Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Wireless Router Recommendations

Ok guys, I need your help as it's time for a new router. I did a forum search, and the latest discussion here was 5 years ago in 2010.

Background: Family of 5 / Each of us has 2 to 3 devices / Internet over cable with modem supplied by cable company / Average 25 to 30 Mb/s download, and 5 to 10 Mb/s upload speeds / Bandwidth usage averages ~400 Gig per month

Usage: General research and surfing / on-line streaming of movies, videos, and music / on-line gaming through x-Box / streaming of music from local devices and NAS, through router, to two Airport Express's and one Apple TV.

Thoughts on Brand & model would be appreciated. I haven't checked to see if our devices are running n or ac. (Or even lower) Do I need to spend upwards of $300? Am I overbuying if I go that route?

The goal is to eliminate lag, and prevent getting bumped off when the kids start streaming in the evenings.

Thanks,
Shawn

Oh, apart from the various iPhones, iPads, and Apple based things in the house, all our computers are Windows based, except for one MacBook Pro.

Shawn , I messed with wireless for streaming etc and to be honest it just is not robust enough. I have not tried the latest flavor but if you don't have devices that use it then it is of no benefit. I use strictly hardwired , I ran it outside the house tucked up on the siding just like they do with your cablevision or telephone line. You could try adding some repeaters that plug in to the wall.

I'm not sure what your issue with wireless and streaming was (or getting bumped off?!). That simply shouldn't be happening with modern protocols, unless you live in a faraday cage. Even 802.11G is faster than your 30Mb/s cable company. You also shouldn't see any lag whatsoever being created by your wireless connection.

They do regular router torture tests at tomshardware.com

Great site for getting info on that stuff beyond manufacturers claims.

I live in a square Faraday cage.

In a perfect environment where you are the only one using a specific band of radio space that would be the case. I live in an upper scale suburb where there are quite a few families that have internet. From my house I can see 17 different networks that are all trying to use the same 12 bands. And now that everyone has G / N / AC all running to get the most bandwidth, it is a basic war for who has the most amount of gain on the signal. I gave up and just went with a wire for critical connections as wireless around me is just too iffy. I could have gotten a +30db antenna in a quest to over power everyone else, but I know it's just a matter of time before someone else does the same thing.

Hu.....Not much info here..... And yes, the Axiom forums are where I go for electronic buying advise. LOL...

So I've had occasion to be very frustrated with wireless drop outs, no signal, random network problems that would magically go away if I carried the laptop closer to my router. I've just dealt with it. Yesterday I got fed up enough to start researching extenders/booster -- whatever they are calling the things. My research led me to one made by Netgear. It's the Nighthawk 1900, which by all reviews, seems to be the hot ticket. Well now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just buy a new router. Looks like they've made some improvements over the last couple years? I think I bought mine is 2012....

My house is a split level home. Five different levels in all. 56' X 42' footprint. Some areas of the house the WIFI is great, others, it sucks. No real rhyme or reason that I can discern either. Sometimes the signal from my neighbors is better than my own. I do have a hard wired LAN too, but hardly use it anymore with everything going wireless. I also have one of those power-line adapters for my music server that talks to my office PC where the music files are.

My router is a Cisco E3000. I have high speed cable for interweb.

What do you IT guys think? Should I get a new router (and uh, ya, which one), or get one of those extender thingies like the Netgear, or maybe both??

Did you just get a new laptop? If so, does it support AC?

If you have a new laptop that supports AC and possibly has a multi antenna wireless card, get the new router. You will get much better bandwidth as well as better coverage.

What Fred said.

Even though he has no honor.

Yes. How do I find out if it supports AC?

Oh nevermind....

Communications:

Wireless - Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11ac

Network Interface - Gigabit Ethernet

No idea about the antennas.

Review sites suck. They are so inconsistent. No real help there. That Mike's Hardware site does well testing things, but I don't understand the tests, so it doesn't do any good. His favorite picks are torn apart by users on Amazon. I was all set to buy an Asus model that I've never heard of, after reading a couple reviews. Then on the Amazon site, it has all kinds of 1 Stars from users.

Router?

Netgear nighthawk R7000.

Michael. If you have a business class laptop it will probably have at least dual antennas. Well, unless it is a bottom end one. The manufacturers site should tell you somewhere in their specs.

Thanks for the input.

That one is on my short list from reading the professional reviews. Amazon user reviews are all over the place though. I suppose some of that is user error, but there are a few guys with IT backgrounds that don't like it.

Same with all the others though to.

My Netgear R6200 just croaked. Radio just keeps cutting in and out....

Purchased Asus RT-N66U router from Staples for 145$. They didn't have the nighthawk I mentioned and my wife was losing her mind about netflix constantly crashing... Setup was way better than the Netgear. Not sluggish saving settings and the firmware update out of the box was fast and automatic. I'd recommend this one over the Netgear line so far.

Been D-Link Ok
Been Netgear Better
Now Asus so far so good.

I ordered the Nighthawk. I guess I'll find out soon enough if it's any good.

I have an Asus RT56U. The first thing I did when I got it home was re-flash it with DD-WRT. Works like a charm now

Don't go cheap anymore. Gone are the days where a 50-70 dollar router would last 5-7 years. I have a middle of the road Asus that has a similar size family happy.

A friend of mine who is an instrumentation/comm tech suggested I look at these...... It was too late when he told me about them, but the system looks solid. He got the info from an IT engineer.

http://www.open-mesh.com/

Oh geez i can't believe i missed this thread.

Just finished hunting for a new wireless router myself.
Long story:

Owned Linksys for years, since the late 90s (just a switch back then, no router). When it went bad, i bought a router, top performer for ages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series
That lasted about two years and a brown out killed it.

I wanted to buy another newer Linksys, but this was after Cisco bought out Linksys and things went downhill with quality of performance of their newer models. So i ebayed and got another of the older WRT model.

It also died (about 2 years in), so i ebayed it again and bought a third. That one died in a year.

I decided to try something else and moved to a Netgear.
Another top performer for years:
http://www.maximumpc.com/netgear-rangemax-wndr3700/
That lasted us maybe 3 years and it went squirrly on me a few months ago (a screaming high pitched whine from the wireless chip and the wireless was dead; hardwired was fine though).
Tried a few fixes, but no success.

So i went hunting.
The two options?
The new and latest Linksys WRT1900AC (now again under different ownership with Belkin). It has had some great reviews on performance, but the GUI and options apparently need work. The price is also kind of stupid expensive.
So i settled on an Asus RT-N66U.
There was a good head to head review of performance on these two in Maxpc not long ago.
http://www.maximumpc.com/linksys-wrt1900ac-review-2014/

One thing i forgot to note, whether it be the 2.4 or 5ghz channels, the Netgear lost signal while using a baby video monitor around the house, which doesn't happen with the Asus. However, when using the microwave, the Asus signal gets choppy, which never happened with the Netgear.

LOL
Gotta love the quirks of radiowave interference.