Moved house and need a Wi-Fi router with more Umph!

kidloco · 15 May 2006 at 12:20

As the title says, iv just moved and and more poor old Belkin can not cope, even thought the PC room with the Router and my Living room ( with Xbox360 and wireless adapter ) is virtually above each other.

So im after a new ADSL router with a bit more poke. been looking at this

edit : sorry ment this one

Linksys WAG54GX2 Wireless-G ADSL 2/2+ Gateway with SRX200

anyone have and views, opinions etc

crashuk · 15 May 2006 at 15:05

kidloco said:
As the title says, iv just moved and and more poor old Belkin can not cope, even thought the PC room with the Router and my Living room ( with Xbox360 and wireless adapter ) is virtually above each other.

So im after a new ADSL router with a bit more poke. been looking at this

edit : sorry ment this one

Linksys WAG54GX2 Wireless-G ADSL 2/2+ Gateway with SRX200

anyone have and views, opinions etc

linksys routers are crap.

kidloco · 15 May 2006 at 16:27

subtle and to the point

anyone else have any ideas, i think i have managed to narrow it down to these 2

Linksys WAG54GX2 Wireless-G ADSL 2/2+ Gateway with SRX200

or

NETGEAR DG834PN RangeMax ADSL2/2+ Wireless MIMO Router

needs to be

ADSL 2 compatable
4 port switch
Excellent range
Stable
quite easy to set up

any ideas ?

peahead · 15 May 2006 at 18:00

i second that linksys are ****

B&W · 15 May 2006 at 20:30

have used 2 linksys routers here.

wrt54g and now wag354g router/modem. first was used for around 2 years, always handled wireless perfectly. now its gone to a friend and it does the job for him just aswell even though his router is in the loft and his pc downstairs.

my wag354g is fine for me, handles p2p/games/wireless perfectly.

tolien · 15 May 2006 at 20:32

crashuk said:
linksys routers are crap.

Er, for any reason?

Can't say I've had an issue with the Linksys here, and there's plenty other folks had no issues with them either (other than the early version WAG54Gs, which were poor).

Bear in mind if you use MIMO kit you'll ideally need a MIMO wireless card at the other end.

crashuk · 15 May 2006 at 21:14

tolien said:
Er, for any reason?

Can't say I've had an issue with the Linksys here, and there's plenty other folks had no issues with them either (other than the early version WAG54Gs, which were poor).

Bear in mind if you use MIMO kit you'll ideally need a MIMO wireless card at the other end.

well 1) they over heat
2) spoke to linksys cs and asked if i could use ap as a repeater they said yes asked them ok so i have the router here and the ap their they said it was fine, so i went out and got it, came home wouldnt work they said i need to get another one so i did, came back didnt work then they said you need to update the flash on the ap but we dont support that, **** **** **** i asked i wanted my money back because i was given the wrong info.

tolien · 15 May 2006 at 21:36

crashuk said:
well 1) they over heat

Mine doesn't.

2) spoke to linksys cs and asked if i could use ap as a repeater they said yes asked them ok so i have the router here and the ap their they said it was fine, so i went out and got it, came home wouldnt work they said i need to get another one so i did, came back didnt work then they said you need to update the flash on the ap but we dont support that, **** **** **** i asked i wanted my money back because i was given the wrong info.

WDS works here...

kidloco · 16 May 2006 at 09:52

got this reply from a well known supplier of Broadband equipment

Hello Stephen

Thanks for your email.

I would avoid the Netgear as it doesn't use true MIMO. The Linksys WAG54GX2 Wireless-G ADSL 2/2+ Gateway with SRX200 is a very good product- it should give you a massive stability boost, and add 10-20% to range. However, before forking out on it, I would suggest changing the orientation of your antennas on the Belkin. Antennae push signals sideways. If your Xbox is immediately below, it will be in a dead spot. Try pointing the antenna at the wall, and this should sort the problem out.

MIMO technology is massively superior to standard WiFi. MIMO stands for "Multiple Input, Multiple Output", and uses several antennae and two transmition bursts in order to deliver a huge range benefit. With MIMO technology on both ends, you will double or treble your range. With just the router, and only standard equipment (such as the Xbox or standard cards), you will still be looking at the 10-20% range increase.

Kind Regards

Leigh

Jezza101 · 16 May 2006 at 12:47

Ive found wireless unreliable in general. My Belkin router was a pile of pants, the wireless connection would disconnect every 40mins or so, even when I brought the comps into the same room. Very frustrating.

