Yet another router question

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Oldmoparguy1

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I Recently installed Magic Jack and while it is working well, I find that my old D-link router has to be reset 2 or more times a week, to keep the voip working.

So, I need to get a new router. After reading lots of customer reviews on Newegg, I don't know what to think. If I believe what people are reporting, there is an unacceptable high failure rate on routers purchased in the last few months, apparently across all makes and models.

I need something that will run unattended for weeks at a time and will last more then a few weeks.

If this old $30 D-link will run for 5 years without going belly up, I don't think it's too much to expect that a new $100 router will do as well.

Any and all advice/suggestions are welcome.

Wayne
 
Not really a fan of D link.

I have and have had for a couple years is the Linksys WRT54GL the (L) part of this router is the main part because in runs on Linux and I have found it to be more reliable than the proprietary OS on the Linksys stuff now a days.

I make my living as a network engineer, so quite often I am called upon by friends and family to solve their home networking issues. I have not seen anyone happy with D-link yet. I dont know if you can still get the Linksys WRT54GL but it gets my vote!

I have bought several off of NewEgg but it has been a while since I have purchased one.

I am running a Cisco Airespace setup in my home now and it is simply amazing however these are rather cost prohibitive and I only got it because I won a drawing at a vendor workshop. We also run these in a few of our Enterpeise site locations.
 
I second heavyhitter's Linksys WRT54GL recommendation. If you do not need 802.11n, WRT54GL is a rock solid WAP.

Although new Cisco based OS is not bad either, it is based on VxWorks OS. Several newer Vx based Linksys WAP are merrily chugging along.

BTW, HH - I had to google what the heck Airespace was, I am much more familiar with model numbers LOL
 
1. Get the GL, OR get it's evil older brother the wrt54g-tm
2. Then load tomato on it.
3. ???
4. Profit

I use tomato for my verizon fios router and it handles my torrents, eve online, and my two girl roomies doing research/facebook/streaming online tv without even blinking.

Learn about its QoS features if you get choppy phone with default settings.
 
A lot of the cheapo home/office routers have pretty marginal or outright bad support for QoS which can bite you in the fanny with VOIP. So if you need VOIP in the home, avoid the bottom feeder routers. For typical wireless access point stuff at my home, I've been using a D-Link DIR-628 and sometimes a DIR-655 and they seem to work just great for me. I've also got some Cisco Catalyst enterprise class switches and Aironet access points that I typically deploy for consulting customers, but they're overkill for a typical home user and over-the-top expensive for that environment.
 
Linksys WRT54GL without question.
01.gif


I've had mine for years and it never has been down. Works fine with HIGH Speed fiber with no issues.

And I've installed about a dozen of these around the neighborhood. As close to plug and play as it gets.


Bill
 
I bought a Linksys WRT54G back in April to replace my old D-link 524. It worked for about 6 weeks then failed. Won't connect to the internet. I'm still using the D-link.

I've heard of so many others like my experience with Linksys that I don't have any confidence in Linksys.
 
Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
Quote:
Learn about its QoS features if you get choppy phone with default settings.


What is QoS??


Quality of Service -- You can set it, for example, to prioritize VOIP traffic (by specifying the ports used by VOIP programs) over bittorrent downloads or web traffic.
 
Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
I bought a Linksys WRT54G back in April to replace my old D-link 524. It worked for about 6 weeks then failed. Won't connect to the internet. I'm still using the D-link.

I've heard of so many others like my experience with Linksys that I don't have any confidence in Linksys.


Guess all of us here who are recommending it (after YEARS of perfect service) are just lucky then....
21.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
I bought a Linksys WRT54G back in April to replace my old D-link 524. It worked for about 6 weeks then failed. Won't connect to the internet. I'm still using the D-link.

I've heard of so many others like my experience with Linksys that I don't have any confidence in Linksys.


Guess all of us here who are recommending it (after YEARS of perfect service) are just lucky then....
21.gif



I'd expect that routers - and any and all other consumer electronics - that are at the more affordable end of the spectrum are probably made with cheaper components, with less R & D, and much less testing and quality control than more expensive units. This means that sometimes you get an incredible value out of a cheap product, and other times you have something fail after little use. In either case, cheaper products will not usually stand up to heavy use for very long.

