Wireless Routers

[Rathji]

Do you get slow speedtest results on regular wired connection? (not your Powerline Ethernet) If so, try bypassing the router and going directly to your modem from your computer. If the problem is still there, then the issue is Shaw's. If the problem is gone, then it is your router.

[Nage Waza]

Just go to memory express and explain what you need. They will treat you very well.

[Mazrim]

Bumping an old thread for some advice: I'm sick and tired of Shaw's crappy modem/router combo (we have strung a bunch of extra ethernet cables in the house to counteract the crappiness, and it just looks terrible and it's not portable at all obviously), and I'm now willing to put some money down on a router. Should I future proof myself by getting a router that supports 802.11ac or will N suffice for many years still?

Also, if anyone has some suggestions for specific router that may differ from back in January that would be cool. I've been looking at the Asus/Linksys routers in the $100 range so far.

[Diemenz]

I bought this router last year

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX32640

Great connectivity and range and the best feature of all, In February I hit 200 days of uptime. With my old linksys I was lucky to hit 7 days.

[keratosis]

Best I've owned. Been running it for a year (ish) now.
Best thing I ever did was to get Shaw to bridge my modem.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42436

[FlameOn]

Asus rt-ac66u upgraded version of what Diemenz posted. One of the best routers around and can be dd-wrt / tomato upgraded. It's future proof with great range but is a bit pricey at the moment

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Azure]

Complicated to setup, but has a ton of features and works great.

http://routerboard.com/RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN

Wireless Range is better than any router out there IMO. The Asus RT-AC66U is great, but it doesn't come close in terms of penetration, and the Mikrotik is only 2.4ghz. It has a 1000mW AP, and the range is unreal.

The RB2011 is powered by RouterOS, a fully featured routing operating system which has been continuously improved for fifteen years. Dynamic routing, hotspot, firewall, MPLS, VPN, advanced quality of service, load balancing and bonding, real-time configuration and monitoring - just a few of the vast number of features supported by RouterOS.

[kobasew19]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I have a re-furbished Cisco Linksys e4200. I won't recommend re-furbs, but it had good reviews. In this case it's worked fine for a couple of years, even though it's almost too hot to touch. Good range, never needs rebooting and wifi is as fast as wired.

I bought this router brand new and I hate it with a passion. Can't believe how much it costed me originally. The usb port is bs as it's only compatible with certain external HD. It crashes quite often as well.

I will never buy a linksys router ever again.

[Azure]

Ever since Cisco bought Linksys, their routers have gone to crap.

The old WRT routers were great.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Azure

Ever since Cisco bought Linksys, their routers have gone to crap.

The old WRT routers were great.

Linksys is now owned by Belkin (for a little over a year now).

[zamler]

I have a Netgear WNR3500L that has been rock solid, only time it reboots is when I do a firmware update. I can't speak about the wireless capabilities because all my systems are hard wired. But great router for the money, it does accept 3rd party firmwares if you're into that kind of thing.

BTW I have this router bridged to the Telus piece of crap.

[photon]

I had a Netgear WNR3700whaever but it died (not totally, but decided that moving packets by hand was a good idea I guess), and the Netgear I had before that died too.

I have the ASUS one mentioned and it's been great.

[Mazrim]

Thanks for all the info, everyone. I've decided to go with the ASUS RT-N66U since it has better reliability based on reviews than the RT-N56U, and it's on sale at Staples right now.

http://www.staples.ca/en/ASUS-RT-N66...2_2-CA_1_20001

[Diemenz]

Good call.

My last 2 asus routers have been rock solid and the custom firmware options are nice.

[cmyden]

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

[Mazrim]

Is there a particular reason to choose Tomato over DD-WRT?

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Is there a particular reason to choose Tomato over DD-WRT?

I think they're both really, really good, with similar functionality. I was just already used to the Tomato menus and configuration.

From what I understand though, I think DD-WRT development may have stopped in 2008? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD-WRT

Tomato meanwhile has seen various forks or mods over the years, some of which are still in active development. So many mods in fact it can be a little confusing. This handy chart on Wikipedia shows all the mods and the features of each one..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_%28firmware%29

I seem to recall it coming down to Tomato Shibby VS Tomato Toastman being the two best in development. Most features & most stable.

More features doesn't always mean better though, sometimes it can just mean more to go wrong. I Googled around for a while to find particular mods and versions within those mods that people had tried with the N-16 and found to be very stable.

[Nehkara]

I opted for an ASUS RT-AC66U based on awesome reviews. I am getting a new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which supports AC so I figured, why not?

My router died in a few days ago in bizarre fashion.

[photon]

Your router sees what sites you go to, of course it's going to kill itself.

[Iceman57]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Thanks for all the info, everyone. I've decided to go with the ASUS RT-N66U since it has better reliability based on reviews than the RT-N56U, and it's on sale at Staples right now.

http://www.staples.ca/en/ASUS-RT-N66...2_2-CA_1_20001

My Dlink was getting old and now with two hard wired and four separate wireless devices on almost all the time, i decided to get a new router. I noticed this thread last week and I ended up picking up the exact same router as above. I plugged it in last night and with it just on the default settings it was already an improvement plus i really like the fact it comes with a stand. Today i wanted to enable the QoS engine to prioritize my wireless devices and Port Forward my PS4, now for the most part i knew where to look but since its a totally new menu I called Asus tech support to be sure but it was such a headache. The first time i called i was on hold for 26 mins this morning and then when someone did answer they were so useless, he knew as much as i did but had a manual to fumble through. I had to go to work but tired again this afternoon and although he was polite he knew even less then the first guy . After getting some help from Shaw i called back and the guy i got was better but still didn't know very much so I'm a little disappointed with the customer service aspect so far but will try the router for the next few days and see how it goes.