I need a new router, any suggestions

Ok so the router I have is getting old. It is a Netgear MR314 Wireless B router.

It is time to get a new one with a bit more kick behind it.

After doing a bit more research it turns out that my connection problem while running a torrent program is due to the low power of the router. Something to do with how slow the processor is and the small amount of ram in the machine. (News to Me)

If I have more than 2 torrents going at once, even only moving say 30kbps each internet in the entire house drops dead. However other times I can have a single torrent coming in at 280kbps and no problems at all. It turns out the router can't handle all the connections.

So I am on the hunt for a decent router.

We have the Shaw Xtreme-1 package 7mb downloads and we have 7 active machines on the network. One is my server that has Apache, Serv-u and ABC running 24/7 on it. So I do end up with a great deal of connections going in and out of our network.

I was thinking of the Linksys WRT54G but have seen a great deal of negative press for it.


Any suggestions would be helpful.

A Seperate Connection for torrents? lol

um im actually in love with my WirelessG D-Link Gamerlounge, especially if your gaming while torrenting.

linksys wrt54g-S with dd-wrt firmware is rockin out for me! ill suggest it to you. wrt54g-s is diff then the plain wrt54g. a little more power to it and very customizable with diff. firmwares.

Get one of the Belkin Pre-N routers if you get anything. Mine has given me the most range and speed of any wireless router I have used. I have not tried the D-Link gamer lounge yet. I might borrow one to test. I think there is a black friday deal on the Belkin Pre-N so that would be a good time to go shoping.

The_Jizzler said:

linksys wrt54g-S with dd-wrt firmware is rockin out for me! ill suggest it to you. wrt54g-s is diff then the plain wrt54g. a little more power to it and very customizable with diff. firmwares.

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seconded. thats what i have and i love it

I have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router and I must say its pretty good. But the DLINK G gaming router is prolly better due to the fact that includes 4x10/100/1000 ports instead of the normal 10/100. Also I understand that it gives priority to game traffic thus making it better for gaming.

priority to game traffic?..... is that a joke? hows it know? besides, isnt that already called QoS, something every half decent router for the last few years has come with? or is it something totally revolutionary and new? hmmmm....

WaTTz said:

I have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router and I must say its pretty good. But the DLINK G gaming router is prolly better due to the fact that includes 4x10/100/1000 ports instead of the normal 10/100. Also I understand that it gives priority to game traffic thus making it better for gaming.

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Well since no one here has a conection fast enough to take full advatage of 10/100 let alone 10/100/1000 I think it is safe to say that they would only be useful if you are moving large files between 2 computers on the same network. And how often does the common user do that? That stuff about giving priority to games sounds like bull to me, but it wouldn't help if you are the only person useing the internet so quite often it would be useless.

z0n3 said:

That stuff about giving priority to games sounds like bull to me, but it wouldn't help if you are the only person useing the internet so quite often it would be useless.

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its not bull its called QOS. Properly implemented it works quite well. It also can still be uesful if you only have one computer connected because it will priortize different types of traffic like FTP vs HTTP vs Games vs Bittorrent.

Ooh Gigabit is actually pretty high on my wish list, as my main rig is equipped with a gig nic and I would buy a gig nic tomorrow for my server if I could use it. I transfer 2-3gig files on a daily basis from main to server and back.

As for gaming I do play UT2K4 and FEAR online but that is the least of my worries when it comes to a new router.

So these hacked firmwares. For the WRT54G-S sound interesting. I am going to have to take a look and see who has the -S version around here. Linksys was in the toilet for some time however seems to have recently gotten better.

I am going to keep looking around, but you guys have kinda swayed me back to Linksys

Smoothwall or something similar. Anyone who has gone to smoothwall will never use a router again.

yea, but smoothwall only gives you one NIC (or2-3 depending if you have a DMZ/Blue-Mod) so you still gotta use a switch or hub if you wanna hoook it to more than one pc.

On top of a switch or hub I will also then need to buy a wireless access point.

Smooth would be nice, as I have lots of spare junk computers, but I need more stuff than just the firewall.

I just use my old linksys wireless router as a switch and AP. Works great.

Just an update, I still have not gotten the new router yet, but I have confirmed that it is the router causing the problems.

I am allowed multiple ip's from ISP. So I pulled a switch into the cable modem ran a single line to the server and then a separate line to the household network.

I the server got its own IP and the Router pulled in a 2nd IP and I fired up the torrent software it rocketed up and I reached over to my main rig and tried to load up a page, Bam loaded perfect, so I added more torrents and then went back to my main rig and surfed around, perfect as pie.

So it is most defiantly the router causing the problem. I am running a software firewall at this point on the server. I may just say screw it and pick up a cheap wired router and toss that in line with the server and call it good. That way I can keep the Netgear router that has been so great for me for so long.

The only drawback to this setup is that when I click on "my network places" I no longer have the servers drives show up. I have to either use remote desktop via the new IP or FTP into the server.

All in all I am very happy that it is all working for the time being.

Thank you to all that offered suggestions.


Oh see attached image for my new speed now that the router is not kinking the style.

These are legal home made car video downloads I have simply removed the names for privacy sake.

The_Jizzler said:

priority to game traffic?..... is that a joke? hows it know? besides, isnt that already called QoS, something every half decent router for the last few years has come with? or is it something totally revolutionary and new? hmmmm....

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AFAIK it is QoS, however it is automatic, very little if any setup required I believe.

icic.

so fiero, do you do your torrenting over the wireless? or do you have a PC wired into the lan for that?

THe server is wired to the network. But, why do you ask.

i would reccomend building a smoothwall and using the router as a switch / AP. then all should be fine on the network.

I have a Linksys Wrt54G myself. and i have it modded as well i have a linux style mod installed on it. It is secure and i have had people run some programs on me to test it and it works fine. There are still a few ports opened but for the most part is it a preety good program. I have Snort on it and a few other programs. This is the firmware i used on mine. http://www.sveasoft.com/ you have to look threw it to find it.

I also have a smoothwall and i like it. It is alot more secure then a regular wrt54g but as far as everyday use i dont know if it is for everyone. If you have no idea what your doing or if you dont want to research how to use it then you are better off just going with a good router. Right out of the box Smoothwall runs and preforms great but if you look threw the forums and read some on it you can make it very very secure. I have a few mods installed on mine. I hope this helps yea out a little.

Lotec25