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What a good wireless router

post #1 of 10
11/15/10 at 8:21am
Thread Starter 
I just moved to Boston for school and in my apartment my wireless signal drops a lot. I live with 3 other guys in a old 4 floor apartment.We all have macbook pros, iphones, and video game systems all running on our wireless, tho when I am on my iphone it says I can join about 20 other networks.

I am wondering whats a good wireless router. The apple airport extreme kind of seems like a rip off for 200 bucks. I already have a portable hd, and my wireless router is only 1 year old but is wireless N. Any ideas why my signal drops? I mean we just unplug it and it works again seems to happen every other day which is kind of annoying. My router is password protected to sign in so I think the only people on that network are my roommates as its a very long and annoying 32 letter/number password the router picked itself.
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post #2 of 10
11/15/10 at 8:43am
What kind of router do you have right now?

If I was to buy a router today, I would get an Asus RT-N16 and load it with Tomato firmware. They do tend to be a litte expensive, through it's one of the more feature-filled routers that I've seen out there that gets very good reviews.
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post #3 of 10
11/15/10 at 8:55am
Thread Starter 
I have a D-Link DIR-615. It worked fine in my old apartment just don't get why it doesn't really work that well in my new one. I looked on Cnet for reviews and they basically give every router the same exact rating.
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post #4 of 10
11/15/10 at 9:21am
I've had horrible luck with both D-Links that I've tried to use. Exactly what you describe-- The network goes down, the only way to get it back up is to unplug the router and plug it back in. Daily.

Right now, I'm using an old WRT54GL that's run perfectly for years and years with absolutely no problems. Recently I have wanted an N router for the speed boost, but my setup now works fine and I'd rather not spend the money on the Asus right now.
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post #5 of 10
11/16/10 at 8:57pm
With 20 networks in your area there are probably too many base stations all competing for the same wireless frequencies. You can try shifting what channel yours is working on, but that is only going to do any good if everyone else happens to be tuned to the same channels, leaving a hole for you (the chances are low with 20 base stations). The other option is to switch to a different band. Not as many people are using 802.11n, and when used in "pure n" mode (as opposed to the 802.11g compatible mode) it can use a bunch of tricks to avoid channel congestion.
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post #6 of 10
11/24/10 at 6:59am
After years of suffering with a Belkin router that stopped working whenever I connected with multiple devices, I finally bought a Cisco. It is amazing. No complaints, and the software accompanying it actually feels like it was written in this century.

On sale now: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Cisco+Li...&skuId=9770315
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post #7 of 10
11/27/10 at 3:13am
VIZIO
I got a dual band simultaneous n 2.4 5 for $69
At samsclub 79 at WALMART snap setup
Works great gave me 2 extra bars coverage and works great
W my apple tv
Was going to buy cisco e3000 till
I found this one
At WALMART they don't sock it near the other routers
But in the tv section
It also has a USB port
Very nice
Buy vizio
I APPLE THEREFORE I AM
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I APPLE THEREFORE I AM
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post #8 of 10
11/27/10 at 7:03am
more thoughts
my iphone has an app "eWifi" which scans for wifi networks it gives the channel all are on
i'd get a wifi scanner that can give you that info see which channel most are on
and chose a low used one, also some routers give you many more channels

take a hard look at VIZIO

no interference problems
I APPLE THEREFORE I AM
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I APPLE THEREFORE I AM
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post #9 of 10
12/12/10 at 1:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by crzdcolombian View Post

I just moved to Boston for school and in my apartment my wireless signal drops a lot. I live with 3 other guys in a old 4 floor apartment.We all have macbook pros, iphones, and video game systems all running on our wireless, tho when I am on my iphone it says I can join about 20 other networks.

I am wondering whats a good wireless router. The apple airport extreme kind of seems like a rip off for 200 bucks. I already have a portable hd, and my wireless router is only 1 year old but is wireless N. Any ideas why my signal drops? I mean we just unplug it and it works again seems to happen every other day which is kind of annoying. My router is password protected to sign in so I think the only people on that network are my roommates as its a very long and annoying 32 letter/number password the router picked itself.

Keep your current router, buy a time capsule, disable the radio in your current router and hardline jack the Tc into the Ethernet port and bridge it to accept ip leases.

You get dual N radios, network storage, and performance fidelity across the devices you already have.
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post #10 of 10
12/14/10 at 9:48am
Thread Starter 
I ended up getting a Cisco Valet, didn't work well because so many people on 2.4ghz band. Also the setup isn't as easy as they said. It took me longer to use their software than it does to go to advance settings and set everything up myself.

Then I got a Cisco e2000 which cnet rated very highly works great. Running on the 5ghz band and never had a problem.

Time capsule is too expensive. I got the Valet for 80 bucks on sale at Best buy, didn't like it and 2 weeks later I got the E2000 for 80 bucks on sale.

Pretty good deal runs 4 labtops, 3 internet tvs, 6 video game systems, 4 iphones. Run at least 10 more items on weekends when our girlfriends come over with 0 problems and for such a low price.

Was going to get the apple extreme base but not worth it based on they havent updated it since early 2009 and we don't own a printer and our itunes is on home sharing.
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