What's the best wireless router these days?

[Stereodude]

I guess I need to start a new thread because I'm certainly not getting answers to my question here.

 

[ddrueding]

I guess I need to start a new thread because I'm certainly not getting answers to my question here.

Merc doesn't like the E3000, I think one will be good that isn't available. No one else has voiced an opinion. What exactly were you expecting?

 

[BingBangBop]

I don't see anything wrong with the Dir-655 even though now there are more recent models available that now cost more with a some improved feature sets like adding dual-banding, or VPN. As a general purpose router the Dir-655 is still an excellent choice, if you can get it for a reasonable price.

 

[Santilli]

I hate to say it, but the last time this came up, it was the 70 buck Linksys
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190
or, spend 300-350 dollars and get an actual, enterprise quality router.

David at least has found something that would be worth trying, considering the other equipment from this company that I have observed him using from them, and the results.

I can't believe those dishes are so cheap!!!

I went with the above Linksys, and, it's ran great, forever, knock on wood...

 

[Handruin]

I hate to say it, but the last time this came up, it was the 70 buck Linksys
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190
or, spend 300-350 dollars and get an actual, enterprise quality router.

David at least has found something that would be worth trying, considering the other equipment from this company that I have observed him using from them, and the results.

I can't believe those dishes are so cheap!!!

I went with the above Linksys, and, it's ran great, forever, knock on wood...

You can get the D-LINK DIR-655 for the same price as that Linksys. The DIR-655 gives you wireless N capability where as the Linksys does not. I would still take the DIR-655 over that router because you even get a good GigE 4-port switch on the router.

I'm still happy with my DIR-655 and just had my dad order one for their campground. I'll let you know how it works with several people connected to it. I think he got it for around $65 on a newegg sale a week ago or so. The only thing I might consider is a router with the 5GHz dualband if you need even more dedicated wireless performance.

 

[Stereodude]

I've got two Tomato running WRT54G/GL's. One at work in the office and one at home. I figured there was bound to be some N device that's better for a non picky home user. Then again, I suppose my Dad would be happy with anything that lets him get online.

 

[Mercutio]

Netgear's baseline N router (WNR834B? I think) has anemic range, maybe 50 feet indoors, but good transfer speeds. I bought several of them for $20 apiece and that's about what they're worth.

The only recent DLink routers I've dealt with were DIR-615s. I've never been a fan of DLink's firmware and the only thing I can say with any certainty is that DIR-615s melt in the face of bittorrent.

I haven't bought a Trendnet router in over a year, but I like the $40 TEW637 Access Point they make.

My preference for home routers is still to look for discontinued high-end Linksys models like the WRT350 on Ebay or Amazon rather than put up with the crapshoot of buying whatever is $50 at Walmart.

 

[Santilli]

You can get the D-LINK DIR-655 for the same price as that Linksys. The DIR-655 gives you wireless N capability where as the Linksys does not. I would still take the DIR-655 over that router because you even get a good GigE 4-port switch on the router.

I'm still happy with my DIR-655 and just had my dad order one for their campground. I'll let you know how it works with several people connected to it. I think he got it for around $65 on a newegg sale a week ago or so. The only thing I might consider is a router with the 5GHz dualband if you need even more dedicated wireless performance.

In this area, I look at the customer reviews. I admit some of them are a bit off the deepend, but, it does show how D-Link supports their products, and the potential for problems.

Not good for the DIR-655, and with 1235 reviews, and the latest not being particularly good,
I'd have to get it for near free, which, by the way, the newegg.com price is getting close to, another concern, since they generally jack up the price on quality products...

 

[Handruin]

I really don't hold a lot of faith or value in the reviews and ratings on newegg. Lots of the people there will mark things lower because of stupid things like shipping delays, or other non-product related issues. The majority of the people there give it 4 & 5 stars...so I don't see how that fits your argument?

