Wireless Router Recommendations

[Will Rickards]

I know there was a thread around here somewhere about wireless router recommendations.... anybody point me there? Search didn't seem to turn up what I seemed to remember.

My uncle's work is going to pay for wireless router and PC card for his laptop so his broadband internet (comcast cable) is shared and isn't hogged by the kids. His connection is in his basement and I assume he would want to use the laptop on the ground floor and the second floor if possible. His buddies at work said D-link or Linksys. He says he'll call me so we can go get it. I'll hook it all up.

Secondly, eventually (a couple months) I'll be going back to broadband myself and have the shiny new toy^H^H^H laptop with the wireless built-in (centrino platform). So obviously I want to get a router myself. I've setup a few of these, so that isn't an issue. I don't play or plan to play games so that isn't an issue. I just want security against neighbors and a good firewall built-in. If it has a print server to share my printer that is a bonus but not required at all.

Let the wisdom flow!

 

[Stereodude]

I have an older D-link myself. DI-624+ It does the 22Mbps flavor of 802.11b (which of course is no longer supported). The only redeeming thing is that it was $9.99.

I am also looking for a new wireless router because my new Dell has 802.11g/b built in and it's painfully slow on the 802.11b network.

So, if you don't mind, I'll join in asking your question as well.

I've looked at G, Super G solutions, A + G solutions, A + super G solutions and can't seem to decide. I would think that the A + super G would be the most future proof, but they're coming out with new formats all the time. The other thing is in my case the notebook only has standard G built in, not super G, so would I be better off getting the A + G solution and skipping the Super G?

 

[Mercutio]

I anti-recommend DLink 802.11 products. They're bad, and bad in really, really stupid ways.

Example: Hard coded intenal LAN addresses. That's right. I hope you wanted to be 192.168.0.x!

I'd suggest Netgear or Linksys. Linksys products have obnoxiously short warranties but are otherwise my choice for affordability and very full feature sets. I just don't have anything bad to say about Netgear.

I prefer 802.11A for home use. The shorter range makes "A" equipment less risky IMO than B/G (no weirdos browsing off your network from five houses away), although it's obviously still important to properly secure A-based WLANs. Since you probably have less 5GHz equipment around the house, A networks tend to have slightly more reliable connections, too.

"Super B/G" products aren't all they're cracked up to be. From my experience, there's minimal subjective speed difference, even when copying files, the connections are subject to more interference, and most vendors require that you use co-branded products (DLink AP + DLink NIC). Boo. Hiss.

 

[blakerwry]

i've setup 2 netgear 802.11b routers (both model MR814v2) both have worked flawlessly. The one thing I do notice is that signal strength never seems to go above ~85%.

I am using really cheap NICs, one is a gigafast 802.11b PCMCIA and the other is a trendware PCI 802.11b based on the realtek 8180 chipset.



The linksys gear is interesting because of the open source firmware which has lead to a couple people building custom firmware for some of the routers...I also like the detachable antennas they seem to have. But you'll pay extra for the linksys gear (as much as 50%)


I wouldn't hesitate to buy either netgear or linksys products.

 

[P5-133XL]

Netgear has removable antenna's - Good for extending ranges.
Linksys does not have removable antenna's
Linksys WRT54G has disconnect issues

Netgear seems to make their router non-firmware upgradeable - i.e. 4 different HW versions (same model number) of the router wrg614 with no updated firmware for any of them and the feature sets improving with the different versions. So to get updated features you need to buy a new unit rather than upgrade (very annoying).

NetGear tends to cost less than Linksys

 

[mubs]

Mark - in the thread you linked to, please see my posts. I've not had the disconnect problems with the WRT54G. If you Google for this, you'll find that for most people, issues go away with the latest FW / drivers / MS OS patches. The other models I know nothing about.

 

[Fushigi]

I recently picked up the Netgear WTG624. Been working great so far and from certain etailers it has a $25 rebate (through June 30), which made my cost about $65.

Signal strength has been excellent on both my laptop (using an also-new Netgear WG511T) in G-mode and my wife's PC upstairs, which uses a D-link USB B-mode thumb-NIC.

Likes: Easy setup, WPA & WEP support, firmware upgrades available & the router can be set to get them automatically (checks every day or whatever), firewall, etc. I set it to only recognize the MACs of my wireless devices to greatly reduce the odds of someone hacking in. The 4-port switch is 4+uplink (to some, it's 3+uplink). No interference with or from my 2.4GHz cordless phone base station (Siemens Gigaset 8825), which is only about 4 feet away. Large, distinctive lights so you can see what's going on from a distance (the activity lights for the switch, for example, are the numerals 1 through 4).

Dislikes: It's really WEP or WPA as you can't do both at the same time. Super-G only available if no B-mode devices are used. 1 year warranty.

It does logging and other stuff I've had no use for so far like emailing if it thinks theres a hack attempt going on.

