Recommend me a new Router

This weekend I changed the stock firmware on my TL-WR1043ND to dd-wrt . The stock firmware was fine except for two annoying things .The web interface becomes inaccessible a day after reset and when it does work every config change requires a lengthy reset procedure.

I liked the fact I could change the wireless speed profiles in the stock firmware but it's not a big factor. The wifi speed is about the same .

You might consider installing dd-wrt on your N66U (it seems compatible). You should also have a drawer plan in case you brick it ( not that likely) because being without internet can be a pain. I think dd-wrt is fairly stable but i still saw the router in the living room (dir-615) "hiccup" and reset itself. Luckly dd-wrt recovers quickly after reset.

I have an older D-Link Gamers Lounge router that quit tonight. Up to now, I have never had an issue.

In doing some light skimming here I am pondering the Asus N66 or N56.

I am pretty lost when it comes to home networking. Well... Maybe. I am running An older WRT54 with dd wrt as a WAP for my Xbox 360.

My desktop is hardwired to the router. All other laptops, iPhones, iPads and video gaming devices are wireless. We do not stream Netflix and I do not torrent.

Is the N56 a suitable replacement? My feeling is that the horsepower of the N66 is too much. But then again, I am probably not maximizing my home network potential.

Either way, I need a new router. I might also need help making the most of my home network for the variety of devices we have.

I'd appreciate any help!

My router is an older WRT45GL and it's starting to hit it's limits. I share the router with everyone else in the house and it has performed just fine for many years. Recently however it seems to be overloaded by the sheer number of devices connected to the wifi. A couple years back you could expect each roommate to have one laptop or one PC. But now with Iphones and Ipads and smartphones and what have you it's starting to buckle under the strain.

A couple years ago the WRT45GL running Tomato was sort of the "standard" for a simple home router. Well now they don't even make them anymore. So could someone point me towards what is considered the new hotness?

Asus RT-N66U.

One of us! One of us!

no, seriously-- this thing is a beast. Super-fast, dual-band (2.4GHz & 5GHz simultaneously), solid stock firmware (after an update). I haven't had any issues with it since I got mine in... May, I think? Haven't even seen a need to install any outside firmware-- the stock stuff works perfectly fine for basic needs. I'll usually have at least 6 devices connected and pulling on bandwidth (2 phones, a laptop, a desktop, a TV and at least one console at any given time), and haven't noticed any significant lag in online gaming or Netflix. I can also stream 720p video from my desktop to the laptop or PS3 with very little buffering time, if any at all.

Loaded up Tomato USB on a Asus RT-N66U. Super easy and so far so good.

Buffalo was crippled in a patent lawsuit a few years ago, and weren't able to ship routers for several years until they eventually won the suit. So they've lost a lot of ground in terms of marketshare and mindspace, but just before they were taken out of the game, they were making some of the best wireless routers you could buy.

I don't have any direct experience with their current stuff, but the hardware in their old routers was much better than the competition for a pretty similar price. They're likely worth strong consideration, if you're in the market.

My netgear 54G (614 family?) just croaked this morning (after a solid 6+ years of service) before we left for a weekend trip. Is the Asus RT something we can easily find at Best Buy?

Doesn't look like it

Edit: It's available for shipping, just not in-store pickup.

trueheart78 wrote:

Doesn't look like it :(

One of us! One of us!!! WWBD?

Edit: The B is for Batman.

Boo Will have to see if we didn't toss Demyx's flaky router when I get home. Hopefully we can hobble along on that while waiting for Amazon.

Last night put my Belkin Wireless G into access-point mode and plug it into my Dlink DIR-655 b/g/n router. Then inset the Dlink to n-only mode. I wanted to get the 802.11n speed for my wife's MBP and our iPhone 4ses.

Since, seems networking on my iPhone is actually slower. The routers are right next to each other. Should I expect they'd interfere with each other?

The g network is handling Netflix via PS3 and Wii just fine, so if there is interference, it seems only Belkin -> Dlink.

Thoughts?

Found Demyx's old router but I'm probably going to pull the trigger on one of the Asus ones just because we had issues with this one at her old apartment. However, Amazon is saying that Asus has an 802.11ac version of 66U line. Not totally sure if it's worth dipping for that yet. Nothing with have can use AC, and that probably won't change for another year or two (iPhone or Macbook air upgrades). The Wii U is using N and I doubt Sony/MS are going to support AC. But we're likely to keep running ethernet for the consoles if we have the option.

