Need help on selecting a new router

Hi, I am looking for a new router to replace my Dlink DI624 (very old and annoying...). I heard a lot of good things about wrt54GL, but I am worrying about the signal range. My room is about 18ft from the router (through 4 walls), my laptop is receiving very poor signal. I don't know if it's the router's or the walls' problem. Will the wrt54GL good enough or will the N router perform better in this case?

Thanks in advance.

 

the n router will perform better, but the wireless g should also work through 18 feet and 4 walls unless those walls are concrete or full of wires.

I've used this router in an office and it works across 50+ feet and 4 walls--however, the signal in the basement from roughly 25 feet is poor. The basement ceiling/office floor, however, is 4 inches of concrete...

 

Try to optimize the antenna positioning, this will give you a better radiation pattern and increase the received signal at the client computer.

 

I use a WRT54GL flashed with Tomato firmware and could not be happier. The bandwidth and QOS graphs alone are very helpful and simply wonderful. Range is very good and I'm able to control just about every aspect of data coming into and going out of my network.

As stated above antenna placement should be a top priority. You can also get a high-gain antenna that works wonders.

BTW: You're only going to see a major range/speed improvement with an N router if your laptop has an N adapter. Although the MIMO nature of the N router does offer *some* range improvement when used with a device only supporting G, it's really not enough to justify the extra cost of an N router without the supporting N adapter.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about the WRT54G and/or upgraded firmware (DD-WRT/TOMATO, ETC).

 

I use WGR614l with Broadcom firmware. The range and speed is good.