Recommend me a new Rooootah!

[SidewinderINC]

Right, my trusty Netgear DG834Gv2 is finally dying I think :(

Wireless issues over the last few days have been a nightmare, I don't think it's just my mac being stupid but I've been having to reboot the router as the mac can't see it, and when it does connect it just dies after 5 minutes.

And this morning it decided that in mid-use it would restart itself completely, wiped all of my settings from it :(

I'm open with budget for getting a good solid connection, must have good compatibility with PS3 (I know I shouldn't need to state that :p) and good strong wireless.

Budget of about £100 (+20% if needs be)

[Burble]

Which Mac is it? I have the exact same problem with my Macbook (with the 801.11n wifi card) to my parents DG834Gv2 but the other machines in the house have absolutely no problem so I'm guessing it's the Mac being arsey.

Tried a firmware update?

I'm out of touch with ADSL routers so I'll leave a recommendation to someone else.

[FakeSnake]

I have a netgear rangemax 108mb thing.. will go look at the model number in a moment..
the one with the flashing dome of lights..
I also have a Dlink one but that is not wireless.. but DO have a wireless access point

[Justsomebloke]

All this thread reminds me of is Rooting Tooting Cowboys ;D



/Spam.

[LeperousDust]

If you can get a version 1 wrt300n, get it running some non official firmware, that way you get (draft) n compatibility and speed) with the right equipment, and total control of your router with openwrt, dd-wrt, or whatever :)

Before you go spending though, you have tried updating the firmware yeah? I had major issues with a routing dropping connection randomly all the time, on new firmware its been very well behaved :)

[SidewinderINC]

Got the latest firmware - updated a week or two ago, thinking that might be the problem actually.

My machine is a Macbook Pro (circa june last year) so not the most recent one, but intel based none the less.


It seems to be ok so far since getting home (this is the first thing I've done since getting in :p besides opening a beer)
Will update later in the evening, cheers guys :)

[Desmo]

Funnily enough, out Netgear had a problem with the latest firmware, although that was a long time ago. I downgraded it to an older version and it worked a treat. Not changed it since.

[A Place of Light]

My Netgear 834GT has been absolutely rock solid since day one.

[SidewinderINC]

wireless just dropped again, gay.

Gonna flash back to the previous firmware - see if that works any better.


EDIT - seems to be working better now.


EDIT 2 - I was wrong - still just as bad. Gonna keep it wired for now (not as if I'm ever far enough away to not need wires :p) and when I get my NAS set up I'll clear this laptop out and upgrade to leopard with a fresh install - that way I'll know what's going on.

[Zirax]

I'm really happy with the performance of my Draytek router. Lots of handy stuff like the blocking of bitttorrent etc. QoS to prevent one loon maxing the upload and killing the line

http://www.dabs.com/productlist.aspx?&NavigationKey=11177&NavigationKey=50729&CategorySelectedId=11177&PageMode=1

[SidewinderINC]

I might be able to get a draytek from my mate adam actually, he might be able to procure one from work for me...

Didn't even think of that :p


I think it might have something to do with my PS3, but it died last night and the PS3 wasn't on.. GRRRRR.

[LeperousDust]

*ahem* funnily enough, the one i mentioned (and own) just went pop, so don't get that one it only lasted 6 months ;) ****ing useless...! I'm after a (cheaper) wrt54GS/GL i think now if thats any help as teyre cheap and proven, unless you're getting a cheaper free one of course! ;)

[SidewinderINC]

crazy!

Well I've fixed mine, left it turned off for the whole day whilst I was at work and also changed the wireless channel from 13 and it's working fine so far!

[Chuckles]

Yeah, definately sounds like someone near you got a router on channel 13.

I use channel 11 as well

Channel 11 FTW

[SidewinderINC]

I thought "I'd better turn it to 11" actually *looks shiftily at your avatar*

[Burble]

Grab a copy of Netstumbler and you'll be able to see what channels any other wireless networks in range are using.