Any thoughts on AC? I'm leaning toward waiting (and saving about $30) but I'd like to know if there's a good reason to buy now.

EDIT: Disregard. Ordered the N version from Newegg since Amazon doesn't exactly have them in stock right now.

muraii wrote:

Last night put my Belkin Wireless G into access-point mode and plug it into my Dlink DIR-655 b/g/n router. Then inset the Dlink to n-only mode. I wanted to get the 802.11n speed for my wife's MBP and our iPhone 4ses.

Since, seems networking on my iPhone is actually slower. The routers are right next to each other. Should I expect they'd interfere with each other?

The g network is handling Netflix via PS3 and Wii just fine, so if there is interference, it seems only Belkin -> Dlink.

Thoughts?

Since they're both operating on the 2.4ghz band, they could interfere. If you haven't already, try setting them to different channels, ideally either 1, 6, or 11. If that doesn't help, placing the routers as far apart as possible might be your only hope.

Chairman_Mao wrote:
muraii wrote:

Last night put my Belkin Wireless G into access-point mode and plug it into my Dlink DIR-655 b/g/n router. Then inset the Dlink to n-only mode. I wanted to get the 802.11n speed for my wife's MBP and our iPhone 4ses.

Since, seems networking on my iPhone is actually slower. The routers are right next to each other. Should I expect they'd interfere with each other?

The g network is handling Netflix via PS3 and Wii just fine, so if there is interference, it seems only Belkin -> Dlink.

Thoughts?

Since they're both operating on the 2.4ghz band, they could interfere. If you haven't already, try setting them to different channels, ideally either 1, 6, or 11. If that doesn't help, placing the routers as far apart as possible might be your only hope.

Yeah, I have a DIR-655 and an belkin n+ (replaced the 655 that got it's wired WLAN and #1 ports fried) router and tried doing that and had major performance issues. Never thought to disable one until I had it all packed up. Would like to hear the results. I also could never access the DIR-655 once I disabled DHCP.

Performance seems okay. I haven't changed channels yet. However, this will be simple because it's easy to get to either router once I assigned the Belkin (the AP in this setup) a static address.

I'll definitely post more. One anecdotal observation: the g network feels faster. I guess a mixed g/n network can be slower than a dedicated g network, maybe? Or perhaps I had the DIR-655 in b/g/n mode and my laptop was on b instead of g.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

:D One of us! One of us!!! WWBD?

Edit: The B is for Batman.

Well that was a snap to setup. Plus we finally have 802.11n! Thanks for the recommendation everyone

shoptroll wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

:D One of us! One of us!!! WWBD?

Edit: The B is for Batman.

Well that was a snap to setup. Plus we finally have 802.11n! Thanks for the recommendation everyone :)

Very cool! Enjoy looking at all the real time graphs and whatnot. Also, inSSIDer is fun to run so you can see what all the networks around you are doing including yours.

Doing both those things makes wireless networking less mysterious.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Doesn't look like it :(

One of us! One of us!!! WWBD?

Edit: The B is for Batman.

I don't know. I'm not great at network stuff, just software.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Very cool! Enjoy looking at all the real time graphs and whatnot. Also, inSSIDer is fun to run so you can see what all the networks around you are doing including yours.

Doing both those things makes wireless networking less mysterious.

I knew there was something I forgot to do last night! Will have to do that this weekend to confirm we're on a good channel.

Also I need to read up on the "guest network" feature. Really hoping that means I can setup a WEP key for my DS to use for the older games.

muraii wrote:

Performance seems okay. I haven't changed channels yet. However, this will be simple because it's easy to get to either router once I assigned the Belkin (the AP in this setup) a static address.

I'll definitely post more. One anecdotal observation: the g network feels faster. I guess a mixed g/n network can be slower than a dedicated g network, maybe? Or perhaps I had the DIR-655 in b/g/n mode and my laptop was on b instead of g.

When you say "feels faster", what do you mean? Latency? Or transfer speed? Even on a mixed network, which you are right can be slower than a dedicated one, n should still feel faster.

Chairman_Mao wrote:
muraii wrote:

Performance seems okay. I haven't changed channels yet. However, this will be simple because it's easy to get to either router once I assigned the Belkin (the AP in this setup) a static address.

