Router Purchase

[mtxblau]

I'm looking to buy a wireless 54G router. I used to work in broadband technical support, and the linksys routers were more than half the time the problem, so I'm kind of wary of them (I do understand market pervasiveness of Linksys, however).

I was curious if anyone had thoughts on a good 54G router. Doesn't need to be fancy, just have WPA and decent range. My d-link gives me a perfect signal in my townhouse, but we're moving and there is the potential to cover three floors instead of two.

Any and all info would be helpful! Thanks in advance.

 

[Gear]

Well, I have a WRT54G v6, and it started to work like a charm when I changed the firmware. I have wired to it 2 PCs and a xbox, and connect 1 (sometimes 2) laptop with WPA.

I live in an apartment (middle size, about 100 M2) and I get good connection at any place of it.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Not to knowledgeable on Wireless networking, but at work we were going to set up a wirless network with the Linksys USB 54G adapter and they sucked. Less than 20 feet from the access point the adapters reported low or no signal. Dont know if it was something in the building or if those adapters were just lousy.

I peronally am waiting until 802.11n comes out next year to start my personal wireless network. If it performs to its specifications it should rival if not beat speeds found on typical 100Mbps wired networks at decent distances.

 

[Malakai]

I have read about a lot of linksys problems myself, but I have had experiences with both the BEFW11S4 (Wireless-B) and the WRT54G (Wireless-G) and haven't had many problems with either.

I initially thought there were problems, when trying to run a server, but those problems were with the DSL modem and user error. Specifically, the DSL modem was set to log on to the net and then pass all traffic through the router, both ways, with out stopping any thing, and then the router would firewall every thing. (the dsl modem is also a router, in this case)

Even with the correct settings and talking to customer service multiple times, which was no help, I finally found out how to put the modem in complete pass-thru mode. This allows for the router to log in to the ISP and control pretty much every thing incoming and outgoing.

The next problem was that you have to disable DHCP for the linksys to route specific ports to whichever PC you want it to (23 for telnet, etc). Then manually configure each computer's IP (192.168.1.x)

After that, every thing has worked fine ever since.

 

[ExCyber]

The Linksys firmware seems stable in my experience, but has some questionable limitations. For instance there are only 10 lines for port forwarding. If you need to forward more than 10 port ranges (some games can take 3 or 4 ranges, and P2P apps often take 2), you're basically out of luck unless you switch to a homebrew firmware.

 

[mtxblau]

Kind of related, but definitely spurring the purchase:

Has anyone heard of a trojan or virus specifically that can break a WEP (802.11b) and start spamming over the wep?

Cloning a mac address seems to be more or less simple now over 802.11b.

The reason why I ask, since I moved, port 25 was locked down by my isp due to spam. I checked both pcs that are running on the network, neither have viruses (and the spam was detected at 2.54am, when neither of our pcs were on).

My next door neighbor has an unsecured wireless router, so it's pretty easy to guess that they probably have viruses and spyware. I've read of the latest trojan being able to do a virus scan to remove competing trojans... but haven't read anything specific on actively hopping on other networks...

I've read so many things that have a hit or miss on Linksys, and to this point have had no problems with my D-Link, so was considering that as well (but reviews aren't so hot).

Thoughts?

 

[dibz]

Many ISPs block port 25 for any servers other then their own, that's pretty common. Wireless security is a big issue, and honestly if you can avoid using wireless you probably should even if it is a little inconvenient. Personally I've had rotten luck with Linksys, two of my routers are Linksys and have the oddest most random issues you can think of. One of them after about a year of use now refuses to work almost at all, reading online it seems to be a fairly common issue as well. The other one randomly needs to be reset due to it flat out refusing to work for no reason at times.

 

[mtxblau]

Yeah, my first linksys router lasted a week. It started working once in a while, then it stopped. Then the wired ports stopped working too. Returned it, got the D-Link I still use today.

The reason I asked about the spyware/trojan thing was I actually received an email from Comcast stating they locked down the port due to spam. Now, I actually used to work at tech support, and know that they don't send this email 'just because' (for you comcast broadband users, they change the tftp bootfile from whatever your modem is to TB_25.boot, and won't remove it until you call their abuse division).

Anyways, I wanted to believe it was a virus or a trojan because I would hate to think one of my (new) neighbors is actually that malicious. In either case, I think I'm going to sacrifice modability for stability and try my hand at another d-link. My parents' 54g netgear router at their house is spotty, too, for whatever reason.