Wirelss 54g or 108g for home network...

R

rbarr110

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2003
Messages
278
Ok I currently have 1/3 of the house hard wired and lack the ambition to hardwire the rest of the house. Want wireless for transferring files from my HTPC (which will be relocated somtime in the future, so no hard wire) to my main pc. I currently have a painfully slow 802.11b setup and want to upgrade.

From what I can find 54g routers (after rebates) can be found fro $20-30.
The 108g can be found anywhere from $50-$80 after rebates. Is the 108g worth it? I am assuming I would have to upgrade wireless adapters to 54g or 108g parts depending on what I choose.

Then the next question is what brand, I curently am using a Linksys and have had no troubles for 2+ years. Any recomendations?

Thanks
 
Your not gonna get considerably better qualty than linksys for the consumer price range
A 108g router / access point would be compatable with b and 54g cards .. also why not just get a g54/108 access point and add it to your current setup ? might be cheaper ...

As for speed difference, if you've got full signal 108 would be faster but can both pcs utilize this and is it worth it, how often are files transfered etc etc

Im going wireless when i get my lappy, gonna go with 54 the money for 108 isnt worth it atm imo and there doesnt seem tobe a 108 access point atm

 
I was under the impression that the slowest piece of hardware on a wireless network causes all wireless devices to transfer at that slower speed, i.e. - 108g router, 54g lan card, 802.11b lan card, both teh lan cards would transfer at the speed of the 802.11b device. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I transfer up to 100 GB of stored movies from my HTPC/PVR (1 hr movie at high dvd quality 3GB+) a few times a month. On my 802.11b that takes around 10-14 hrs, often more time if actually transfering closer to the 100GB.
 
remember with 108g it's proprietary.... if you buy a 108dlink router you MUST have a 108dlink card...

P.S. I have never noticed a speed increase with 108 over 54.... it's all a hoax IMO...

QJ
 
Unless your going to be doing HUGE file transfers from system to system via wirless, the 54g spec is more then enough for your needs and you will hardly ever reach the maximum of that speed either for a variety of reasons. Even with Speedbooster, you'll never hit 108mbps either.

Also remember, the 108 speeds and equipment are not certified and rated so the quality of routers using the standard are very hit and miss.

I've had excellent luck with my WRT54g router. Simple setup, newest firmware makes the firewall more robust and the wireless is stable and fast in my house for my fathers laptop 2 floors down.
 
Netgear has a $20 rebate on their new 802.11g 108 mbs router along with their network cards, I just got mine from new egg. I also bought their 108 USB adapter. I'm only connecting at 54 speeds though, but thats cause the router is out in the garadge and my PC on the far side of the house and theres a good 3 walls inbetween, getting a little over 82% signal but I'm only about 30 feet away at most. Too bad I can't convince the home owner to put the router in the living room, then we could all connect real fast.

They are stillusing 802.11b stuff, but I'm connected at 802.11g so I guess you can have multiple connections at different speeds. Of course If I want to send them something through the network i have to slow down to 802.11 speeds anyways. They said the signal is way better than their old router though. And I havent noticed any lag on the internet due to only being able to connect at 54 due to a dirty signal.

so it sounds like I wasted some cash, but then again, I'm probably not going to live here forever so I can set it up to work better when I move out.

I almost got their new duel router so I could run 802.11a at 5 ghz *drool* but they don't make a true dual card or USB adapter for the PC yet :(
 
The staples down the street has belkin "125Mbps" router and PCI network cards on sale with a solid rebate.

"125g" router 79.95 with $30 MIR = 49.95
"125g" pci card 59.95 with $30 MIR = 29.95

Belkin any good?
 
the router I was replacing was an older belkin. It seemed like it lacked support or firmware updates. But someone else I talked to swears by them. I went with good ol netgear because I have always been happy with their products, my friend however has had bad luck with a really old netgear wireless router. so it depends who you talk to. THat deal looks pretty decent I'd look into the netgeat also. Probably better compatability. In fact I believe their 128 mb cards will work with other routers at 128 meg speeds. Someone correct me if I am wrong. not sure what 125 mb means.

Newegg has some good deals on specials right now
 
Justintoxicated said:
the router I was replacing was an older belkin. It seemed like it lacked support or firmware updates. But someone else I talked to swears by them. I went with good ol netgear because I have always been happy with their products, my friend however has had bad luck with a really old netgear wireless router. so it depends who you talk to. THat deal looks pretty decent I'd look into the netgeat also. Probably better compatability. In fact I believe their 128 mb cards will work with other routers at 128 meg speeds. Someone correct me if I am wrong. not sure what 125 mb means.