I'll definitely post more. One anecdotal observation: the g network feels faster. I guess a mixed g/n network can be slower than a dedicated g network, maybe? Or perhaps I had the DIR-655 in b/g/n mode and my laptop was on b instead of g.

When you say "feels faster", what do you mean? Latency? Or transfer speed? Even on a mixed network, which you are right can be slower than a dedicated one, n should still feel faster.

Well, I'm unsophisticated, but by "feels faster" I mean my a/b/g laptop loads a web site noticeably more quickly in the g-only Belkin than on the (b)/g/n-mixed Dlink. Interestingly, the n-capable devices (iPhones and MBP) don't seem to load sites more quickly, and seem to load more slowly at times. Very anecdotal, of course. I'll play with channels (may download inSSIDer and boot into Windows to look around) and then report back.

shoptroll wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Very cool! Enjoy looking at all the real time graphs and whatnot. Also, inSSIDer is fun to run so you can see what all the networks around you are doing including yours.

Doing both those things makes wireless networking less mysterious.

I knew there was something I forgot to do last night! Will have to do that this weekend to confirm we're on a good channel.

Also I need to read up on the "guest network" feature. Really hoping that means I can setup a WEP key for my DS to use for the older games.

The Asus firmware is pretty good about auto switching to the best channel. It actively checks and changes. Anyways, you'll see when you have a look at inSSIDer. I ended up leaving it on auto. I haven't played with the guest network option.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

The Asus firmware is pretty good about auto switching to the best channel. It actively checks and changes. Anyways, you'll see when you have a look at inSSIDer. I ended up leaving it on auto. I haven't played with the guest network option.

Good to know. Now if I can only figure out why Windows is still saying my desktop is on a 100 mbps wired connection even if I switch to Gigabit Full Duplex :\

So, I also took the plunge and upgraded from an aging Netgear WRT54g to ASUS RT-N66U, but I can't seem to find where I can plug in the Static DNS that I'd like to assign. Documentation is pretty thin, and I'd prefer to stay on stock firmware for the moment (save upgrading to Tomato or DDWRT for a weekend project).

I've been loving Google's DNS servers, since they're so much more reliable than Comcast's...

EDIT: Found it! Advanced Settings -> WAN, under the Internet Connection tab, in the WAN DNS Setting section, switch "Connect to DNS Server automatically?" to "No", and then you can fill in DNS Server 1 and 2.

Nice. I'm glad I didn't have to start poking around myself.

shoptroll wrote:

Found Demyx's old router but I'm probably going to pull the trigger on one of the Asus ones just because we had issues with this one at her old apartment. However, Amazon is saying that Asus has an 802.11ac version of 66U line. Not totally sure if it's worth dipping for that yet. Nothing with have can use AC, and that probably won't change for another year or two (iPhone or Macbook air upgrades). The Wii U is using N and I doubt Sony/MS are going to support AC. But we're likely to keep running ethernet for the consoles if we have the option.

Any thoughts on AC? I'm leaning toward waiting (and saving about $30) but I'd like to know if there's a good reason to buy now.

EDIT: Disregard. Ordered the N version from Newegg since Amazon doesn't exactly have them in stock right now.

The ac66u is in stock at amazon now. I don't see why not get AC since it still supports N as well and then when we do get an AC device, we don't have to replace the router.

shoptroll wrote:

Now if I can only figure out why Windows is still saying my desktop is on a 100 mbps wired connection even if I switch to Gigabit Full Duplex :

Not sure if this is the right location to ask, but I did a little more poking around about the above issue, and unless Belkin was shipping Cat5 in a Cat6 bag this should be working. As best I can tell right now it's looking like my surge protector isn't Cat6 compatible. Is that possible? I know the spec has a slightly differing wiring schematic, but has anyone else run into similar issues with setting up Gigabit ethernet?

Yeah, that's possible. Fast Ethernet uses only four wires, where GigE uses all eight. If your surge strip is only connecting four, you probably won't be able to exceed 100Mbit speed.

pcper.com did a very extensive review of the RT-N66U. The main reason I'm mentioning it is that they linked to an ASUS site with a dummy version of the firmware. So, for anyone interested in a new router, it's worth having a look at how the firmware GUI looks and works.