Home Network

[RickyTick]

I didn't want to hijack Druidcent's thread from a couple of weeks ago, but I have a similar question.

I just bought a new house too. It's a 2 story, about 2100 square feet.

As much as I would like to wire it up with Ethernet cables, I'm just not sure I want to go through all the trouble.

I currently use an old draft-n router (WRT300n). I'm considering upgrading to maybe something like the Asus RT-N66U, which is currently $163 at Newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833320091

No heavy file tranfers. Mostly just streaming Netflix and such.

Is this Asus router a good option? Any comments or suggestions?

Thanks for any help.

[Arvald]

I have heard mostly positive reviews on ASUS routers... mostly people tend to comment that they are simple to configure (sometimes a little too simple) but that model even states it has DD-WRT support.

I don't see how you can go wrong.

As for wiring up a house I do prefer wire over wireless for my main machines. I went wireless for 3-4 years and when I went back to wired it was night and day (latencies gone, odd slow downs gone, connection flakiness gone). I went through wireless G, G 108, N150 and N300 in those years, nothing compared to my current Gb wired.

Side note I currently have/use a Belkin http://www.belkin.com/us/F9K1113-Belkin/p/P-F9K1113 my only complaint is lack of configuring options.

[druidcent]

Feel free to hijack any of my threads As long as it's relevant...

I have the Asus RT-N65U which I think is just about the same except no Wireless-ac support.. It's a great router and has enough tweaking options that you wouldn't need DD-WRT or Tomato anyway..

[Deanjo]

I didn't want to hijack Druidcent's thread from a couple of weeks ago, but I have a similar question.

I just bought a new house too. It's a 2 story, about 2100 square feet.

As much as I would like to wire it up with Ethernet cables, I'm just not sure I want to go through all the trouble.

I currently use an old draft-n router (WRT300n). I'm considering upgrading to maybe something like the Asus RT-N66U, which is currently $163 at Newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833320091

No heavy file tranfers. Mostly just streaming Netflix and such.

Is this Asus router a good option? Any comments or suggestions?

Thanks for any help.

I've owned a lot of routers in my life and I can honestly say that the RT-N66U thumps them all.... drastically. Don't waste your money on anything else and the very first thing you do is grab one of Merlins builds of the firmware for it.

http://www.lostrealm.ca/tower/node/80

[RickyTick]

I've owned a lot of routers in my life and I can honestly say that the RT-N66U thumps them all.... drastically. Don't waste your money on anything else and the very first thing you do is grab one of Merlins builds of the firmware for it.
http://www.lostrealm.ca/tower/node/80

I know wireless may not be quite as good as wired, but can this router be close enough to suffice?

[Arvald]

Well to answer that is more complex than just a yes/no.

You need to look at your range, what obstacles (walls, floors), interferance (other WiFi networks, microwave ovens), band you will be operating in (2.4GHz vs 5GHz, or both)

for a decent wireless router, it sounds like a great one. the rest is your environmental.
Over all I think you would be very happy with it for what you are planning to do.

[druidcent]

Oh, and another thing.. if you use an Asus Wireless NIC (either USB or internal), it's got some technology to connect to both the 2.4 and 5G which will jack up your wireless speeds upto 750-900 Mbps... I forget what they call it...

[RickyTick]

@Arvald
Just a basic house with the usual obstacles, sheet-rock, wood floors, etc. I don't have any interference like cordless phones or baby monitors, so it's all fairly basic. I was just wanting to avoid wiring the house with ethernet. If I can get away with wireless, that's the route I'm taking. My main pc will be the only thing hard wired.

@druidcent
Thanks for the tip. All the devices in the house already have a wireless card, in fact, I think they are all 802.11n.

[JohnC]

I own the N66U, it's the best performing consumer-grade WiFi router right now in terms of range and speed over WiFi. Of course, it's not "perfect" - I still have issues with some mobile devices in one of the rooms, But we have a very large 3-story house and my router's location is not optimal. Just make sure to place it properly (preferrably towards the middle area of your house and preferrably mounted on the wall high above the floor) and you should have no issues with its range or signal strength. Also, make sure to get latest firmware for it - the latest "official" one works fine (perfectly stable with all my devices), no need for any custom firmwares (although they do exist).