Dying router

Adnams Drinker · 14 Aug 2011 at 21:36

We've had our ancient old Linksys router for upwards of five or six years or so, possibly more - really can't remember. It's been fine for our needs this far but is starting to show it's age. It's one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series

Just the bog standard G model: 2.4Ghz 54Mbps - wasn't exactly cutting edge when we bought it, so I should imagine it's pretty stone-age in today's terms!

In that time we've obviously got more wifi-capable items in the house, namely laptops and smartphones etc and we're finding that it's range is diminishing - the signal we get in the living room is a fraction of what it was six months to a year ago. The layout of the house hasn't changed in that time, so it's not like the signal is obstructed or anything like that.

I'm pretty much set on buying something more up-to-date, but I'd be the first to admit I know naff all about networking. Don't really want to spend more than £50 if possible, so what from the makes and models available on OcUK would you good people recommend? It'll have to be cable-compatible - we're currently on the Virgin Media L package.

Many thanks for your assistance

bremen1874 · 14 Aug 2011 at 23:43

Have you checked to see if one of your neighbours has setup a wireless network that’s clashing with yours? A simple channel change could fix your problems.

JonnyT · 15 Aug 2011 at 00:47

Are you running custom firmware on the router - such as Tomato? You can modify the wireless power with that installed on it

TNGL · 15 Aug 2011 at 04:11

JonnyT said:
Are you running custom firmware on the router - such as Tomato? You can modify the wireless power with that installed on it

IIRC, increasing it by too much could burn the wireless chip out. It's something I've heard, so don't quote me on it.

Adnams Drinker · 15 Aug 2011 at 06:34

bremen1874 said:
Have you checked to see if one of your neighbours has setup a wireless network that’s clashing with yours? A simple channel change could fix your problems.

We're currently using channel 11 - is there any way I can tell what channel the neighbours are using? It's not showing up on the 'show available wireless networks' screen in Windows. Or is it just a case of changing the channel and seeing what happens?

JonnyT said:
Are you running custom firmware on the router - such as Tomato? You can modify the wireless power with that installed on it

Nah, it's running bog-standard factory firmware - to be honest, if remember rightly, from asking a wifi-related question on here many years ago, it turns out that our model is one that cannot have its firmware upgraded.

Adnams Drinker · 15 Aug 2011 at 07:28

Have tried to get into our current router's setup screen this morning via 192.168.1.1 and get asked for a username and password. It would appear that at original setup we changed it, as none of the default combos commonly used for Linksys routers are working. Guess what, muggins doesn't have any username and password written down anywhere - we have the 28-character WEP key and the fact that we're on channel 11, but nowt else.

With that in mind I've started looking at replacements. Given what I described in my original post, how would this little number fit the bill:

TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless-N Cable Router (TL-WR841N) [TL-WR841N]

Seems like it's in a different league technically to what we've currently got and you can't moan at the price ...

ots3go · 15 Aug 2011 at 07:49

There's probably a button on your current router somewhere to reset it back to factory settings.

If it doesn't support WPA2 then it's certainly time for an upgrade.

darael · 15 Aug 2011 at 08:22

There is a button on the WRT54G routers, and they do support WPA2 - or my WRT54GS does.

Will be watching this thread closely, as I'm looking to replace my WRT54GS with Tomato installed.

Adnams Drinker · 15 Aug 2011 at 08:34

ots3go said:
There's probably a button on your current router somewhere to reset it back to factory settings.

If it doesn't support WPA2 then it's certainly time for an upgrade.

Just grabbed the manual off the Linksys website - only mentions WEP and WPA. No mention of WPA2. We're currently using 128-bit WEP, which from what I've been reading is comparatively child's play to hack :eek:

The more I think about it, we've had this one for years, it's been faultless up until now and we didn't pay a lot for it in the first place - about £25 off eBay if I remember! Really got no complaints about value for money whatsoever.

Yes, it does have a reset switch, but for the sake of £20, I'm sorely tempted just to buy that TP-Link model I linked to in my earlier post and set it up PROPERLY this time - unique username & password, WPA2 and custom DNS server IP addresses.

Did a bit of Googling this morning and the consensus seems to be that wireless-n has greater range than wireless-g, which seems exactly what we're after for our purposes.

Adnams Drinker · 18 Aug 2011 at 23:13

Now got one of these happily settled in the back room:

OcUK didn't have any of the WR841N in stock, so I went for the next one up, the WR1043ND. Setup was a breeze - using WPA2 security and running Google's DNS servers, we now have max. strength coverage throughout the house. Well, max strength considering the router is wireless-n and both our laptops are wireless-g anyway!