Spec me a nice Router

Aod · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:04

Hello chappies, I recently got Virgin 50 Mb installed at my student house here in Coventry, which is nice.

what isn't nice, however, is the crappy little router that Virgin are bundling in with the 50Mb these days.
It's a D-Link DIR-615, and honestly, it's got about as many network management features as a bloody shoe. I can't get it to block UDP traffic, i can't customise any sort of QoS settings whatsoever and the wireless quality and speed is dreadful.

because of this, i'm looking to splash out on a nice featureful router to be used with a separate cable modem. it should definitely be wireless-N, with as many antennae as possible. it would be appreciated if it was dual-band too, because there's quite a bit of 2.4GHz contention in the area.

aside from those, it MUST have relatively comprehensive network and traffic management options. i'm not looking for it to be as comprehensive or featureful as an Enterprise-class Cisco router which i have to control by IOS, but it does need to be competent and above all, reliable.

budget is up to £120 but less would be preferable.

Journey · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:12

DrayTek Vigor 2110n and the Belkin F6D6230uk4 are both pretty nice routers for 50Mbps cable and pretty much tick all the boxes you asked for, can be had for £100ish.

I have used the DrayTek Vigor 2110n for a while now and find that it's very good, not had to reset it once for a fault since it was purchased.

benftl · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:21

Flash the DIR-615 with DD-WRT first and see how you go. It has plenty of network management options including all that you list above and mine works well with wireless N (8MB/sec ~ ave transfer speeds, strong signal etc).

Aod · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:41

benftl said:
Flash the DIR-615 with DD-WRT first and see how you go. It has plenty of network management options including all that you list above and mine works well with wireless N (8MB/sec ~ ave transfer speeds, strong signal etc).

my DIR-615 is hardware rev. D4 but the DD-WRT only lists firmware up to D2

<edit> apparently the D2 DD-WRT firmware will work on the Virgin D4 box

benftl · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:44

Mine is also D4, D2 firmware works fine on it.

More specifically: ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/10-26-10-r15506/dlink-dir615d

Flash the 'factory' file first, then the other one second.

Aod · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:58

running DD-WRT now. it's quite excellently comprehensive.

a thousand thanks to benftl for saving me a benjamin!

Kona* · 2 Nov 2010 at 21:56

Edit: Doh, just seen you loaded the D-Link with DD-WRT. I'll leave my post here in case you ever fancy a dabble with pfSense/m0n0wall

How about a DIY router? I have a PC Engines ALIX board running pfSense and it's got all the features you would get from even the highest-end Cisco kit. Another alternative is also m0n0wall which pfSense is based off, although it has a few less features.

What I'd recommend, costing under £110 including delivery from Switzerland (direct from PC Engines)

1x PC Engines alix6e1 (500MHz AMD Geode, 256MB RAM, 1x Mini-PCI, 1x Mini-PCIe, 1x SIM slot)
1x case1c1blku (Black case for alix6 and alix2 enclosures, 2 LAN)
1x ac18vuk (18V UK PSU)
1x dcma81 (Atheros-based 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI card)
1x pigsma (I-PEX to reSMA pigtail cable)
1x antsma (2.4GHz 5dBi reSMA antenna)

You can find out what features pfSense has from their website: http://www.pfsense.org/ and also m0n0wall here: http://m0n0.ch/wall/

The only box this doesn't tick for you is Wireless-N, this should be supported in pfSense 2.0 which should be done fairly soon although you would need to get a 802.11n capable Mini-PCI card, they are available for ~£15.