What Wireless Router Should I Buy?

I did a search and couldn’t find any answers to this question, so here goes. At my home I have a desktop PC, two laptops, and my xbox 360 all running through my $30 dollar linksys wireless router. Sometimes the internet speed that I get drops down really slow, to like 11bps. Logically, I would think that this happens because I have everything going at once, but it doesn’t. I could be using nothing else but the pc, and the connection will still be glacially slow. I have the worst problem with my laptops. Oftentimes I will try to access a web page, my browser will say that it is waiting for a response, but it never comes and the connection times out. If I watch my activity while I wait, nothing happens. Regardless of the problem, if I shut off and reset the router, it usually goes away for a while.

All of this is a long way of saying that I’m pretty sure I need a better router that can consistently work with my home setup. I’m trying to get the best router I can for the best price. The thing is, I don’t really know what constitutes a good router for handling my particular setup. I could just go out and spend $150 and buy the most expensive router, but I wouldn’t know if I’m getting anything more than I would from a $60 dollar one or even my crappy $30 one. Does anyone with a similar setup or experience of these things have any suggestions?

I think this is better for IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

A $30 dollar Linksys should be fine for your needs, based on the equipment you have hooked up to it.

I’d do a little troubleshooting first before buying a new one, though. Take the Linksys out of the loop and hook one computer directly up to your modem for a while; if the slowness happens, then you can rule out the Linksys being the cause and call your ISP. Once you determine that the Linksys is the problem, then you could try upgrading the firmware before buying a new one. You could also have a bad cable causing the issue as well (I say this having found a slightly kitty-chewed Cat5 cable myself last week that was causing me to pull my hair out!).

If you do need a new router, though, I don’t think you need to start looking at anything more complicated than what you currently have. IMHO, of course.

This Linksys router is pretty much the industry standard. You can get one for under $50. I second the idea of troubleshooting first. You could have something hogging bandwidth, an ISP issue, a cabling issue, a modem issue, and probably a few other things.

Eliminate or isolate the router as being the problem in the system first. Try resetting the modem (transceiver if you’re using DSL or Cable), if that works, your modem may not be uptraining. Modems often take problematic frequencies out of the pool of them when they fail to perform, then they don’t add them back once the frequency is functioning properly again. Power cycling your modem would reset that issue. Are you using DSL or Cable? Are you getting an “excellent” signal all the time, or just a “good” one?

Thanks for the feedback guys. I have taken the router out of the loop before. When I plug the cable modem straight into the pc the speed goes up. Plus, even when my speeds on the pc and the xbox are ok, I still have the issue with the laptops being slow. At first I though it was my laptop, but I’ve brought another onto the network that has the same problem and the laptop works fine on my school’s network.

I’d be interested to try upgrading the firmware. How do I go about that?

I also wanted to add that when I have issues with my laptops the signal strength is usually excellent.

Start here I guess. You didn’t say which model you were using. I have my doubts on whether or not a firmware upgrade will fix the issue, but it’s always worth a try.

If you happen to need a new one, all things considered… I’d order one here unless there’s a sale near you.

Have you plugged the ethernet cable directly into one of the laptops? Could there be physical limitations causing the low speed to the wireless units?

ETA: I’m also assuming that you’ve tried unplugging the power to the modem for 20 seconds, and plugging it back in with no net increase in speed.

I’d suggest getting one of these and installing dd-wrt on it (check the hardware version and revision numbers before you buy - not all versions of that router support a full installation of the custom firmware).

I’ve got one at home that I use as a client bridge - it’s really good.

As stated upthread, it may not help… but it’s easy and worth a shot:

  1. Download the latest firmware for your model router from Linksys… save it to your desktop or another easy-to-find location.

  2. From a computer hard-wired to the router (don’t do this from a wireless computer), log into the Linksys router (normally, opening a browser and typing 192.168.1.1 will get you to the login page, unless you have the router set up differently). I think the default login and password are both “admin” (again, unless you have previously set it up differently).

  3. Once into the router configs, navigate to the firmware upgrade screen, which I think is in the “administration” section… (I’m at work and can’t access my Linksys right now… but if you click around a bit, you’ll find it…)

  4. Click on “upgrade firmware” and point it at the file you downloaded.

That’s it. It should only take a couple of minutes, so it is worth a shot.