What's a good wireless router?

L

lilfleck

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
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Think my old router is on the way out as it drops signal too often now (D-Link 624).

I was thinking about an Asus router w/ built in printer server for around $50-60 on newegg would do the trick. Or my friend is selling his Apple Extreme Airport for $100...

What do you guys think?
 
Er... I feel like the print server option is something I really would like to have so I can have a network HD.
 
lilfleck said:
Er... I feel like the print server option is something I really would like to have so I can have a network HD.
Click to expand...

Just be aware that performance will be terrible.

The Airports are nice hardware, but the lack of any kind of web (or console) configuration interface is a show-stopper for me.

I'd also recommend WRT54GL or some other dd-wrt capable hardware. Some of the ASUS models for example include USB ports and can be used this way, do some research on dd-wrt and you can probably find something in your price range with the USB ports you want.
 
I'd catch up a few generations to a more current router, some of DLinks newer wrt series perform much better than the old 54g series.
 
keenan said:
Just be aware that performance will be terrible.

The Airports are nice hardware, but the lack of any kind of web (or console) configuration interface is a show-stopper for me.

I'd also recommend WRT54GL or some other dd-wrt capable hardware. Some of the ASUS models for example include USB ports and can be used this way, do some research on dd-wrt and you can probably find something in your price range with the USB ports you want.
Click to expand...
Hm... well the Asus router I liked had a USB port and people wrote that they successfully flashed to DD-WRT. I haven't done too much research on this, but thats mainly because I really don't know too much about advanced networking.

To my basic understanding, its more stable... :)
 
lilfleck said:
Er... I feel like the print server option is something I really would like to have so I can have a network HD.
Click to expand...

I've seen some targets are getting rid of their Belkin N+ routers which have a USB for external HD and is optimized for it. I believe they were about $60ish on the clearance selves in their stores. YMMV. Two targets I visited this weekend each had one. So it may be gone by now.

I don't believe this can support DD-WRT, though. And if it could, it might affect its HD functionality, idk.
 
No offense to any of the repliers, but, the guy never mentioned DD-WRT. He may be uncomfortable or not even interested in flashing and possibly bricking a router. Im teetering on the edge of installing DD-WRT or Tomato on my router, but in these hard times, even $60 is hard to come up with sometimes, especially if it worked fine in the first place......
 
jay2472000 said:
No offense to any of the repliers, but, the guy never mentioned DD-WRT. He may be uncomfortable or not even interested in flashing and possibly bricking a router. Im teetering on the edge of installing DD-WRT or Tomato on my router, but in these hard times, even $60 is hard to come up with sometimes, especially if it worked fine in the first place......
Click to expand...

Yeah... $60 is more than what I'm willng to spend. As far as DD-WRT/Tomato, IDC, my main concern is having a working router.. if i can flash whichever router that is, cool.

Maybe I can hold out until black friday.
 
jay2472000 said:
No offense to any of the repliers, but, the guy never mentioned DD-WRT. He may be uncomfortable or not even interested in flashing and possibly bricking a router. Im teetering on the edge of installing DD-WRT or Tomato on my router, but in these hard times, even $60 is hard to come up with sometimes, especially if it worked fine in the first place......
Click to expand...

He asked about a 'good wireless router' and IMO the only 'good wireless routers' available for this price are ones that have been re-flashed with dd-wrt or Tomato. Free is good value for a much better firmware, and with a $40-50 router you get more functionality than most of the ultra extreme platinum version consumer routers that cost $200, and probably more stable too. My experience with every product I've tried in this price range is that they're terrible out of the box, except perhaps the WRT54G, though I've had a lot more problems with the VxWorks based new releases.

Flashing is pretty foolproof, especially if you buy something like the WRT54GL where it literally is foolproof, but even if you somehow brick it, almost all of them can be fixed by TFTP flashing them through the bootloader.
 
While I see your opinion, and dont disvalue it I must point out my personal experience.
WRT54G V5. Been going strong for years, over 6 TB of content downloaded across it, never drops wireless, and hooks up all 6 PC's with an IP everyday. I get strong wireless signal thru my whole house, and dont need QoS to be customized, etc.

Like I said, I am tempted, but why fool with something thats working?
 
jay2472000 said:
While I see your opinion, and dont disvalue it I must point out my personal experience.
WRT54G V5. Been going strong for years, over 6 TB of content downloaded across it, never drops wireless, and hooks up all 6 PC's with an IP everyday. I get strong wireless signal thru my whole house, and dont need QoS to be customized, etc.

Like I said, I am tempted, but why fool with something thats working?
Click to expand...

You're probably the only person on the planet who doesn't mind the V5...it's a crippled model from Linksys, 1/2 the RAM and 1/2 the flash (only 8 and 2 megs). Also a proprietary VxWorks firmware that made flashing with 3rd party firmware like DD more difficult.
 
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