 

[Santilli]

I really don't hold a lot of faith or value in the reviews and ratings on newegg. Lots of the people there will mark things lower because of stupid things like shipping delays, or other non-product related issues. The majority of the people there give it 4 & 5 stars...so I don't see how that fits your argument?

Not an argument, just an observation. I get a warmer and fuzzier feeling reading the reviews of this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2310-Index-_-WirelessAPBridges-_-33127164-L0B

I guess if I'm stuck buying a new one, I'll go for something like this, or those cisco aeros.

I don't just look at the numbers on the reviews, but read what the issues are people have had with them. This gives me a REALLY good idea of what sort of problems I might have, and, what the
product has worked well for.

 

[Adcadet]

I don't see anything wrong with the Dir-655 even though now there are more recent models available that now cost more with a some improved feature sets like adding dual-banding, or VPN. As a general purpose router the Dir-655 is still an excellent choice, if you can get it for a reasonable price.

I still am very happy with my DIR-655

 

[Sol]

I hadn't come across Ubiquiti before but I've been looking for a good router which I could use for running OpenVpn and this looks like a good option (and costs only slightly more than the WRT54GL I was thinking of using and a lot less than some of the other options with gigabit nics.

No wireless out of the box but I have an old Atheros PCI 108mbit card I can rip apart for a mini-pci g card and mini-pci n cards aren't too expensive. (Well the Ubiquiti ones are, over here anyway, I've not found them for less than about 3x what dds supplier wants... But others are cheap)

 

[Stereodude]

Well, I had my dad buy a WRT54GL. If he has reception problems I will get better / bigger antennas. He's got pretty slow DSL so he's certainly not going to miss the speed of N, but I have some worries about reception since the house seems to have some really quirky characteristics with cell phone and cordless phone reception, so any N device with only built in antennas was a nonstarter.

 

[ddrueding]

In my experience, if you have issues with a WRT54GL, it is the power brick and not the device. Just FYI.

 

[Stereodude]

My WRT54G (ancient one) got flaky after a few years. Once I turned the transmit power down back to the stock levels it's worked perfectly since. It's got to be almost 6 years old by now.

 

[Santilli]

My WRT54G (ancient one) got flaky after a few years. Once I turned the transmit power down back to the stock levels it's worked perfectly since. It's got to be almost 6 years old by now.

Thanks to the other threads, I bought the same, and, mine is going strong as well.

 

[Sol]

My RouterStation Pro arrived today. It's a nice bit of kit, although the POE injector I got with it was 18 volt rather than the 48 it needs. Fortunately the adapter Netgear sent me when they replaced my switch fits it so I didn't have to wait to get it up and running.

I chucked the latest OpenWrt on it and got wifi configured with the card I had sitting around pretty easily. Now I just have to come up with some sort of case to put it in.

I was glad I decided not to go with the WRT54GL because once I'd loaded the packages I needed on I'd used up 5MB of flash and the GL only has 4 (I could probably have deleted stuff but I'd rather not)

So far I'm pretty pleased with it. Living, as I do, in a shoe box I doubt I'll ever actually need to turn the wifi power up to extra-crispy, but I like to know that I can.

 

[Mercutio]

Necro-posting for the win!

Something I've encountered a couple times in the last few weeks, most recently and most infuriating in my apartment building: DirectTV's newest TV box has a ridiculously strong 5GHz transmitter and that really messes with anything I'd expect to use a fixed 5GHz frequency. There are three of them in my building and they all seem to be frequency hopping. I thought the 500mW 802.11n card in my AP would cut it, but its range on the 5GHz band is sufficiently diminished to the point that I only have working internet access with in ~5m of the AP. 2.4GHz actually works better in my place, which is probably the first time in history that's been true.

Unfortunately, new 802.11 transceivers seem to be miniPCIe rather than MiniPCI, so I guess my homebuilt router is probably going to need to be replaced.

