Somebody said on this forum that Netgear was not good equipment.

I have owned and tried tried Linksys, D-Link, Belkin and SMC. So far netgear is the best, largely because it has a compelte configuration front end, good wireless setup and seems reliable.

Nevertheless, being an impulse buyer, and seeing a US Robotics "g" router on sale this a.m., I bought one. I dont' think much of the front end (configuation features). I'll give it a few days, but think I'll take it back for a refund. I did get a USB unit for my laptop and hope that works good with my netgear. I have at least 5 compteting wireless signals here and my laptop with internal wireless keeps wanting to log onto my neighbor's LInksys signal.

Almost like driving on a crowdeded autobahn in Germany with a speed limit. :)

So what is the concensus for routers? I vote for NetGear and give a boo and a his for D-Link. I like the Belkin unit, but NetGear has a better setup for wireless. Linksys is good gear, but has less range, at least in my case of passing through a floor full of metal ducting, to the floor below. Front of the building to the back from one floor to the next.

I had major problems with D-Link, it used to drop my connection after 15 mins and need resetting. I bought the USR Sure Connect ADSL modem & 4 port router combined (model 9105). The frontend was shitty for a while but it worked flawlesssly- now they have released a software update which seems to have fixed the bugs in the software and given it a few more configuration oprtions. I tried 4 routers before i got this one and am sticking with it!

All i need to do now is to figure out why it won't let me run an FTP server and i will be happy :D

I use linksys and love it
is running a sort of linux firmaware and you can really hack it so much and get many extra features and boost the range quite a bit from the stock firmware.

A good place for linksys firmaware is here: http://www.sveasoft.com/modules/phpBB2/index.php

Sony

Thanks. Brief comments pening other contributions.

Dog, My USR 8xxx something or other seems to have crapped out. I could access the crappy interface, but today I get a failed connect. The wireless usb adaptor is fantastic and my laptop is happily connecting a a good rate to my Netgear router.

The D-Link I tried had a powerful wireless signal, but I did not like the features, and gave it to a buddy of mine who is hard up for bux.

I had a "g" Linksys and it was good except the wireless signal was weak and I have to go diagnally through a long distance from one floor to another.

I still have a Belkin "g" but it has poor security features. I'm not even sure Belkin is marketing that anymore. Good for a back up.

The USR robotics 8054 crashed, but I got it working again with a 15 second push of the hard boot button. It configured ok for the LAN, plus a couple laptops with WEP encryption. Gave it a fair try, but, nope. It simply doesn't measure up to the Netgear 614v3.

The Netgear has a better thought out front end, clones network MAC address automatically so you can exclude other MAC address--great for wireless setups. In my neighborhood, I'm picking up as many as 5 wireless signals.

I also picked up a "g" USR wireless adaptor, which gives better reception than my Sony laptop's internal WiFi. That unit is pretty nice.

The USR router is going back to the store as a trade in on some other toy! :)

Sticking with Netgear--at least for now.

Thank you for keeping us updated. I'm following threads like this with some interest.
Why? Because my D-Link sucks. How can that crap be sold everywhere, getting bundled and be allowed to spread around the Globe?

cool link sony. I didn't know you could do things like that. Thanks

Sony, you raised my level of curiosity.

I took my USR Robotics router back for a refund, but noted the new WRT54GS Linksys routers. Couldn't resist.

The signal is 30% weaker than the Netgear in my situation. Which is a lot. The setup screens are typical of older LinkSys and ver user friendly. Like the Netgear the setup screen can read the MAC addresses of attached wireless pc's and it is a sanp to add those to "permitted" netowrk machines.

Now, Sony, how do I amend the o/s o make it work at higher power, and will that shortne its life?

rikytik,
you will need to flash the firmware of the router (wrt54g) with a new firmware from sveasoft (it cost a few $ to subscribe to sveasoft )
if something goes wrong you can always flash it back with the original stock firmware.

I've been running mine at higher voltage for over 7month straigh (no problem so far) i also have a cantenna attached to my lynksy to boost the signal even more.

Now i can effectively get connection always over 70% around my house and withing floors i can even walt down the street and still get reception.
(most probably the cantenna)


here are all the new feature in the latest firmaware:

IF you have a linksys is a good idea investing in subscribing at sveasoft to get access to all these goodies.

Hope it help as i just woke up and i'm stil sleeping ......


Sony