So, I HATE every wireless router that I’ve ever used. They’re all terrible, as far as I can see. I have three routers in the room with me and I want to smash every one. The Netgear can’t handle any sort of online gaming. This other one was fine until the wireless radio started quitting at least a couple of times a day. This dang Belkinthat I just got from my brother in law is just junk in so many ways. (I didn’t pay anything for it, so at least there’s that.) My NAT is random (Strict or Open w/o rhyme or reason), static IPs won’t connect to the router, the DMZ is non functional as far as I can tell, it rejects my iPad’s connection half the time, and it’s just all around a pile of junk. :smack::smack:
So, here’s what I need:
[ul]
[li]A router that can handle at least two wireless connections and a couple of wired ones without crapping out. I need reliability.[/li]
[li]A router that will work as a wireless bridge. (I run a CAT-5 from my DSL modem/router to it.)[/li]
[li]A router that can handle gaming on my PC and my xbox 360 without dying.[/li]
[li]A decent user interface would be neat. You know, something that doesn’t trigger furious anger every time one tries to set it up.[/li][/ul]
I don’t really want to spend a ton of $$ on it, but if it’s worth it I will. I’m sick of dealing with these damn contraptions. I’m pretty tech-literate, and I’m not afraid of a wealth of settings. I don’t really *need *gigabit connections since my DSL tops out at 6 MB/s, but I don’t turn my nose up at them.
I’ve been sorely tempted by the Apple router, but it’s super spendy, and it’s only got 3 LAN connections, and I think I have three things that need to plug into the router. ( I know there’s a parity there, but if I have one more thing…) I have heard that it’s good, though.
I’ve been using a Linksys WRT54G with DD-WRT firmware for 4-5 years now, and I’ve never had any reliability issues. I would recommend something like the WRT54GL along with DD-WRT or Tomato firmware. I think Buffalo makes some good quality routers as well.
Whatever you end up getting, make sure you can upgrade the default firmware. Check the DD-WRT router database for DD-WRT support.
Before you junk all your routers, do these steps first:
On any Netgear routers, hold down the power button for 10 seconds until the power lights flash two times. Belkin routers have a different hard-reset system I think, but I don’t know offhand.
Disconnect all routers except one. See if it works. If not, try a 2nd router, then a third, etc. But, always keep only one router connected at a time.
What happens when you have multiple routers connected at the same time is that they fight for dominance, Thunderdome-style, which causes interruptions in service. My advice is first to figure out which routers are working and which are broken.
Then, if you need to use multiple routers (which is usually a bad idea, especially nowadays that wireless is so common and one wireless router can handle 100+ connections) you have to set all except one as switches.
I don’t really know anything about replacing router firmware. I usually just suffer with whatever the mfg puts on there. Can you replace the firmware on any router, or does that sometimes brick them?
Thanks, Superhal. I don’t have these things hooked up in serial or anything. I only use one wireless router at a time. Sorry if that wasn’t clear in the OP. It was late at night and I was half-blind with rage. They each seem to have separate problems. The netgear is one that we’ve had for several years and I don’t think that it’s ever been very good. It’s the one that my wife was using while we were living apart (separate states due to a job-move), and it seems ok when only running one or two WLAN connections that are doing some YouTube or web browsing, but each and every time I started WoW on my laptop it would crash the modem. Some Googling told me that this is a common problem with that router.
The MyEssentials (which I think is really a Belkin) is one that I got from a friend a while back, and it’s radio seems to be going out. It’s been reliable for a long time, but I was having to pull the plug on it to reboot it at least once a day. Wired connections seemed ok, but wireless would just disappear.
The new Belkin that I got from my brother-in-law is just a mess. My iPad has to have the password put in every time I want to connect to the router (which has never happened before with any other network). My xbox doesn’t automatically connect to the router (LAN connection) anymore (or only occasionally), and when it does get connected the NAT will be open or strict at random. I’ve tried to do port forwarding and DMZ and static IPs, but none of them really work. Even when I do get the xbox working correctly, the connection goes all to hell if my wife opens up youtube. I can’t tell if these are hardware or software problems.
Can I put some new firmware on the new one? Would that solve my problem? Routers really just make me want to tear my hair out.
The other issue is that when we go back to my State of Residence I’ll have the wireless router set up as a bridge for a strictly wired DSL modem/router. I don’t know a lot about what happens when you set up a bridge, but I know *how *to do it. Will any of the fancy things on a wireless router even matter then? Will my new Belkin’s problems be solved once I set it as a bridge for another router?
(I’ve been looking hard at this router. Any experience with them? It looks strong on paper, but I don’t know if those strengths will mean anything when it’s a bridge.)
You can replace the firmware on many routers, and it might make a big difference in reliability. The biggest factor is probably the amount of flash memory on the device, since the enhanced firmwares require more memory. DD-WRT has many different firmware builds based on the features router hardware will support.
I checked the Belkin that you linked to, and it doesn’t look like DD-WRT is supported for it. Try the other models that you have, though, since one of those may be supported. What have you got to lose? If you know about static IPs and DMZ and NAT, you have more than enough tech savvy to upgrade the firmware. Usually all it takes is a TFTP flash, although sometimes it can get more complicated. Even so, the wiki will give you a step-by-step guide on how to do it. And have a look at the tutorials page for some of the common features people like to set up.
I started off with a Netgear router for my PC laptop and my children’s MacBooks and it stopped working on the PC after about 3 months and my computer guy couldn’t figure it out. For the children, video watching was an exercise in frustration watching the loading…loading… every 10 seconds. And the wireless printer? One page took forever.
When I traded in the PC for a MacBook, I finally splashed out on the Apple router and I have to say, it was worth it. All three of us can stream video at the same time, the printer is quick and there’s a USB port for an external hard drive we can all back up our stuff on. There are only a few spots in the house where the signal is not great.
I am the least techie person I know so when something works out of the box it makes me very happy.