 

[P5-133XL]

Mark - in the thread you linked to, please see my posts. I've not had the disconnect problems with the WRT54G. If you Google for this, you'll find that for most people, issues go away with the latest FW / drivers / MS OS patches. The other models I know nothing about.

Fair enough. If it has been fixed through firmware then no problem.

I recently picked up the Netgear WTG624. Been working great so far and from certain etailers it has a $25 rebate (through June 30), which made my cost about $65.

Signal strength has been excellent on both my laptop (using an also-new Netgear WG511T) in G-mode and my wife's PC upstairs, which uses a D-link USB B-mode thumb-NIC.

Likes: Easy setup, WPA & WEP support, firmware upgrades available & the router can be set to get them automatically (checks every day or whatever), firewall, etc. I set it to only recognize the MACs of my wireless devices to greatly reduce the odds of someone hacking in. The 4-port switch is 4+uplink (to some, it's 3+uplink). No interference with or from my 2.4GHz cordless phone base station (Siemens Gigaset 8825), which is only about 4 feet away. Large, distinctive lights so you can see what's going on from a distance (the activity lights for the switch, for example, are the numerals 1 through 4).

Dislikes: It's really WEP or WPA as you can't do both at the same time. Super-G only available if no B-mode devices are used. 1 year warranty.

It does logging and other stuff I've had no use for so far like emailing if it thinks theres a hack attempt going on.

I originally choose the Netgear WGR614 (the 50Mbps version - The WTG624 is the 108Mbps version) and while it technically supports both WEP and WPA my firmware version does not. I have version 1.0 of the HW and only version 4.0 of the HW supports them WPA. To my great annoyance Netgear has not felt the need to upgrade the firmware on my HW version. It easy to use and setup and I have had no problems with it. I don't gave a 2.4GHz phone to test for interferance.

 

[Stereodude]

So, it looks like D-link it is

 

[Stereodude]

ARGH!!!! D-link has Xtreme G 108Mbps (108G mode) on their better G/B units, their A/G/B units have 108AG mode, but not 108G mode. Why can't they make something that supports both? Even the PC cards can't do both.

Morons...

 

[Mercutio]

There's another thread about APs in the Tech Support forum here.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Thanks merc, that was the thread I was thinking of.

So it looks like the newer netgear WTG624 is the way to go for me, maybe the cheaper WTG614 is the way to go for my uncle.

 

[sechs]

I have a Belkin 802.11G router, and it works quite well.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I've setup a belkin before, my sister has it.
My brother-in-law spent some time trying to get it to work and going back to the store to talk to the guy before they called me in. I had it setup in like 5 minutes. Biggest problem was finding the right IP for the router to get into the setup.

Had some strangeness with one of the belkin USB clients though.
It just would not work.... then I switched usb ports and it works fine. Scanner was in the other usb port. I spent a good while trying to get it to work before switching the usb ports.

My sister had to vpn into work with it and it wasn't working with the firewall turned on and I didn't have enough time to fix it correctly so I turned the firewall off. I was spending most of my time cleaning up the spyware and other crap on the PC's.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Good news is I converted them to firebird while I was there.
Haven't been back to switch them to firefox.

 

[Stereodude]

Are there any sites that benchmark these things? Like how fast they are when a 802.11B client is on the network, and when they're all G, etc?

 

[Stereodude]

like http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Netgea...outer/4505-3319_16-30551639-4.html?tag=review

 

[Buck]

I have set up several D-Link wireless networks, including my own at home, and I have not had any problems. I have also used products from Netgear, LinkSys and Netopia, and they have been mostly fuss free except for LinkSys. I have had wireless connectivity issues, and when switching to D-Link the problem was resolved.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

So we are heading out tonight and I think I'm going to go for the netgear MR814 instead. I only have a b based card already so the added speed won't do me any good. Seems like it will meet my needs. And it has two rebates at best buy taking it from 69 to $29.
Any other recommendations for a b only router?
This one has the following limitations I am wary about:
No ability to stop broadcast so everybody will still see my network even though they can't get on.
No WPA only WEP auth.
It does have the MAC address limitation capability though.

My uncle will be able to get the higher end router since his company is re-imbursing him for it.

 

[blakerwry]

amazon has the mr814 for $45-$20 Mail-in-rebate = $25 with free shipping....

comes with 5.01 firmware most likely

 

[Will Rickards WT]

well it went as planned.
I got the MR814v2 (hook it up saturday)
he got the WGR614v3 (hooked it up last night)

It installed and worked without any configuration.
I updated the firmware on the router to the latest and the configuration utility for the wireless card WG511. However, although I am able to enable WAP on the router, there is no place to specify that in the wireless cards configuration utility. So I turned on 128bit WEP.

 

[sechs]

You need a suplicant for WPA. Windows XP provides one via one of its updates; you must pay for all others.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Ahh... a little research on netgear.com revealed Funk Software...
An article here gave me a link. So $50 bucks additional if he wants to use WPA on windows 2000.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Ahhh sweet broadband!
RCN rocks.