1st off I know absoultly nothing about wireless routers.But I know im looking for one where I won’t have to reset it after a little while.Im looking for something in the 40-70 dollar range.So what is the best wireless router?Please post your experience with them thanks.peace
You might want to relocate or post this in the tech thread. You probably get a better answer there.
Depends what you want it for really? Ideally you want to use wired, especially for gaming. It’s just much better. If you just want it for using with a laptop or w/e then it shouldn’t really matter all that much. All in all though you can’t go wrong with a cisco or netgear
I personally use an Asus WL-520GU flashed with Tomato and the Teddy Bear mod. It’s a bit old and not wireless N, but its solid as hell IMO (and you can use the USB port for a print server)
I havent had many problems with Netgear or Belkin.
Dunno about Linksys routers nowadays; gave me quite a few problems in the past.
The biggest thing is to make sure to get a router you can put some decent firmware onto. A linksys with Tomato firmware works just great for example, but only some models can use it.
D-Link has always been solid with me. I had a D-Link Xtreme N 655 Router and it never gave me issues. I would leave it on for weeks and it wouldn’t twitch. My friend recently also bought a D-Link and for the past 2 weeks it’s been keeping his PS3 wireless without any issues.
I’ve been on a Linksys WRT150N for about a year and it had constant troubles. Daily I would be resetting it or re-establishing a wireless connection with it. I updated the firmware everytime a new one came out but it still always had issues. Ethernet wise it was fine, but the wireless SUCKED.
i’ve got a dlink dir-655… works great… i desperately need to update the firmware on it though, but being a “if it aint broke dont fix it” kinda guy, ive neglected it…
only time it crashes is if im downloading a torrent and my upload gets too high, something somewhere screws up (it could actually be my modem, and not the router).
it’s one i would recommend.
also a linksys WRT54GL is one that can be flashed with custom firmware. ive got one as a back and one i play around with custom firmwares on (the nicest one i found is tomato, as posted above).
i would like to ask about custom firmware.
what does it do?
Why Flash with Custom Firmware?
btw i have a Linksys WRT54GL i just need to figure out how to set it up right cause my ISP Provider is using “Automatic Configuration - DHCP”
I personally use a D-Link DGL-4300, has never given me any problems at all. My xbox360, ps3 and my computer is wired up to it, my sister and my wife’s laptop and my wii is connected through wireless. No problems what so ever. As for custom firmware, it adds functions that wasn’t included with the factory firmware or it could be more stable than a factory firmware. But then again, that’s just my opinion.
disconnection problems usually depends on your surroundings. this is because your router (most likely) is on a 2.4ghz freq band and other devices (ie. microwaves, cordless phones, neighbors routers, etc.) in/near your household are using the same band, causing interference. there are dual-band routers out there with both 2.4ghz and 5ghz, but these are double/triple your price range.
Custom firmware just allows your router (if supported) to have many more tweaks and options usually found in more expensive routers. Basically some nifty tricks like enabling your router to run in bridge mode (if you have another main wireless router - cheaper than buying an XBOX 360 wireless adapter) or (in Tomato’s case) QoS if you really want to tweak bandwidth allocation to your liking.
It’s not completely necessary though, and if you don’t have a problem with your router then there really isn’t a need to flash it.
I’m using a D-Link DIR-655, never any issues. Stay away from the firmware upgrades D-Link has put out for them, nothing but problems I’ve read about on dslreports.com forums. I had a Linksys before, but I can no longer recommend them, way too many issues, esp. with wireless…if you must get a linksys, get a WRT54GL so you can load 3rd party firmware.
My .02…
I swear by the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. After installing Tomato on it, it can do a hell of a number of things, such as tweeking the radio power output (don’t set it too high though), QoS, bandwidth monitoring, bridging/repeating, and other stuff. What differentiates it from the Linksys WRTG54 is the radio and the potential power output. It has the best range of any 802.11g router I’ve come across as well.
I’ve bought three of these bad boys and flashed em all with Tomato. I don’t regret it at all~
I’d say don’t order one online, just go to target/best buy/wal-mart and buy one and keep the receipt. Try it out for 2 weeks, and if it’s stable, keep it. It might be a little more expensive, but you can take it back so much more easily if it turns out to be a crappy one.
same here—> DIR-655 D-Link, set it up and never touched it since. Flawless
Came in here to suggest this as well. I love mine, flashed it with Tomato as well. I’m glad Buffalo settled that lawsuit or whatever it was that prevented them from selling them in the US for a while.
I use the Linksys WRT54G series (GL and G are popular and solid) along with DD-WRT firmware.
You can get these Linksys routers off of ebay for a decent price (under $50).
Here’s a few tips:
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You won’t need the 802.11n unless you’re doing some intense file moving from file servers, and even then, it’s still not often necessary. For the most part, 802.11g will fit your needs.
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The most practical use for custom firmware like DDWRT and Tomato are the following: using your router as a wireless receiver (so you can connect your PS3/xbox360 to that router, and the router will receive a signal from another router that is sending out the signal), setting up the router to organize packet data (like giving video packets highest priority or giving torrent streams lowest priority), and modifying power/processing speed on the router itself. You can do other fancy stuff like changing firewall settings and using a router as a web server, but there’s quite a lot of reading you’ll have to do to get these going (if they don’t interest you now, you probably won’t ever get into them due to the learning curve).
I don’t think you can go wrong between picking DD-WRT or Tomato. I heard DD-WRT had some licensing issues, so a lot of people moved to Tomato, but I believe it’s a non-issue at this point.