Router dying, need recommendation for new one?

Discussion in 'Network questions and troubleshooting' started by ROBSCIX, Sep 20, 2012.

  1. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Hey guys, sisters routers is acting like it is going to give up the ghost.
    It is about 6 years old so I think she has got her money out of it.
    Anyway, I don't keep up on the latest and greatest gear in the network world so what would you experts suggest for a great router for Lan and wireless.

    She has a fairly large network, few PC's, laptop, media gear, Phones.

    Price is also a concern, I want to give her a suggestion for the best bang for the buck router.

    Thanx guys.
     
  2. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    I just found here agreat deal on a Netgear WNDR3700. That should do her for a few years;)
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2012
  3. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    NetGear I hope ?
     
  4. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Cough, yeah that's what I mean.:)
     

  5. rflair

    rflair Don Coleus Staff Member

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    It is DD-WRT compatible and has some nice features, just becareful of it failure rate.
     
  6. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    The one I have atm is a Dynalink 1370, reasonabley priced and has done a terrific job for 2yrs now.....beats my old NetComm and D-Link models.


    Over 4mths uptime without a reboot....not too shabby. :)
    [​IMG]
     
  7. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    I had a recommendation for a D-Link 655, any opinions on those?
     
  8. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Which version? The old one or the newer A4?

    Will you be using the WLAN or just the Ethernet? Just asking cuz the older model has pretty poor wireless reception/throughput.....
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2012
  9. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Not sure which version it is. I found it 2nd hand so I would suggest that it is probably the older one.

    Will be using both wired and wireless.
     
  10. rflair

    rflair Don Coleus Staff Member

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    It is a descent router.

    So is the Netgear you first mentioned.

    The problem with almost all wireless routers is the wireless part failing and you will be able to see this within the first few weeks of ownership. The radios in them tend to get extremely warm/hot, they are made to operate this way but they tend to effect the router as a whole sometimes.

    If you ever buy an industrial grade router it has heatsinks on everything, consumer grade they usually opt for a tiny heatsink on the CPU and that is it.

    I run an Asus RT-N16 which also has it share of hardware failures, for many it runs fine, just like most things. I put a heatsink on everything inside of mine, but thats going to an extreme because it probably would have done fine the way it was stock.
     

  11. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Yeah, the wireless is usually the fail point which I think is what is happening to the router now. It is old anyway so needs replacing.

    Besides time to come to the gigabit Lan age;)
     
  12. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    I've had 4-5 D-Link routers and they seem to overheat easily, which basically cooks the chip.

    So Rob that's something to think about if you go second hand...what life has it had?
    Improved cooling def helps - even just removing the cover or cutting extra vent holes....
     
  13. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Which version of which router, the Netgear or the Dlink?
     
  14. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    D-Link...
     
  15. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Not sure. It is on a buy and sell forum.

    Looking at the local stores, as I think I am just going to buy a new one.
    They have the WNDR3700 and the WNDR4000 at the same price as the 4000 is on sale.
    So now I am unsure which way to go.

    The also have the D Link 815 and 825 for good prices.

    Any opinions would be welcome but looks like I have some reading to do.

    I also noticed the netgears have Lifetime warranty, which is also cool.
     

  16. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    I've noticed different routers behave differently with different lines, and even for the wireless different local background noise/presence of other routers. There is therefore no router that is 'the best' in all scenarios.

    Also MAKE SURE it is fully ipv6 compatible! some aren't.

    A friend of mine went through around 4 routers in a year because they either had shockingly poor reception, were dropping the line, or had slow transfer speeds. Unfortunately the one with excellent transfer speeds had shockingly poor reception. I'm not sure which brands or models had the different issues, but I do know he did go through Linksys, Netgear, and two other brands. He finally settled on a Netcomm NB604N-02 (-02 adds ADSL2+ Annex M) which at least for him, is working perfectly (and is fully ipv6 ready).

    A higher model in any brand isn't necessarily better then their lower models. It might have more features, but it might be an older model, or use a different chipset that gives different performance characteristics.

    If you are worried about any router getting warm, you can place a USB laptop cooler underdeath it and either run it off a computers USB port (if on all the time) or from one of those adaptors you plug into the powerpoint that provides powered USB ports (they don't cost much).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2012
  17. snip3r_3

    snip3r_3 Guest

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    I have 3 Dlink 655's at home, in all I owned about 5 of them (installed for others), 1 was defective when they came, so be sure to check them! If you get any wireless issues on them the first week, return them. Mine would simply drop the signal for a second once every few days (it was very hard to spot), but an exchange fixed it. They aren't bad, but are pretty outdated in terms of features. All were the B 2.0 revision, they don't get too hot. Ambient temperature during summer is 30~35c and it is sealed inside the wall. Works pretty well. My roomate has a ASUS N13, it isn't bad but isn't terribly fast either (LAN transfers are slow). You should first decide if you want 5ghz, then start researching from there.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2012
  18. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Anybody using these "sharepoirts" for adding HDD's ,USB drives to the network?
    I hear some are fast and other are slow.
     
  19. rflair

    rflair Don Coleus Staff Member

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    That is dependent on two things, CPU speed and/or its raw power and then if its USB 2 or 3, it can work OK. A NAS that runs on a gigaport connection with a decent CPU is better though.

    It is a viable solution if that is what you are asking, good streaming music, pics, however movies are the routers weaker point, if the movie is pushing over 20megabits a second it will be slide show like.
     
  20. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    I have 3 routers (each with different chipsets):
    • ASUS RT-N16 (Broadcom)
    • ASUS RT-N10+ (Ralink)
    • TP-Link WR1043ND (Atheros)

    Honestly, if dual band wireless isn't mandatory, the ASUS RT-N16 with dd-wrt (third party custom firmware) is the best router you can buy. It's not expensive, comes with a huge onboard RAM and memory (for flashing firmware), it runs a really nice, fast and stable Broadcom chip. All in all, probably the best consumer-grade router I've ever had.

    The TP-Link is pretty good too, but not a big fan of the Atheros chipset as there are some quirkiness with it (which you can see with dd-wrt). If that isn't an issue, it is cheaper than the ASUS RT-N16 and it's pretty good too, but I still like the N16 a lot more.

    Much better than most routers by Linksys and D-Link out there.

    deltatux
     

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