Is this a good wireless router?

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-02 06:13am

I need to get a cheap new router but I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to look out for. I want one that's reliable, works with Nintendo's wifi system, can support up to four or five devices, has decent signal strenght and doesn't cost much (about €70 max). The best I can find so far is this, but is it any good?

I'd get this one because it looks sexy, but I can't seem to find out if it'll talk to the Wii.

Also, I'm not even sure if the things I piced actually do what I'd want them to do, which is plug the internet wire in one end and have magic internet rays come out the other. For all I know the thingamajigs I linked to are toasters.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-01-02 07:09am

I'm picking up a DIC-615 tomorrow, actually. I'm not too enamoured of 802.11n stuff, but I'll be able to let you know if it's a pile of shit in about 24 hours.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-02 07:15am

Please do. I'm tired of being attached to a network cable.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-01-02 07:18am

I'll probably decide to preconfigure it, so I'll test the Wii with it. I doubt there'll be any problems though.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-02 07:24am

The Wii seems to have less problems overall than the DS. If you can try that one and get it to work, I'd be much obliged.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-01-02 07:28am

Fuckin DS WEP bullshit *waves fist*. Where's this DS-Wii connection eh? EH? Fucking Nintendo.

Sephirius · Post by **Sephirius** » 2008-01-02 09:21pm

I've only had bad experiences with D-Link. (for some reason)
I recommend a Linksys, spring for the 300N if you can afford it.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2008-01-02 09:29pm

I have a router of the type you're showing, but I've found it rather useless, as it has extremely limited transmission range, and is incapable of broadcasting properly around my house. Unless you're in a cramped apartment, I would stay away from it.

The best buy in routers today, IMO, is the WRT54G (which, as an added plus, is now more easily flashable with custom firmware). You can get a v8 WRT54G for $50 bucks or less, and they offer relatively nice range and performance.

At present, my WLAN consists of three slightly more expensive WRT54GL routers running Tomato Firmware. These form a Wireless Distribution System, which effectively results in one of the routers being the actual firewall, and other two are analogous to wireless cards, allowing me to provide my computers with ethernet connections, and thus dispense with wireless.

I'm planning on adding an additional two WRT54GLs in the next few months, and possibly running a separate "normal" wifi net off of a regular WRT54G.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-01-03 01:01am

The Buffallo WHR-HP-G54 provides really good signal strength (has builtin amp)- kind of expensive now though (I got it for a friend for 60, now 80USD on newegg) - still under your limit though since the USD sucks. The WHR-G125 is supposed to be decent and cheaper. Both are reflashable w/ DD-WRT

I'd suggest looking for something on this table http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

I've had bad experiences w/ d-link routers, I've had a wired router die on me, and I know many people w/ problems w/ dlink wireless routers (although those were all the ceap ones). I've had good experiences w/ D-link atheros based wireless cards though.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-03 04:38am

still under your limit though since the USD sucks

Unfortunately that rarely translates to lower prices here. It's not unusual to see a one-to-one $/€ conversion.

The cheapest wrt54g sells for close to $90...

I may try to track down a wrt54gl.

Post by **Edi** » 2008-01-03 06:14am

Anyone who even considers using D-Link deserves every piece of shit luck that he gets as a result when his equipment doesn't work and fucks everything up. D-Link = fail.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-03 06:25am

Edi wrote:Anyone who even considers using D-Link deserves every piece of shit luck that he gets as a result when his equipment doesn't work and fucks everything up. D-Link = fail.

See, this is why I ask about this stuff before spending money

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2008-01-03 09:45am

I use a Belkin wireless router for my two PCs and Wii, and it does the job admirably. Never a complaint, never a glitch.

Post by **Edi** » 2008-01-03 02:05pm

Bounty wrote:
Edi wrote:Anyone who even considers using D-Link deserves every piece of shit luck that he gets as a result when his equipment doesn't work and fucks everything up. D-Link = fail.
See, this is why I ask about this stuff before spending money

I haven't got personal experience of using D-Link stuff. I DO have personal experience of needing to support D-Link equipment over the phone and it's 100% guaranteed that as soon as the customer says he has a D-Link ADSL router, D-Link WLAN AP or D-Link Firewall, all problems disappear the second they switch the offending piece of shit to some other brand or remove it from the configuration entirely. On top of that, D-Link's own fucking support staff are such incompetent fucktards that they are unable to provide that support and the customers end up asking it from us. Which means that as I happen to be one of only a handful of people with enough technical expertise to manage the labyrinthine configuration shit on the most common D-Link crapware, DSL G624T, I get to deal with a disproportionate number of those cases.

Aside from the configuration issues, D-Link equipment has a tendency to start spoofing MAC addresses and using some generic shit, which fucks up connections and requires a reset and reconfiguration, which MAY (or may not) remove that particular problem. And if you do need to make any configuration changes, you might as well reset the POS and reconfigure it all the way from square one, because it's even odds that if you don't, the whole device just fucks itself up.

