Now that we are done helping Mike pick a new washer and dryer, anyone want to give me suggestions on a router?

The hard drive on my firewall machine died so I need something while I decide what to do for my firewall.

Aw man, I thought your question was about wood routers

I use linksys/cisco products, never had any problems.

Me too jake. I thought, finally a topic I can discuss. I have 2 Porter-Cable, 1 Bosch, and 1 DeWalt. All very good. Oh yeah, linksys.

I got a crappy Ryobi I picked up on clearance. Don't like firing it up in the apartment unless abolutely necesary though because of the noise.

That won't help me bring up my internet connection though.

Yeah, Porter cable's are pretty good. You can pick up a nice one for only like 120 bucks or something like that too IIRC.

I think the Linksys WRT54G is pretty much the standard as far as routers go...

Porter Cable, definately. The plunge / fixed base kit is an excellent value. I have several different brands but always tend to grab the P/C.

I buy all my bits rom routerbits.com - they sell Whiteside, which have been very good to me over the years.

For the computer: I have had no trouble with my Belkin N1; great range and spped to grow into.
For wood: I've got a Porter-Cable plunge router that sings along nicely with carbide bits. Hitachi makes REALLY nice routers, but I can but 3 P/C's for the same price.

Scott

I'm enjoying my new Triton in my new router stand.....

To the OP:
Are we helpful?

Porter Cable is definitely the cream of the crop. I have a plunge, fixed base and laminate trimmer. I also use Linksys, but they don't cut nearly as well as the P/Cs. If you're going wireless, use the same brand wireless cards to make your life a lot simpler.

Depends on if you want 802.11n support and if you want other features like NAS (network attached storage). Also, you may or may not care about wirelss then you can choose a relatively cheap Netgear/Linksys router with a firewall built in.

I've used a Linksys WRT54GC for years and it's great. This supports 802.11g. Similar boxes from Netgear and Belkin are fine too. For 11n, the same vendors also have boxes but performance really depends on what clients (PCs, Macs, game consoles, etc) that you have. In order for you to take advantage of 802.11n, your clients have to also support it. At a minimum, using an 802.11n router with 802.11g clients can give you better range but you'll max out at 52 Mbps (theoretical). Some 11g routers claim 108Mbps but you need the same vendor client card too.

Because I have several Macbooks and an Apple TV at home I started using the newer Airport Extremes and recently an Apple Time Capsule. (I also have a vested interest but that's another story...) These are very good routers/access points IMHO and are very easy to use/setup. The Windows friendliness can be argued with Time Capsule but still a good product. There are other vendors like Netgear, Buffalo and others that have solutions but none will be as easy to use as Apple. However, if you want complete flexibility you may not want an Apple one. Their GUI does restrict access to certain settings that power uses might want. For me, I'm good to go.

If you have specific questions regarding vendors or technology, fire away.