Home Router Replacement?

[Rawns]

My router is starting to play up a bit which I think is partly due to the heat we've had, plus it's age. Anyway, I'm looking at replacing it soon. I currently have a Netgear DGN3500 DSL router with N range wireless and 4 X 1GB Ethernet ports.

 

I'm ideally looking for a similar replacement (N range wireless and at least 4 x 1GB Ethernet ports). I don't mind having a single unit, or having a separate modem/switch and wireless AP. Any suggestions welcome.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Rawns

[Fleetwood]

I only ever had two BELKIN routers, and the only reason I got a second one was because the first was only 802.11b/g - both were very reliable and never caused me any problems, no drop-outs or restarts, but these were the previous gen. models (the ones that looked like a small lunchbox) so I'm not sure what their new gen vertical ones are like. Worth a look in any case I did have a cisco one for a few months before moving which did a good job, but I unfortunately lost it during the move -_-

 

Now I'm stuck on this horrendous thing known in the dark lands as a BT Home Hub 3. Maybe I should see what suggestions get put in here and buy a new router too!

[pcstru]

This might be worth a look if you want some more power from your router.

[pete]

I've got an Asus DSL-n55U which (on the current firmware*) doesn't give me any grief. I've only had it since mid-June, so it's not really had a decent run yet, compared to the ~10yr old DG834 v1 it replaced.

 

*they did go through some pretty poor firmware revisions. I bought mine and just flashed it to current and haven't experienced any issues.

[Rawns]

it's not really had a decent run yet, compared to the ~10yr old DG834 v1 it replaced.

 

I think everyone at some point has owned a DG834 router! It's the Nokia 3310 of the router world!

[Netwacky87]

I've had 2 belkin's before and to be honest, all were pretty poor (IMO)...Had to be rebooted every few days, but they used to come with lifetime warranties. Got myself a Cisco router now, great bit of kit.

[Flatpackhamster]

Are you doing anything special on it? Draytek's range is pricey but full of goodies, including a content-filtering system (extra cost), VPN, and lots of other malarkeys.

[Dos_Box]

Handy topic this. I'm after a new router as the new Virgin Super Hub 2 is out, but I don't want to pay £50 to upgrade to something I don't own.

[pete]

It's also worth looking at the Billion kit too. I don't have any specific recommendations, but the networking forum at Ars T likes them.

[AMLinington]

It has to be said that we're still using the AWFUL Virgin hub that we can't get rid of and even standing next to the hub, Next Doors aggressive Belkin is out performing ours signal-wise. I think it must be in some sort of aggressive suppression mode as every time I change the WiFi channel on my box, theirs changes to match it and beats the crap out of our signal. Eventually when the decorating is done I'm going to fight fire with fire and buy the most aggressive suppressive WiFi router and access points I can find and configure the hell out of it until the other 20 routers in our vicinity are beaten into submission.

[Oaktech]

The Asus is good, I had one last week on a borrowed tooway satellite rig and it did a cracking job on an event in a field. At one point it had 125 users connected!

 

I've never had a belkin DG, but i have had a linksys wrt54g, which is pretty much the same level of ubiquity. I thought it had died after getting super slow and fally-over, but I cut a hole in it, put a massive heatsink and fan on it and away it went for 2 more years untill I got the cisco 1700 series i'm still using!

[cpjitservices]

PfSense... although in KC land I have to put my router in Bridge mode in order to use PfSense as my home router!!

[twin--turbo]

I use a Draytek at home but all my routers over the last few years have been high end stuff.

 

Cisco 1841 with ADSL wic.

Cisco 877W

DrayTek 2830N

 

Rob

[jmak]

Cheapo router with wifi off as a modem and a set of Ubiquiti Unifi's?

[bushby]

iv got at home a cisco Linksys e2000 got it from maplins and it covers more the blasted BT home hub 4 (that I use as the modem)

Its got a good range I can sit in the field at the back of my house and still have wifi also its 2.4 and 5 ghz and a nice little interface for changing setting and also can publish a guest net

[2097]

Im using PFSENSE running on my vmware server @ home . Best Router i have ever used .

 

I also use a cisco 1041n as my wireless access point , which is great !

[MatthewL]

I've had Belkin x 2 (one still in attic as spare) first was a good router but power surge killed it, Linksys was ok then moved to Netgear If I remember rightly, was ok but heat got it. I am now on Draytek kit.

[seawolf]

All of the Draytek SOHO gear is excellent, quality stuff. Well worth the money in my book.

 

For WiFi, I like hooking a Draytek modem (no WiFi) to an Airport Extreme Base Station. They are one of the best SOHO WiFi units on the market in my opinion. That opinion is based on years of use in dozens of environments, including using one to extend a WiFi environment to a temporary building on a school oval that was about 200m from the nearest WiFi AP, the building was clad partially with steel sheetmetal (not good for WiFI) , and a VOIP phone and computer in an office in that building worked perfectly over WiFi for a year to my utter amazement. The only other WiFi solution I would trust in such an environment are the Ruckus SOHO (controller less) solutions you can sometimes find. The Ruckus is a step above everything else.

[hawc]

Can any of these do the relevant DCHP jiggery-pokery to let you run a PXE server.

[SYNACK]

Dreytech 120 modem with a router reflashed with tomato, a third of the issue of dodgey routers is usually the software, another third is cheap power blocks/regulators and the last third is internal hardware.

 

Anything with a decent PSU and fixable software that has the features should work out with the right tweaks.

[Sunnyknight]

TP link routers. That's all i have to say.

[SYNACK]

TP link routers. That's all i have to say.

 

 

 

 

are terrible... There I finished that sentence for you, now if you are reflashing them to something like open-wrt that may be different.

[Arthur]

are terrible...

are terrible...

are terrible...

They must be really bad!

Edited September 10, 2013 by Arthur

[SYNACK]

They must be really bad!

They are but obviously not as bad as the excuse for a Tapatalk app they have thrown together for windows phone which said it failed to post at all.

[Rawns]

Quick update to this, I was having net issues again last week and when I got back online, I checked out TalkTalk's service status page and it popped up saying I was due a free router upgrade. I thought 'what the hell' and hit the button and they sent me a new router. I knew it may not be as good as buying a better model but through I could use it to test that the line is not at fault and that it was the wifi on my old router. Well it arrived yesterday and so far, it's not too bad. It's got the TalkTalk branding as you would expect but admin access is not restricted and the hardware is a D-Link DSL-720. N range, 4 x 1GB Eithernet ports, USB port for a shared drive, built in DynDNS support. Only annoyance is the admin control panel is a bit rough n' ready. Port forwarding is a PITA so I can't get any an external connection to my Teamspeak server! I'm sure I'll eventually crack it.