[LeperousDust]

Wish mine was channel based, i can't even ping mine wired =/ Tried reseting and power cycling, all the lights are on correct but no-one is home :(

[Burble]

Ick, that's fooked then. Bugger.

[LeperousDust]

It is indeedy, i need a JTAG connector, but then i need a serial port on my laptop which i also dont have getting all these together would probably cost at least £20! So i thought bugger it and bought a £40 v1 WRT54GS, arrived today and turned out to be german, so after a bit of translating anf flashing it in english i'm now running tomato 1.19 and bloody hell its awesome! :D Definitely suggest tracking one down!

[Burble]

I've got 2 :) Well, I've got a v4 GS and a v1.1 GL. I'm using the GL because the wireless interface on the GS is knackered.

Originally I was using Sveasoft, but switched to Tomato about 6 months ago. I don't remember which version I'm running on the GL, I've not been at home for over 7 weeks.

[LeperousDust]

I was tempted by the GL, but i managed to get hold of a v1 GS which has twice as much RAM and flash memory, probably not necessary but i wasn't sure how bloated some of the firmware was or how slow it would be...

[Mark]

Hmm. I may have to investigate this Tomato business. I'm currently a Sveasoft user since the non-free days.

[LeperousDust]

How is svesoft, i paid for it for my other router but then realised i had the only version NO-ONE supports :( Heres to hoping one day (thats over now though ;))! So technically i think i've still got an account to download a version for this router...

[Burble]

Sveasoft is good, but it isn't good enough to warrant being paid for when Tomato is free. Also it doesn't have the very neat bandwidth monitor that Tomato has (well, it didn't last time I used it). Also the support forums are inhabited by some complete and utter :****er:s who seem to relish in being tossers.

The UI in Sveasoft is a lot more polished but that's the only thing it beats Tomato on from what I remember.

[LeperousDust]

I do like the real time AJAXy stuff tomato comes with, for something free its pretty nice looking and easy to configure :)
One thing i'm not getting is the QoS in tomato is it the same with all the others? Its not "much" of a QoS all it really does it throttle things indefinitely according to whatever layer7 or ip address i give it. I don't want to do this, i want some kind of priority system, so if port 80/Voip traffic appears the router cuts back on expendable nntp/p2p downloads etc... Otherwise i might as well just hardware set my nntp downloaded to a 60% or whatever permanently it wouldnt really make a difference...
Also tomato and others seem to be missing VPN passthrough, or any VPN options? Bit strange...

[MarcLister]

This thread has been hijacked! Keep calm and no-one dies! :D

Say I wanted to move from BT Internet to Be for up to 24Meg compared to 6.5 now and have a nice secure router with QOS (brother and I share the line and we need to keep our half of the connection to ourselves) and wireless and perhaps even a wireless print server ability for my Mum on my laptop for when she prints work stuff off, what Draytek would I be looking at?

Don't mind paying up to £200 potentially if the router will be very secure, wireless, allow me to split line 50:50 between me and lil bro or even three ways to let Mum have some, print wirelessly etc and have some spare ethernet ports on the back so I can run a switch in my room so I could set up a mini network in my room and copy files between PC without affecting the whole network between me and lil bro.

[LeperousDust]

The router i posted above i think has the potential to do this, physically split say 45 - 45 -10 and it only costs £50 (at tops). WRT54GL (any version as its designed for linux) or WRT54GS upto version 5 i think, and WRT54G up to about version 5/6ish... Or for N networking WRT300n v1, and i think 1.1 is supported now too...

[MarcLister]

Cheers Alex. And a print server in there as well?

[Burble]

No print server and no ADSL modem either so you'd need an ethernet ADSL modem too. It's a real shame that the ADSL Linksys routers are crap :(

[MarcLister]

Meh I'd like an all-in-one. :D

[LeperousDust]

Poop i missed the BT (ADSL) bit :D Yeah thats rather parp, there aren't any modable ones that i've fell accross (i don't need to look for them) that aren't solely routers AFAIK :(