Upgraded my router a short while back. It was a bit of a painful decision because the Linksys WRT54GL + Tomato was both rock solid and feature rich.
So in a quest to a find a router that would offer the same rock solid stability, and support Wireless N, and have GB ethernet ports, I narrowed it down to the following list of routers:
From there the list was whittled down to routers that supported upgrading the firmware with Tomato/DD-WRT .
The newer generation of routers does not seem to have a clear, cheap, well reviewed winner like the Linksys WRT54GL.
In the end, I went with the Asus RT-N16 for $84. With Tomato installed it has been rock solid, but I can't comment on how it would perform with the stock firmware.
If the RT-N66U weren't nearly twice as much at the time I bought the N16, I would have went with that one.
Here are the notes I kept while installing Tomato on the RT-N16. Only do this if you're comfortable with these sorts of things!
DOWNLOAD TOMATO FIRMWARE
v1.28.9054 MIPSR2-beta K26 USB vpn3.6
^^rock solid with the NT-16, according to various sources
http://sourceforge.net/projects/toma...6.rar/download
INSTALLING TOMATO ONTO ROUTER
# Go into our router page (
http://192.168.1.1)
default user/pass is admin/admin for Asus router firmware
- download a generic version of DD-WRT to install on the NT-16 router first, such as from:
ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSla.../broadcom_K26/
example .trx file:
ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSla...ini_RT-N16.trx
# administration -> restore/save/upload setting -> restore -> yes
# administration -> firmware upgrade -> select .trx file for generic DD-WRT that we downloaded above -> upgrade firmware
The router is now running DD-WRT.
In DD-WRT ...
# administration -> firmware upgrade -> please select a file to upgrade -> select the Tomato firmware file we downloaded. You may first need to rename the extension from .trx to .bin
Once firmware is finished loading, you may need to do a hard reset on the router.
The router is now running Tomato
default user/pass is root/admin for Tomato firmware
In Tomato ...
# administration -> configuration -> Restore Default Configuration -> Select ... -> Erase All Data in NVRAM memory (thorough)
wait 5 minutes for settings to fully clear
# advanced -> MAC address -> WAN Port -> Clone PC -> Save -> OK
# Status
should now see an IP address from your ISP