Router for decent $$$

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: unDummy
Just about any Netgear, Linksys, Dlink... router will be fine.
Since both of my laptops support "N", I picked up an "N" router. But, you can save some money($20) if your wireless card is only "G".

I've never had or seen issues with the above brands. They seem to be well supported with firmware updates from the factory.


D-Link is probably the WORST in terms of releasing firmware upgrades. WPA support? No, that router is a year old, it gets to keep 2005 firmware with WEP!

I've witnessed this OVER AND OVER AND OVER again with them. SMC is arguably just as bad.

They (SMC) had a high-powered (and expensive) G-router that would drop connections if encryption was used and you had a number of wireless clients. It would just stop giving out IP addresses to new clients. A hard-reset would get it "working", though the same limit still existed. This bug existed in ALL THREE firmware versions, it was a WELL DOCUMENTED ISSUE, and they simply DID NOT fix it. They just let it die off as the router became obsolete.

Given my area of employment, I get to deal with hundreds of these things annually. Some are great, some are not so great. I have a lovely story of a dead Linksys MIMO router that had to be sent back twice with a 30-day turn-around on it every time that eventually resulted in a version upgrade because the owner was going ballistic. My point is, that I deal with more routers in the course a week than most will touch in their life. It comes with the territory. And I'm not saying all the products from a certain brand are bad; they aren't! And many DO work great.

But from my position, it is very easy to plot the failures and the models of brands with failures and contrast them to each other to form a recommendation, which I have already done in this thread.

NETGEAR makes some very nice "business-grade" equipment for example; but you pay for it.

As far as consumer products go, the experience I have had with ASUS has been remarkable. That is why I recommend them.

I would NEVER recommend a D-Link product. They rank that lowly with me. If somebody couldn't get an ASUS, I'd tell them to get a Linksys or Netgear instead.

The WL-520GU that has been discussed in this thread is a fantastic device. And if there WAS an issue with Comcast compatibility, ASUS will have addressed it with a firmware upgrade already.

Comically, this device has been in production since '07. There have been 7 firmware releases since then, the most recent being the 14th of this month

 

[oilboy123]

Just pulled the trigger on the Asus WL520-GU

Thanks to guys

 

[StevieC]

You will be happy!

 

[oilboy123]

Originally Posted By: oilboy123


Thanks to guys

Must have been past my bedtime. I don't know where the "to" came from?

I will let you know how it works out......

 

[MysticGold04]

Wow... what a timely thread... my Netgear router just died I think... I had to put my Microsoft MN-700 router back into service. I did notice that it can run tomato, just need to see how to flash it.

 

[Brett Miller]

I've seen the Netgear Range Max for around $60. That's a real nice router for the price.

 

[mrsilv04]

What wireless adapters would be best to use with the ASUS WL-520GU?

I'm building my first wireless network from scratch. None of the 3 computers have ever been on a wireless network (all only have modems). Provider will be Comcast at this location.

All three computers are Dell desktops. One is running Vista, two are running XP.

Can I keep it simple and just go with USB Adapters?

 

[Colt45ws]

I don't use routers. I couldnt keep one running for more than three months semi-reliably. I now have a Old 1.8GHz Duron with 1GB of DDR and an 80GB Seagate running Gentoo Linux with Netfilter. It has three NICs, one is modem, one is to the LAN switch, and the other is bridged with the LAN and is connected to my Wireless access point. I can customize it for my needs. I have bandwidth monitoring, QoS, RADIUS authentication for my wireless, along with many other things going and it never chokes. Its been running for about 2 years now. Not continuously, but I just got around to putting it on an UPS.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
I don't use routers. I couldnt keep one running for more than three months semi-reliably. I now have a Old 1.8GHz Duron with 1GB of DDR and an 80GB Seagate running Gentoo Linux with Netfilter. It has three NICs, one is modem, one is to the LAN switch, and the other is bridged with the LAN and is connected to my Wireless access point. I can customize it for my needs. I have bandwidth monitoring, QoS, RADIUS authentication for my wireless, along with many other things going and it never chokes. Its been running for about 2 years now. Not continuously, but I just got around to putting it on an UPS.


Well, you DO use a router, you've just made one yourself

I've had numerous boxes over the years performing that role. IPCop is probably a favourite Linux OS of mine, though PFSense and Smoothwall are great as well.

Many of the newer wireless routers DO run Linux variants. The ASUS ones are an example of that. DD-WRT is a Linux router distro. It provides all of the features you mentioned but is of course deployable onto a much more compact piece of hardware.

 

[Colt45ws]

Yes, I agree with you on that. I have run routers before with DD-WRT and found it better than stock but still not great. One nice thing is I can upgrade without restarting. Just restart what ever sub-system was updated unless a bug or hole is found in the kernel, which is rare by now. I also run other things like IRC, WWW, and shells for several friends.
I have been thinking about getting a SATA card and a pair of 1TB hdds and doing a md (software) RAID 1 for storage.

 

[MysticGold04]

Originally Posted By: Brett Miller
I've seen the Netgear Range Max for around $60. That's a real nice router for the price.


That same router is the one that is toast I think.. (even though its on a UPS) It just stopped responding. I can communicate with it on the home network side, but it will not pass traffic on the ISP side. (Not releasing/renewing IP address) I think I paid close to $70 for it about 10 months ago. I'm kind of disappointed, as I read plenty of reviews on it and it seemed pretty good. I need to figure out if it's really broke, and if it is, contact Netgear before the warranty is up.

 

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
I have been thinking about getting a SATA card and a pair of 1TB hdds and doing a md (software) RAID 1 for storage.


Most decent MBs have on-board 2-channel SW RAID that is just as efficient as the carded solutions, if not quite as feature-laden. If you're going to spend $50-$150 for a Highpoint or Promise, you might as well spend more and get a genuine HW solution. The throughput difference is profound, to put it mildly.

The WD RE3s are nice array drives at the moment.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: Volvohead
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
I have been thinking about getting a SATA card and a pair of 1TB hdds and doing a md (software) RAID 1 for storage.


Most decent MBs have on-board 2-channel SW RAID that is just as efficient as the carded solutions, if not quite as feature-laden. If you're going to spend $50-$150 for a Highpoint or Promise, you might as well spend more and get a genuine HW solution. The throughput difference is profound, to put it mildly.
The WD RE3s are nice array drives at the moment.

Yes, but this MB does not have SATA on board, at all. It is that old.
I have a Expensive Highpoint in another computer that is a true HW. Has a processor and RAM on it. I think I paid like $200 or $300 after the onboard SW RAID 0+1 decided it didnt need to keep drives sync'd. Running RAID 5 on 4x 500GB Seagates. It does fly. Until I killed the computer it was connected to. Long story.