No, I would not use a D-Link router at all. Not unless they paid me a lot of money to do it. Just not worth the fucking hassle.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-03 02:11pm

I think I'll end up with some flavour of the wrt54g, then. A gl if I can find one, but the standard version'll do, I think.

No, I would not use a D-Link router at all. Not unless they paid me a lot of money to do it. Just not worth the fucking hassle.

I bet Stark's kicking himself right now. Unless that D-Link wasn't for him.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-01-03 02:22pm

Well, the lower end buffalo is still cheaper than the WRT-54GL. Dunno how it behaves relative to the GL though, I've only had experience w/ setting up the higher end WHR-HP-G54 for a friend . My WRT54Gv4 (equivalent to the WRT-54GL) seems to have settled down, though initially it was pretty flaky- might be just bad intel linux wireless drivers. Don't get a WRT-54G (non-GL) - it has less RAM and Flash, restricting the firmwares you can run on it, unless you have a version 4 or below.

http://www.inmac.nl/index.php?products_ ... 350915b72b seems to indicate the higher end buffalo is 40EUR

The DD-WRT site also sells them, presumably more expensive though.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2008-01-03 02:28pm

The Buffalo wireless routers do look interesting...some of them are even supported by Tomato Firmware. I'm currently running a pure WRT54GL environment at this moment in the interests of compatibility, but if the WRT54GL is ever discontinued (and an in-the-know client of mine think's that's a possibility), I'll be switching to Buffalo.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-03 02:48pm

I can't find a store that carries the Buffalo near me. Too bad, it looks decent.

Don't get a WRT-54G (non-GL) - it has less RAM and Flash, restricting the firmwares you can run on it, unless you have a version 4 or below.

Finding a pre-v4 is practically impossible, isn't it? I'll get a gl if I can, but is a custom firmware really that big an advantage?

Post by **Beowulf** » 2008-01-03 03:16pm

I "have" a WRT54Gv3. It's currently lent out to someone else. It's a good router though. Custom firmware does help though, and if you want to do anything fancy (RADIUS, et al), you're going to need to get the custom firmware.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-01-03 03:18pm

What's wrong w/ buying online? In any case, I doubt you can find the WRT-54GL in a brick and mortar store either (hrm, I stand corrected, Circuit City in the US has them).

I've found the WRT-54Gv5 to be a bit flakier before I returned it and got a WRT-54Gv4 over Ebay.

Lots of features are missing from the stock firmware in my opinion, such as static DHCP, virtual APs to deal w/ the blasted WEP only on the DS, QoS, the fact that you can use the Linux firewall to do things such as getting around Comcast's dicking w/ torrents, etc.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-01-03 03:30pm

What's wrong w/ buying online?

Delivery times and shipping costs. Unless there's a substantial price difference, I prefer to get my stuff in the store and pay cash; at least then I don't have to deal with mail fuckups and figuring out if the retailer's reliable enough for Visa.

In any case, I doubt you can find the WRT-54GL in a brick and mortar store either

Crap. Is it on some sort of limited distribution system?

(And what's a virtual AP? Something like a sandbox for wireless connections?)

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-01-03 03:55pm

Yeah, virtual AP gives you a seperate ESSID on the same router, that can use different encryption (can't get this to work), and you can sandbox it off I think. I haven't used my DS in awhile. The QoS is more valuable to me for torrenting w/o lag in games.

I'm generally in favor of buying everything online unless it costs more to ship it than run out to a brick and mortar store. I figure time costs money and wasting a couple hours or two running out just to find something isn't there isn't worth 20 bucks at 10$/hour. Haven't had any fuckups really except for a late textbook.

The problem w/ brick mortar stores is they just generally have the most popular models due to limited space, which in the case for Linksys is the regular WRT-54G

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-01-03 04:29pm

Edi wrote:Anyone who even considers using D-Link deserves every piece of shit luck that he gets as a result when his equipment doesn't work and fucks everything up. D-Link = fail.

I've had no problems with D-Link stuff, either personally or with clients over many years (well, aside from crap HTML interfaces, which is de riguer these days). Maybe you people are just doing it wrong. It's not like it's Netgear or Belkin stuff.

Luckily the device a) isn't for me and b) was out of stock so I cancelled that part of my order. I hate 802.11n shit.

And WRT-54GLs having virtual AP when my WAG-200 doesn't pisses me right off.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2008-01-03 05:26pm

The virtual APs require custom firmware.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-01-03 05:45pm

Beowulf wrote:The virtual APs require custom firmware.

That explains it then.

The demands on routers and modems for home use and commercial use are so disparate that it matters much less in a general home setting what hardware you use. Nobody should use Netgear (or AU's own rubbish maker, Netcomm), but really so long as it works who cares, and if it doesn't return it. In a commercial setting it's very different, as Pu-239 describes (although I know of more than a dozen small businesses using D-link hardware that have no manufacturer-related problems). People like Rthurmont, Pu-239 etc are not regular home users.

Even the shitbox Netcomm modem I had once would have been fine for 95% of people: it only sucked because the chip it was built on easily overheated under heavy load like p2p traffic. I'd recommend against such hardware, but there are probably millions of people who use parts like that and have no problems at all.