Wireless Routers

[nez]

have u checked to see if their is a firmware upgrade for your router, i had a problem with my belkin one, i found their was a new firmware which improved the performance of the thing and stopped it cutting of every so often.

nez

[Zyte]

so youve said lots about whether about wireless is good and bad, but im more interested in what wireless networks uve used , and which has worked particularly well for you.

[zed13]

Zyte,

I actually bought one of the D-Link 4300 GamerLounge wireless routers while in the US a couple of months ago, and so far no problems or complaints at all- admittedly I dont do too much twitch gaming, mostly MMOs etc., (while my brother is plugged in wired, im on wireless: dont have a 108g card, just 54g but still fine) and no problems at all... its got some pretty decent automated thingies (good description i know ) that allow you to do stuff simultaneously without much of a performance drop in ping or latency for gaming while on VoIP or downloading at the same time, though I'm afraid I cant quote you any numbers, cause I dont pay too much attention as long as things run well (which they did). So yeah... its a good wireless router if a) you can find it- which wasnt that easy for me and b) you fancy paying for it, but considering the performance, I didnt mind (incidentally, I bought it for approx $150 in the USA)

Oh, btw, it doesnt have any built in adsl or cable modem, if that matters

-Zed13

[davidstone28]

Have to agree with the suggestions about going wired. Its unbeatable if you want reliability and its cheap as well. Theres no reason to drill through ceilings - all you have to do snake it up the stairs along the line of skirtingboards, under the edge of carpets etc.

As for wireless, I run a Netgear 834G, Linksys WAG54 and a Belkin Pre-N across 3 seperate wireless networks and none of them are 100% reliable 100% of the time in terms of the not dropping the connection or having lag spikes.

The Netgear is easily the worst for maintaining a consistent connection and patchy signal strength. It's even affected by bad weather.

The Belkin didn't do what I hoped it would do - push a reliable signal through 4 brick walls - maybe its a line of sight thing because in my setup, the router etc are in the middle of the houses rather than at the side of the house near windows for better signal strength. Loved the flexibility of its dual purpose PCI/PCMCIA card though - it alternates as a PCI card or latop card as necessary. As you mentioned the router needs an ethernet modem to go with it.

The 108mbps stuff that you mentioned - I don't think its going to benefit you much - its signal strength that you're probably after rather than throughput. Maybe as mentioned by the previous poster, bridges or repeaters might help. Difficult to know without trying it, and if it doesn't work, you're lumbered with some redundant equipment.

Which brings me back onto the subject of wired networks.....

[Zyte]

i simply cant do wired though my parents wont let me ( as they dont like the wires going everywhere ) which lumbers me with this big problem of not knowing anything about wireless networking , and knowing even less about setting em up.

The only reason ive been lookin at the D-Link one is because ive seen the company advertised in a few places and linked on various clan web pages , making me think that their equipment would be good , but thats purely on who they endorse doesnt mean anything about the quality of the stuff.

Ive only got one shot at this cos i simply dont have the cash to mess up and buy something else.

im a bit cack with the drilling and pulling up carpet and putting it back so doing that is not really gonna work.

Oh yeah i will probs need a a modem too , so if you know of a good combo that works together well that would be perfect