Newegg has some good deals on specials right now
Click to expand...

Don't count on it. If there advertising 128meg speeds on their routers and cards, there probably using special frequencys and chips on their equipment that won't be compatible wtih other brands.

Also keep in mind, Speedboosting equipment is not certified and results in ALOT of hit and miss quality between routers. Read this article to see what I mean and why I stick with 54g routers and cards.


Christopher Null, Editor in Chief
MobilePc Mag
Oct 2004
Editors Notebook

My recent column in the July issue of "Why your Turbo wireless Router blows chunks and mine rules" seemed to draw a line in the digital sand. We were flooded with letters, with polorized opinions from nearly equal numbers of readers.

One side indentified with the column, bemoaning the fact that they too had tried a succession of turbo routers, each crashing on a regular basis.

The other side said I was clinically insane and that they had never seen a router crash in their entire lives

Whos right? Well, everybody in this case. Router quality is widly variable, not just from one vender to the next, but from one model to another too. One unit will work great. An indentical unit won't work at all. Weve taken a rock solid router and added an innocuos firmware update, only to watch it go down in flames. Literally! One router vomitted sparks and steam of smoke during a new infamous test in the MobilePC labs test

Why are WiFi routers such a hit and miss affair? Its a relativly open secret that the guts of a nearly all 802.11g routers are produced by a mere two companies, Broadcom and Atheros Comm. Another company, Intersil, makes chips that can be found in just one product weve seen to date. Only two years ago, 40 different companies were competing for a slice of the wireless chip market. Today, that number has dwindled to fewer then 10. Other wif-fi chip companies, like Philips and Texas instruments, stay out of the router world alltogether, working instead on cell phone and PDA wireless chips.

Broadcom and Atheros are the Intel and AMD of the router chip world. Broadcom dominates the market, while Atheros plays saboteur. What has developed is a true duopoly, one in which the combatants are engaged in a bitter war.

With Broadcom and Atheros firmly installed at the top of a 600 million Wi-Fi chip market and with no new compeitition on the horizon, their free to tinker with their products, each time trying to eke a little more performance or a little more range outa the chip. Sounds good right? The problem is one of standards and consistency: Crack open a dozen different wireless rotuers, and chances are you'll find a dozen different Wi-Fi chips. Innovation good!, Standards, better!

Alas, todays "turbo" routers are miles away from any wireless standard on the books. Turbo and Super G routers are essentially experimental technologies, and your the guinea pig. And sure enough, allegations of these proprietary speed bosting technologies wreak havoc on neighboring networks as well as themselves.

Finally, the Wi-Fi Alliance has come forward to try to stop the madness, announcing that the 802.11x equipment that interfaces with other Wi-Fi products may get its certifications revokes. This isn't likely to matter much, Uncertified 802.11g products showed up on the market months before the 802.11g standard ever got finished, and consumers don't seem to care if a "certified" sticker is on the box

So what will happen with 802.11n, the 100mpbs version of W-Fi nears the complection circa of Oct 2005? If Tthere are fewer then six competing routers- all with beta firmware and buggy features on sale before the standard is finalized, i'll eat this column.

Meanwhile, we recommend keeping turbo modes turned off on your routers. It makes you a better neighbor and fi your browsing email and Web, you simply don't need the speed.
Click to expand...
 
Something else to consider: If you've already got .11g in teh house, keep the one machine on it using .11g and you go can still upgrade to the 108Mbit D-Links. The benefit to this phased approach is two fold--you can upgrade at your leasure and buy when the 108Mbit parts are cheap, and you can segment your wireless hosts apart from one another. While you're wireless host-to-wireless host transfers will still be limited to the slowest link in the network (the .11g in this case), you will see some minor improvements in that the wireless hosts are not hanging off of the same AP. Think of having two hubs segmented via switches as opposed to having the two hosts directly connected to the same hub. There will be far less contention in respect to the wireless hosts so long as they don't communicate directly with one another. Like I said, the performance gains are minor, but it allows you to go wireless and upgrade at will. Oh, and there is another benefit to segmenting the wireless hosts--It also keep the 108Mbit hosts running full speed, which will improve performance for file transfers with the wired hosts.
 
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