I can't decide whether the mature solution at my place is to just put a cheap 5GHz AP in every room in my place or just to buy something powerful enough to annihilate my neighbors' quality of wireless service. Probably the latter. I could go with a Routerboard 411 + some form of 802.11ac card, which would get me some degree of future proofing on my hardware and cost about $200 by the time I get it all shipped to me, or I could could just skip some hassle and buy a UAP-AC Pro for about the same money.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm still running the big-dog Routerboard at my place. Super powerful, very capable (if complex) interface. That plus a UAP-AC Pro for every room should solve your problems and blast everyone else into the stone age.

 

[timwhit]

The older model is quite a bit cheaper. I have two of them. Only 2.4GHz though.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-UniFi-Access-UAP-LR-US-Version/dp/B005H4CDF4

 

[Mercutio]

I have several UAP-LRs sitting around already. I haven't found them to offer superior range over and above my current AP and I'd rather not have to deploy two APs to get 5GHz coverage.
There might be a workable solution in just getting a better antenna or messing with TX power but I have a feeling that if I don't move up to .ac, my signal is just going to get drowned regardless.

 

[mubs]

Is the Routerboard 411 only b + g ?

 

[Mercutio]

It has a miniPCIe slot. I'd probably stick a high power Atheros card on it if I go that route. I'm more than half tempted to just get a UAP AClite and call it a day but I do have several devices with 3x3 antennas.

 

[Mercutio]

I did get a UAP-AClite. Range is a bit lower than my homebrew AP, especially on the 5GHz band, but my signal hasn't dropped all day, so my FireSticks and tablets are happier.

 

[mubs]

Wonders never cease: The WRT54GL: A 54Mbps router from 2005 still makes millions for Linksys

My recollection is that they died regularly every about ~ 2 years.

 

[Stereodude]

Wonders never cease: The WRT54GL: A 54Mbps router from 2005 still makes millions for Linksys

My recollection is that they died regularly every about ~ 2 years.

I used one, put one at my parents house, and one at my former employers. None died. I eventually replaced mine with something else to I could get simultaneous 5gHz and N.

 

[ddrueding]

Wonders never cease: The WRT54GL: A 54Mbps router from 2005 still makes millions for Linksys

My recollection is that they died regularly every about ~ 2 years.

Most of the time it was just the power supply that failed. When there was a situation where reliability was paramount I'd put in a scientific power supply, strip the casing, attach a bunch of aftermarket heatsinks, and mount the board directly to the wall. Never had one of those fail.

 

[LunarMist]

Most of the time it was just the power supply that failed. When there was a situation where reliability was paramount I'd put in a scientific power supply, strip the casing, attach a bunch of aftermarket heatsinks, and mount the board directly to the wall. Never had one of those fail.

I had two. One of them would require a reboot every few months. It had no switching power supply, only an AC adapter. The other one had the switching supply and would spontaneously lose it's mind once in a while. I replaced them both. The appearance was too technical for home use anyway.

 

[Mercutio]

I know I saw a lot of them that would lose wireless or switch functions but continue to route just fine.

 

[mubs]

What Merc said. Mostly, people wanted it in their homes for wireless, and devices would stop connecting after warranty expired and the thing had to be replaced.

What's amazing is that people are still buying it.

 

[Stereodude]

In my experience they had wireless problems over time if you turned up the power to the radio, but as long as you didn't do that they worked fine.

 

[LunarMist]

In my experience they had wireless problems over time if you turned up the power to the radio, but as long as you didn't do that they worked fine.

I don't recall any power controls. Was that in the web menu or did you modify the hardware?

 

[ddrueding]

Most of the people who used those in the later years flashed the firmware to one of many 3rd party alternatives. All of these allowed you to pretty crazy on the transmit power (well outside FCC regs)

 

[Stereodude]

I don't recall any power controls. Was that in the web menu or did you modify the hardware?

Modified firmware, which is why people are still buying the 54GL.