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Shopping for a wireless router!

H

hAppy

Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2005
Messages
624
Hey guys, I'm sure this question has been asked before. I did a search and can't find any thread on this topic.

So... my house will have another computer soon, and it will be way out of reach for a ethernet cable. So we decided on wireless. Now all my life, I never knew what good characteristics of a router were. I just picked one off the shelf regardless of speed or brand.

How do I know what is a good high speed router?
What should I stay away from when it comes to wireless routers, wireless network cards?
A good model to look into?
Is it easy to set it up, just like a regular router? How do I lock my internet and router from foreign computers, I don't want some random crazy guy joining the network and doing god knows what.

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys!
 
I have quite a few Linksys WRTG54g wireless networks running, little or no maintanence. I have had some problems getting win98/winME clients to get consistent connections with the linksys notebook adapters but XP no problems.
 
I have used several Linksys routers, never had any problem with any of them.
I would pickup a router that is 802.11G capable.

The router has dhcp, firewall, etc. turned on by default, so you shouldnt have to worry much. Just keep the firmware updated and you should be good to go.
 
My friend says Linksys and SBC doesn't mix very well. Is this true? I will look into the 802.11G thanks. How would I go about locking my network, so that people can't just randomly connect to my network?
 
hAppy said:
My friend says Linksys and SBC doesn't mix very well. Is this true? I will look into the 802.11G thanks. How would I go about locking my network, so that people can't just randomly connect to my network?
Click to expand...

Huh? This friend is just spewing garbage then. I use my WRT54G with SBC DSL just fine. The DSL modem doesn't give a shit what brand router it's connected to.

As fara s wifi security, I use WPA-PSK on mine.
 
Gotta put my hand up for my DLink DGL-4300. But the WRT54g is pretty nice if you are on a budget.
 
Does the transfer rate make a big difference? Seeing that the WRT54g is 54mbps, that's the lowest one isn't it? Thanks for the input guys.
 
Now that I think of it, I might just go ahead and grab that Netgear router. But I need to know if the transfer rate is good enough. I don't want to have any big regrets down the road later on.
 
hAppy said:
Now that I think of it, I might just go ahead and grab that Netgear router. But I need to know if the transfer rate is good enough. I don't want to have any big regrets down the road later on.
Click to expand...

b is 11mbs max
g is 54mbs max

n (which isn't offically standardized yet) is much higher.

802.11g has a nice combination of speed, security, and price right now.
 
Linksys is the only way to go when you are talking home level wireless. They simply destroy the competition. The only competitor that even comes close (if they could do a little something about the heat it would be great) is Dlink.

Linksys was bought out by Cisco, and Cisco is the world leader in networking products, bar none AFAIC. They know what they are doing. I use a Linksys wireless router as a wireless switch myself (and I have owned several Linksys routers, incidentally, FWIW) and I recommend them to all my clients as well.
 
Thanks for your input! I went out earlier and bought a Netgear WGU624 Double 108 Mbps. I have it installed and I have the slightest idea how to get it configured perfectly.

Right now there are 2 lights that blink, the A and the G, just blinking back and forth. I'm sure there's a way to tell it to just stay on G, cus I already bought a Wireless G PCI card. Also how do I set it so no one can hack or leech off my internet? For now I will just connect this computer directly to the modem.
 
hAppy said:
Right now there are 2 lights that blink, the A and the G, just blinking back and forth. I'm sure there's a way to tell it to just stay on G, cus I already bought a Wireless G PCI card. Also how do I set it so no one can hack or leech off my internet? For now I will just connect this computer directly to the modem.
Click to expand...

Most of the Netgear routers are fairly simple to admin through the web interface. You'll want to enable MAC address filters and the WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)
Also make sure "Enable SSID Broadcast" is unchecked (in other words don't broadcast).

As you go through the sections read the Help sections on the right side of the screen, they will (for the most part) walk you through what you need.
 
SirKenin said:
Linksys was bought out by Cisco, and Cisco is the world leader in networking products, bar none AFAIC. They know what they are doing.
Click to expand...

Yes, Cisco knows that they needed to get an in on the SOHO market that was passing them by due to the high cost of Cisco products. Don't get me wrong, I've installed more Linksys devices for family and friends than I care to think about but Linksys != Cisco. They might someday be on par but from what I've been reading since the purchase was that Cisco was going to let them mostly operate as normal for the foreseeable future, so that many of the great things about Cisco don't automatically become part of Linksys.
 
Malk-a-mite said:
Yes, Cisco knows that they needed to get an in on the SOHO market that was passing them by due to the high cost of Cisco products. Don't get me wrong, I've installed more Linksys devices for family and friends than I care to think about but Linksys != Cisco. They might someday be on par but from what I've been reading since the purchase was that Cisco was going to let them mostly operate as normal for the foreseeable future, so that many of the great things about Cisco don't automatically become part of Linksys.
Click to expand...
Right, I agree. But the thing about the merger is this. Cisco could have gone after any company but they chose Linksys. Don't think for a second that there wasn't significant research and considerable contemplation that went into this before it happened. That would include, of course, the quality of the product.

I for one am fine with Linksys continuing to operate as normal. They have done a fine job. Cisco was very smart to acquire them.
 
Malk-a-mite - Thanks for the info! My friend came over today and took a look at it, he said it's all fine. Like the default settings are good. Well I can't really tell on my own. But the Router MAC Address is set to Use Default MAC Address. And I turned off Enable SSID Broadcast on both A and G settings. And I don't really know what you mean by WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key), I don't know what to do with that, I don't even know where to find it.

So I turned off enable SSID broadcast, does that still make it possible for wanted wireless computers to connect to this router? If so how? Thanks for your help!
 
First off, it's a bit late here and I'm a bit tired so this isn't the best post... anyone else feel free to jump in and clear up things I'm being too vague on.

hAppy said:
So I turned off enable SSID broadcast, does that still make it possible for wanted wireless computers to connect to this router? If so how? Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

Not broadcasting the SSID makes it so people won't automatically see the wireless network, but with a little bit (very little) of effort they will be able to. So as far as the encryption goes there are two basic types, well three.
None at all, which is what you currently are using.
WEP - Wireless Encryption Protocol, which has some very large flaws in how it was designed and is able to be broken relatively easily.
WPA-PSK
You can read all about it on Netgear's web site: http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101190.asp
Or for a simpler explaination
"In simple terms, WPA-PSK is extra-strong encryption where encryption keys are automatically changed (called rekeying) and authenticated between devices after a specified period of time, or after a specified number of packets has been transmitted. "

On the Netgear routers you should have links on the left hand side of the web page that show Wireless Settings (one under Setup and one under Advanced).

Under Setup > Wireless settings you should see something like this:
wireless.jpg


The brief explaination of the options are on the right sidebar.
wireless_2.jpg


And then on your computer you'll need to access the properites of the wireless connection and setup the encryption there as well.
wireless_3.jpg
 
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