Perhaps less to do with brand, I had probs getting good signal strength in certain areas of the house. All kinds of latency and p/l issues, sometimes it just wouldnt work at all

. I actually got quite into wireless netowrking and started d/l various signal sniffing 'toys' to track signal strength round the house etc. I just came to the conclusion the whole thing is more hassle than its worth.

So, I found an alternative to wireless all together. Enter "Homeplug". These little babies just plug into your wall and then you plug ya network cable into the plug. Required no setting up, they are secure (or at most only vulnerable to your neighbours - and im not sure the 94 year old next door to me isnt a l33t hax0r :eek:

).

Latency is a steady 2ms, the connection is constant with no p/l. Real speeds on the 85mb version are around 60mb, which is fine for my needs. People have been using them with their xboxes, home media systems, PCs, etc, etc with no probs. The down side is that it could get pricey if you need lots of them, a small % of homes are incompatible, ya laptop will need to be near a power socket, but these should be in every room, I even have one in the garden!

My Belkin is now retired and my 6 yr old generic adsl router reinstated. Worth looking up imo. At least until wireless tech gets more reliable...

mi9tchy · 16 May 2006 at 19:46

the wireless on the dg834pn is pretty good my brothers got one he uses his intel 2200g wireless with and it covers the whole house(big) and more

danlightbulb · 17 May 2006 at 09:52

I had a netgear wireless router originally (albeit the dsl cable version) and it was totally rubbish. I had to reset it every time i turned the pc on.

So I got my money back and now have belkin router and pci card, which never needs resetting.

I think it really is pot luck with any of the brands - they could all let you down and they could all perform well you won't know till you buy one.

For this reason I would consider where you are buying from as it can be difficult to get your money back from mail order and in my experience is a lot more hassle to do returns should you have a problem.

kidloco · 17 May 2006 at 12:14

well i plumped for the linksys one in the end. ordered it 2pm yest, arrived first thing this morning, how quick is that.

looks a nice piece of kit, very well made and the docs are nice. will hook it up tonight and try streaming some stuff to my 360. cant try with tinternet till my connection gets sorted. still waiting for this LLU trial to get hooked up free from work.

should have the 8meg line in 5 to 10 days iv been told.

really hoping this is better then my past routers

Netgear - flakey as hell and broke straight after the warrenty ran out

Belkin - run hot as hell, would drop connection the second you try downloading a torrent, crap signal strength too

kidloco · 18 May 2006 at 13:38

well got it up and running, really good piece of kit. signal strength is fantastic. full signal on my XBOX360 downstairs now. and its so good it streams virtually all HD without a stutter ( only some of the really high bit rate content stutter for a sec every now and again )

all in all a big improvemnt over my Belkin unit

jonshaw_uk · 18 May 2006 at 15:19

netgear

im running a netgear DG834GT 108MBs and cant fault it - im currently running 2 PCs wired via ethernet - 2 x media centres via 108mb wireless netgear cards and also my PDA

cant fault it at the moment

2bullish · 19 May 2006 at 09:23

I have to say that you should stear well clear of the dg834gt as I have had many problems with mine and if you go to Netgears forum you will see well over a 1000 posts regarding that particular router. Johnshaw_UK is the exception rather than the rule.

Caged · 19 May 2006 at 13:43

Honestly I've had it with wireless hardware for anything other than roaming with a notebook. I've dropped cables to wall jacks wherever I've needed a permanent network connection. Takes less time than dealing with quirky wifi setups.

deSade · 19 May 2006 at 16:24

tolien said:
Er, for any reason?

Can't say I've had an issue with the Linksys here, and there's plenty other folks had no issues with them either (other than the early version WAG54Gs, which were poor).

I'll second that - my Linksys router works perfectly. Doesn't overheat, is very stable & gives a great signal.

csmager · 19 May 2006 at 17:46

deSade said:
I'll second that - my Linksys router works perfectly. Doesn't overheat, is very stable & gives a great signal.

I've dealt with an unstable WAG54G, but I have two Linksys AP's, and know lots of people with stable WAG54Gs. Nothing wrong with Linksys kit as far as I can see.

Energize · 19 May 2006 at 19:10

Caged said:
Honestly I've had it with wireless hardware for anything other than roaming with a notebook. I've dropped cables to wall jacks wherever I've needed a permanent network connection. Takes less time than dealing with quirky wifi setups.

Me too, we've just got wires under the carpet in our house, wireless routers are far too slow and I have always had signal problems and stuff, don't even get me started on encryption.