Wireless Router info

sam(slim)

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Ok I'm looking to buy a wirelees router system for the house. What specs should i be looking for? What are some of you using?

Thanks For any info.
 
I know the Lynksys Wireless G seems to be the go-to router for most people, but mine is a turd. I'm tired of dealing with the friggin taliban just to keep the damn thing working.
 
In my limited experience, D-link has been the best product for the money. Reliable, affordable, and easier to set up than Linksys. That's just been my experience, though. I've only set up a handful of networks over the years.
 
BRUISER said:
I have used both.. and D-link is pretty easy to use
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^^Ditto!^^

We have several that we give to folks that (for whatever reason) need to work from home short term... if the PhD crowd can figure out the setup, you'll be fine (unless it's their kids doing for them? :lol: )

If you need a hand, give me a yell... have checked out your new digs or the ranger in a long time.
 
Caver Dave said:
... if the PhD crowd can figure out the setup, you'll be fine (unless it's there kids doing for them? :lol: )
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Why ya gotta bust on the PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) crowd?? Just 'cause we have our heads in the clowds and up our asses dosn't mean we're ALL idiots. Just need a little bringin' down to earth sometimes.... :flipoff2:

I've had a Linksys, a D-link, and now using a Belkin $30 best Buy special, quick 15 min replacement when the D-link died.
Honestly for doing a home network and just using it to get to the 'net, they're pretty much all the same.
Just be sure to get one that is at least "802.11g" (not "b") compatible and you'll be fine.
Keep in mind whether you need to physically connect any PCs to it (e.g. have a PC w/o wireless), some of the cheaper ones are wireless only, but most have 4 ports + the wireless function.
 
For my home set up distance is important. And the Linksys G (I can get full model number when I get home) Was far superior in my personal testing here.
 
SkyHiK5 said:
For my home set up distance is important. And the Linksys G (I can get full model number when I get home) Was far superior in my personal testing here.
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Check out a D-link DWL-7700 if you want am impressive piece of equipment. We use them at work to get wireless access in paper mills. Can be mounted outside, comes in a really nice, thick aluminum case, and looks awesome.
 
any $40 best buy router will work fine....

personally i dislike linksys but that's just me.

netgear are a bit more work to setup but if you don't have neighbors really close then decuring your network is a waste of time and any router can simply be plugged in for instant access with no setup required.
 
catfishblues said:
In my limited experience, D-link has been the best product for the money. Reliable, affordable, and easier to set up than Linksys. That's just been my experience, though. I've only set up a handful of networks over the years.
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As far as D-link goes for me they have been nothing but pilesof crap. I went through 3 in the last 3 years. I now have a linksys
 
I setup and/or troubleshoot several routers a month. By far, for the cheap stuff, I see far less troubles with Linksys. I have had more D-links act flakey or be outright DOA. Most of my big clients run Sonicwalls. Get more than a couple or three PC's running on the Internet, and you can see a speed difference in a good router...the cheap stuff becomes a bottleneck.

Wireless, you ought to be setting up at least WEP security. It's easy to do, and keeps your neighbors off your system. I had a service call last week, guy couldn't link to his computer/printer upstairs. He was latching onto his neighbors system, not his router. From his downstairs PC, the wireless card could see 5 other routers...all of them open with no security.

If some basement freak neighbor downloads kiddie porn thru your unsecured wireless, who's door is the FBI gonna knock on, your's or his?? They know where your IP leads...
 
Ridgerunner said:
As far as D-link goes for me they have been nothing but pilesof crap. I went through 3 in the last 3 years. I now have a linksys
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and I'm 100% the other way around.. nothing but trouble from Linksys.

on another note - anyone using the new stuff, the N? better range? I'm gonna want wireless signal out in the shop...
 
Linksys 802.11 G here w/ zero problems......running laptop, two 360's & a desktop.
 
Rich said:
on another note - anyone using the new stuff, the N? better range? I'm gonna want wireless signal out in the shop...
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Does the "N" spec have anything about range? I thought it was related to compression/connection speed. But I'm not exactly an authority on these things.

I have seen some fairly creative methods of boosting signals, mostly on the receiving sife (e.g. fabbing up dish-shaped antennae, etc). And there's always a repeater.
 
sam(slim) said:
I have noticed the some of the N models are rated at a higher Mbps.
What do you think of this one.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...outer&lp=2&type=product&cp=2&id=1173577562535
Thanks for all the info.
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the thing about Mbps is that it really doesn't matter too much...

802.11b is 11MB, g is 54MB and n is something like the 300MB you posted in that link...

if you're running RoadRunner, you're not seeing anything over 10MB anyway (probably half that or less)...so the bottleneck is your "high speed" internet, not the speed of the router...as far as surfing, uploading, downloading...

the speed would make a difference if you were transfering a lot of stuff from your laptop to the PC plugged into the router...

g does have a longer range than b...and I'd guess n may be better than g...

Greg
 
My last unit was a D-Link and it worked well until that night of the thunder storm ..... I replaced it with a Link-Sys wrt54g. The linksys OS is ass, disconnecting, hanging, etc...I re-imaged the flash memory with a new OS from dd-wrt.com and the thing is bulletproof.
 
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