Boy · October 2008

Faricazy wrote: »

the very router i'm talking about just had NAS capability added via firmware

it's $95

That'll teach me to think of a question one night and post it 24 hours later without reading the thread.

Out of curiosity, if I were to throw a splitter on it, could I hook up a printer in addition to a HDD? In theory I don't see why not, but I have no clue how NAS works.

Faricazy · October 2008

in theory you don't see how you can't just split a digital signal?

Torso Boy · October 2008

Faricazy wrote: »

in theory you don't see how you can't just split a digital signal?

Like I said, I'm not aware of where a USB splitter will or won't work.

Faricazy · October 2008

there is no such thing as a USB "splitter"

Torso Boy · October 2008

Faricazy wrote: »

there is no such thing as a USB "splitter"

I believe you, but this is the part where you tell me what I'm seeing in stores that is packaged as a USB "splitter," and how my USB keyboard has two USB ports built into it, connecting to, say, my external HDD and printer.

And shit, that D-link runs upwards of $120 up here.

Faricazy · October 2008

those are hubs

Torso Boy · October 2008

Cool.

Are you going to answer my question or is it just so elementary you'd rather make yourself look like a tool mocking it?

.kbf? · October 2008

A usb port is only designed to handle a single device. A usb hub acts as that single device, putting the multiple usb signals together in a way the computer can understand and vice versa, as the computer outputs to the usb device the hub routes the signals to the proper place. You can't just splice to usb cables together and voilÃ you have 2 usb ports. Theres needs to be come signal processing as a intermediate step.

Torso Boy · October 2008

.kbf? wrote: »

A usb port is only designed to handle a single device. A usb hub acts as that single device, putting the multiple usb signals together in a way the computer can understand and vice versa, as the computer outputs to the usb device the hub routes the signals to the proper place. You can't just splice to usb cables together and voilà you have 2 usb ports. Theres needs to be come signal processing as a intermediate step.

Yeah, I'm aware of the general idea behind hubs, even though I referred to them improperly- which apparently can hurt some people's feelings.

The question I meant was the one about whether or not a hub would work with a router.

syndalis · October 2008

Torso Boy wrote: »

Cool.

Are you going to answer my question or is it just so elementary you'd rather make yourself look like a tool mocking it?

he did answer your question.

USB hubs are not splitters, they are hubs. The hub is a physical device which is slaved the the USB host device, then propagates more USB host ports for the main machine.

A splitter implies that you are just taking the red wire and the blue wire and stripping them down/joining them with two more of the same, and it just does not work that way.

Torso Boy wrote: »

The question I meant was the one about whether or not a hub would work with a router.

And the answer is: depends on the router. With an airport extreme, yes... you can hook up a printer and multiple external hard drives with a USB hub. I dunno about others, it depends on how robust their USB-HOST support is.

Also, chill out.

edit: and thats what I get for not seeing this thread spill onto another page, heh.

Faricazy · October 2008

right so the DIR 655 is on order from newegg and a bunch of cat 6's are on order from monoprice

god i hope everything works

Faricazy · October 2008

also i realized i'm wary of dealing with optimum's variable connection speed (since cable is shared), and assuming the router works fine it should make the verizon dsl more manageable. so i'll just wait out another month or two hoping that FIOS gets laid here already. I live in one of the few areas of Brooklyn that still doesn't have FIOS. Balls.

FIOS question though: since it's a residential neighborhood and they aren't putting fiber boxes on every single house, the connection going into the buildings is via COAX, right? And their modem takes the COAX signal and converts it to ethernet?

And do they still give you the terrible modem/router combo? That's going to go into bridge mode pretty much right away once I get it.

Torso Boy · October 2008

syndalis wrote: »

Torso Boy wrote: »

Cool.

Are you going to answer my question or is it just so elementary you'd rather make yourself look like a tool mocking it?

he did answer your question.

He didn't, but you just did.

Again, I'm aware that "splitter" was the wrong word and I understand the distinction- I wanted to know if it would work in a router. What you said was exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

You can understand how frustrating it is to ask a really simple question and get post after post of rehtoric when the answer amounts to, "it depends; also a splitter is not the same as a hub."

.kbf? · October 2008

Torso Boy wrote: »

syndalis wrote: »

Torso Boy wrote: »

Cool.

Are you going to answer my question or is it just so elementary you'd rather make yourself look like a tool mocking it?

he did answer your question.

He didn't, but you just did.

Again, I'm aware that "splitter" was the wrong word and I understand the distinction- I wanted to know if it would work in a router. What you said was exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

You can understand how frustrating it is to ask a really simple question and get post after post of rehtoric when the answer amounts to, "it depends; also a splitter is not the same as a hub."

No offense but i think some of the blame lies in the questions asked.

You asked if a splitter would work with a router. The answer was no because there is no such thing as a splitter.

You then asked what acts as a "splitter" for USB to which a he responded "a hub".

You then asked this "The question I meant was the one about whether or not a hub would work with a router." which was in no way asked anywhere else. Maybe next time you can a little bit more specific with your questions and thus receive better answers.

PolloDiablo · October 2008

I realize I'm late to the party, but I just wanted to chime in that I used to use the Belkin N-1 wireless router, and it was fantastic. Much better than Linksys, I think. I heard Belkin stuff doesn't work right with xbox live for whatever reason, though. I never tried it, so I can't say whether or not that's true.

Faricazy · October 2008

those looks pretty nice but are pretty expensive and aren't dual-band, which many at that price point are. and yeah i've heard the xbox live thing too, that put me off belkin a bit.

Dark Shroud · October 2008

Well my sister has this Draft N router on order.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156232

If it lasts 2 years it was worth the $40. She needs a router that will cover her house without slowing her connection speed.

Faricazy · October 2008

That's uh

not a router. That's an access point.

Anyway the Dlink came, i tried it for a bit and everything seemed to be working fine. Unfortunately I cannot take advantage of the full 300 MBps link with my Macbook because apparently the airport card requires the 5Ghz band to operate at that speed, and this particular Dlink is not dual-band. It made the 130 Mbps link no problem though.

Currently waiting for the order of fresh Cat6 cables from monoprice to arrive so we can redo the whole network.

mastman · October 2008

After continuous disconnects from WoW with the dir 655 I put my old router back in and all was gravy. I am sad, I wanted a new router. Some people say this one is awesome, but I have had no luck. Good luck to you if you get one.

Faricazy · October 2008

Wired or wireless connection? Was it only WoW or all of internet? WoW isn't exactly a troubleshooting tool.

Faricazy · October 2008

Got everything set up.

One wireless client (my mac), a server, two computers, and a 10/100 linksys switch feeding a networked Brother printer and the xbox. After some choice words about Windows Firewall, everything works. No dropped connections either, running the firmware the router came with, 1.11. If it works i'll just leave it alone.

mastman · October 2008

wireless. It may not be a connection test but it sure is the main requirement for me at least. Hope yours works out.

On a few occasions it would actually disappear from my wireless connections list, but mostly I just d/c'd from WoW.

I didn't do any wired tests as there's no xboxlive games I'm playing atm.

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