The overall point is that quality is *not* a constant at the lower end; so therefore *yes*, you've been lucky. (I have a $30 scanner that has served me very well over the years!)

In the audio recording world, in the last 15 years or so there has been a massive influx of cheap, Chinese made microphones. It is generally thought that if you buy 10 of them, test them and pick the 1 or 2 best and return the rest (because, in spite of the fact that they all came from the same plant, probably on the same day from the same parts and design, all 10 will likely have slightly different tones and timbres), you can very well end up with some nice microphones for under $200. Will they sound the same in 2 years? Probably not!
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
I bought a Linksys WRT54G back in April to replace my old D-link 524. It worked for about 6 weeks then failed. Won't connect to the internet. I'm still using the D-link.

I've heard of so many others like my experience with Linksys that I don't have any confidence in Linksys.


Guess all of us here who are recommending it (after YEARS of perfect service) are just lucky then....
21.gif



I'd expect that routers - and any and all other consumer electronics - that are at the more affordable end of the spectrum are probably made with cheaper components, with less R & D, and much less testing and quality control than more expensive units. This means that sometimes you get an incredible value out of a cheap product, and other times you have something fail after little use. In either case, cheaper products will not usually stand up to heavy use for very long.

The overall point is that quality is *not* a constant at the lower end; so therefore *yes*, you've been lucky. (I have a $30 scanner that has served me very well over the years!)

In the audio recording world, in the last 15 years or so there has been a massive influx of cheap, Chinese made microphones. It is generally thought that if you buy 10 of them, test them and pick the 1 or 2 best and return the rest (because, in spite of the fact that they all came from the same plant, probably on the same day from the same parts and design, all 10 will likely have slightly different tones and timbres), you can very well end up with some nice microphones for under $200. Will they sound the same in 2 years? Probably not!

This is what I have gotten from them too. But I got tired of trying to find one that would work right. My current solution has been chugging along for 22000 hours with no problems.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've been running a cheap netgear (w614 i think) for a few years at home without any problems with magicjack or anything else. I only replaced it with an apple time capsule for the backup ability.

I'll probably take the old one to my other house and use it there instead of traveling with the router as I always have.
 
Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
I bought a Linksys WRT54G back in April to replace my old D-link 524. It worked for about 6 weeks then failed. Won't connect to the internet. I'm still using the D-link.

I've heard of so many others like my experience with Linksys that I don't have any confidence in Linksys.


Your experience with Linksys echoes mine. I've replaced piles of them, typically with ASUS units, but not always.
 
Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
I Recently installed Magic Jack and while it is working well, I find that my old D-link router has to be reset 2 or more times a week, to keep the voip working.

So, I need to get a new router. After reading lots of customer reviews on Newegg, I don't know what to think. If I believe what people are reporting, there is an unacceptable high failure rate on routers purchased in the last few months, apparently across all makes and models.

I need something that will run unattended for weeks at a time and will last more then a few weeks.

If this old $30 D-link will run for 5 years without going belly up, I don't think it's too much to expect that a new $100 router will do as well.

Any and all advice/suggestions are welcome.

Wayne


Wayne:

Do you need wireless? I see no mention of it in your post. If not, and you want THE most reliable routing setup you are going to come across for anything even close to resembling affordable:

Build one.

I know, that sounds insane. But it really isn't. If you have an older PC kicking around, slapping another NIC in it and putting a firewall distro like PFSense, IPCop or Smoothwall on it will give you a hardware firewall with vastly more power, more flexibility and more configurability than any consumer-grade router is going to give you.

Otherwise, grab an ASUS WL-520GU.
 
I had 2 linksys wrt54g's one died after 4 years, another I still have as a backup. I had a wrt54g2 that died 2 weeks after I got it.
I now have another one (wrt54g) its been ok for a year now.

dont get me started on dlink [censored](low end models)

I'd buy something new with good reviews.. chances are about 90% it will work good for you.. if not return for another one.. or a different one.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone for the info/suggestions. I'm still looking yet.
I just reset it every couple of days. I have to do it anyway because the wifi fails in the same way.
 
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