• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Suggestions for wireless n router?

T

tyguy

Gawd
Joined
Sep 21, 2004
Messages
544
So I just moved in with my step bro and a buddy of ours. We have this dlink 601 router which is just awful. It will drop the internet connection, sometimes go local only and my bro gets a poor to fair connection in his room. His room is the furthest away from the router, but we live in a three bedroom apartment, so it's not like it is a long distance. He actually sees another network from a different location that gets better signal strength.

I have seen some third party firmware that looks like it would help with the internet connection issues, but this most likely wont remedy the poor range we our getting with this junk.

I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions on routers for us to look into?
 
I like my Netgear WNDR3700 a lot. It's on the expensive side though. Other ones I've had good experience with are the Buffalo N routers. Be sure to use DD-WRT firmware (it's preinstalled on most of them now) as the "easy Buffalo" firmware is worse than crap. I don't even know why it's included on the disc.
 
Most of the open source firmwares allow you to crank up wireless power at least slightly (with varying degrees of success). The DIR-601 is on the DD-WRT list.

I like TomatoUSB myself (which won't run on your router), so I'd say grab an Asus RT-N12 on the cheaper side of wireless-N if you really want new hardware. It has an advantage of two detachable antennas, if you need to add a directional can-tenna to focus on any rough areas.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. My brothers girlfriend brought over his old d link dir 615. I tried hooking that up and he was still getting a poor signal in his room. I'll try flashing with the dd-wrt firmware.

On the instructions it said to set the router to default settings and running the software via a computer thats setup as a static ip. Is that really necessary to update the firmware?
 
tyguy said:
On the instructions it said to set the router to default settings and running the software via a computer thats setup as a static ip. Is that really necessary to update the firmware?
Click to expand...

If the instructions say so, then yeah it's probably necessary. This is 3rd party firmware so you want to eliminate any possible way that the firmware could be botched.
 
tyguy said:
So I just moved in with my step bro and a buddy of ours. We have this dlink 601 router which is just awful. It will drop the internet connection, sometimes go local only and my bro gets a poor to fair connection in his room. His room is the furthest away from the router, but we live in a three bedroom apartment, so it's not like it is a long distance. He actually sees another network from a different location that gets better signal strength.

I have seen some third party firmware that looks like it would help with the internet connection issues, but this most likely wont remedy the poor range we our getting with this junk.

I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions on routers for us to look into?
Click to expand...


Hi, tyguy,

You might want to check The Router Recommendations Thread (Consumer) in the "Networking & Security Forum" for suggestions and information.

Hope this helps.

Chuklr
 
There's several brands/models you could place towards the top of any list. Kind of depends what you want to do with the router and if you are willing to put up with any idiosyncrasies your given choice might have.

Try this site, excellent resource.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

I chose an ASUS RT-N16, working great for me.
 
Thanks guys, you have given me some great resources. I reverted back to an older firmware on this dir 615 router and that seems to have eliminated the disconnecting issue. The only issue now is my brother still has a poor signal in his room in his room. I'm going to try the third party firmware a little bit later.
 
What building materials are in your house? Also, what wireless card does your brother have?
 
tonytnnt said:
What building materials are in your house? Also, what wireless card does your brother have?
Click to expand...

It sounds like the OP has a lot of metal materials, such as metal studs and metal-clad doors, that could have potentially robbed the wireless router and adapter of a good signal. And those materials could have been located between the adapter and the router. Large metal objects can act as antennas, sapping some or all of the signal.
 
tonytnnt said:
What building materials are in your house? Also, what wireless card does your brother have?
Click to expand...

Great questions. I'm using a DIR-825 myself and have a D-Link DWA-556 PCIe card in my son's computer and he's getting very good signal and speeds. Maybe he just needs a better card installed?
 
OP, if you have a laptop, try slowly walking through the home with it while seeing what your signal strength is at various locations. Be sure to take the laptop into your brother's room to see how it compares to the desktop. It could be that your brother has a card that doesn't pick up signals very well.

If it's a USB adapter, get a USB extension cable and move the adapter further away from the tower.

If it's an internal expansion card, it may be possible to put a better antenna on the card. But I'll need more details before I recommend anything.
 
We are both using the same network card. Its a linksys wireless n card with an external antenna that screws into three places on the network card. I'm not sure what the model number is windows 7 is saying its a generic broadcom wireless n adapter. Anyway, my room is right next to his which is slightly closer to the router and my signal strength is excellent.

I actually flashed the outer to use the dd-wrt and it seems to be working great. the only problem still is my brothers signal. We keep the router along with the cable modem in the living room. We still have to move some crap and clean some stuff up today. I'll try moving the router as close as I can in the living room and try and elevate it to see if that boosts the signal. I guess there could be some metal studs and what not, but my room is not much further away.

Could I buy two antennas to replace the ones that came with the router to boost the signal perhaps?

edit: I found the card we both use. Its the Linksys WMP300N Wireless Adapter

http://geekjunk.com/wp-content/uploads/pictures/2009/02/linksys-wmp300n-wireless-adapter.jpg
 
Ok, after I installed the third party firmware things worked pretty good for about a month. we were able to boost the signal for my bother by moving the router up higher. The problems were having now is random reboots of the router which typically happen if its handling a lot of data like a stream. It handled some 1080 p movies pretty decently, but half way through some films would reboot.

the past couple days it would randomly reboot with very little to no usage. So i think it's time to just sack up and get something new. I'm taking a hard look at that asus router someone above me posted.
 
tyguy said:
I'm taking a hard look at that asus router someone above me posted.
Click to expand...

As that person posted, only get that router if you're willing to flash your own firmware on it (DD-WRT, Open Tomato, etc)
 
tyguy said:
Ok, after I installed the third party firmware things worked pretty good for about a month. we were able to boost the signal for my bother by moving the router up higher. The problems were having now is random reboots of the router which typically happen if its handling a lot of data like a stream. It handled some 1080 p movies pretty decently, but half way through some films would reboot.

the past couple days it would randomly reboot with very little to no usage. So i think it's time to just sack up and get something new. I'm taking a hard look at that asus router someone above me posted.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's going bad. If you boosted the WiFi power it could be overheating. I've also heard of heat issues on one particular module I believe it was Linksys WRT160N when running DD-WRT.

I recommend anything Broadcom that's listed as supported on dd-wrt.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top