Newb needs advice on wireless router for new apartment

I'm moving into a new apartment and just ordered Roadrunner Turbo with PowerBoost through TWC. This time around I decided I'd purchase a wireless router separately (I've just rented from TWC in past apartments). I'm a n00b when it comes to wireless networks, so would really appreciate some router suggestions. I don't necessarily want to break the bank on the best thing out there, but certainly don't want to sacrifice performance just to save a few bones either. Sorry for being so vague, but I'm not really knowledgeable enough on typical router prices to be much more specific. Other than surfing, I use the internet primarily for usenet and gaming (mostly on the PS3 these days). If there are any other details that would help, just let me know.

Thanks for any help... I wouldn't even know where to begin on my own and don't want to have to bust out the wires when I get everything installed on Tuesday!

 

Hrm, for something that just works out of the box I'd say look at a linksys e1000/2000. If you're not afraid to flash dd-wrt to a router then asus rt-# are great, their stock firmware is just not so great.

 

Well, give us some ideas.

Are you planning on doing mostly hard wired? Wireless?

If wireless, do you know what kind of wireless your devices have? G? N 2.4GHz? N 5GHz? (Give us some specs)

How big is the apartment? Does it have unusual walls, like very thick ones?

Are you going to be transferring files between computers, or streaming stuff from a computer to your PS3/TV?

How many devices do you plan on having simulateously hooked up and running? (For example, will you be playing a game, while one roommate streams youtube and another roommate downloads via P2P?

How long do you plan to keep the router?

 

You will require a modem to get from cable to 100BaseT eithernet.

Go over the Real Help For Your Small Network - SmallNetBuilder and read some of the reviews.

 

Thanks for the responses so far.

Just wireless with my laptop, and probably both wired and wireless for the PS3.

Device Manager on my laptop says Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN. Is that what you're looking for?

Medium sized, I suppose - two bedrooms, bathroom, living room, dining area, small kitchen... the usual. I have actual room dimensions if you want to get specific (don't know square footage though as I only have dimensions for the bedrooms and the living and dining room). Nothing unusual with the thickness of the walls.

Yes.

It's just me living there so no roommates, but my laptop, PS3, and Droid X use wireless simultaneously fairly often. Also, friends may bring over their laptops, PS3s, etc from time to time.

Probably at least a couple of years. It'll be in use throughout my 12-month lease on this apartment, and I'll likely continue to use it wherever I'm at after that.

The modem will be included by Time Warner with my Roadrunner Turbo... not sure what they'll give me though.

 

All right, here's a start.

.
Okaydokes. It looks like your laptop supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz N bands. That means you can take advantage of routers that broadcast in 2.4 and 5.

However, I'm not sure if you'll need it. The real difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz is that every wireless device and it's mother--exaggeration but you get the picture--uses it, while the majority of devices don't take advantage of the 5GHz band. Which means if you have a lot of wireless devices--phones, other laptops, game consoles, etcetera--the 5GHz will be "cleaner" and can possibly net you better signal and throughput.

However, it seems you're not going to be running into much interference. You most likely don't need a 5GHz router.

No need for dimensions. That's more than good enough. So you're not going to need a super router with supersauce broadcasting power.

So streaming and file transfers. Hmm. I should have asked before, so sorry.

How will the transferring be set up? For example, in my case, I have a semi-server hooked up by gigabit wire into my router. I can then manipulate the server or stream video wirelessly.. Will you be doing that? Or will all your devices be doing wireless-to-wireless. (E.g., wireless laptop to wireless PS3?)

Okay. So your wireless traffic is pretty light. Like I said above, most likely you won't need a 5GHz router.


So here's some preliminary suggestions. Don't take my word for them, though. Get some people like Leslieann or Downloads to give their advice, since they know oodles more than I do.

The Netgear WNDR3700 is one of the most popular routers on this site, and very powerful. It simultaneously broadcasts in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz band. However, I think it's more powerful than you really need. Not suggesting it per se, but just throwing it out there.

The Netgear WNDR3500L is pretty good. Gigabit ethernet and good hardware. Not pricey at all for what you get.

the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH is supposed to have ridiculously powerful wireless signal, so you're not going to have a problem with a weak signal. Also, pretty decent hardware and gigabit ethernet if you go wired.

The Linksys E1000 might work for you pretty well. It only has 100mbps ethernet, but if you're doing things almost exclusively wirelessly, it's worth a look into.

The Linksys E2000 is a little more expensive, but you get 1000mbps wired ethernet and the ability to switch between 2.4GHz and 5GHz when you want to. Not familiar with Linksys routers, myself, though. Just know them through reputation and posts from other users. Ask Leslie.

The router I'm currently using is Asus RT-N56U. Good features, good hardware, and the firmware seems stable. Like with the WNDR3700, it might be a little "too powerful" for your needs, but I can tell you I'm happy with it.


Anyway, browse through Newegg and see what you like. And bug Downloads.

 

@ katai
Adding to what Forge wrote.
Based on your answer concerning your requirements I'd recommend going for mid-range relatively cheap hardware.

Netgear WNR3500L is indeed a very good one (cost like $80)- mind you it's WNR not WNDR. So I second that choice.

I usually recommend a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND however while it costs $57 in Europe (including VAT) it costs $70 in the US (even though there's no VAT) so in this case I also second Forge's recommendation of Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH- which has the same CPU that TP-Link has, USB, gigabit Ethernet etc (both identical to this point). Buffalo also sports 64MB RAM compared to 32MB in TP-Link- that's where it wins.
It's well worth spending additional $3 for that RAM.

The rest lose out to those on different grounds- WNDR3700 is quite expensive and offers a lot of things you don't need, E1000 is a bit weak compared to WNR3500L or Buffalo, E2000 is too expensive in my opinion- both WNR3500L and Buffalo offer better hardware although without 5GHz range.

I'd say this is the final order:
1. WNR3500L (CPU 480MHz, 64MB RAM, USB, gigabit Ethernet, 300mbps 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, Netgear firmware, supported by DD-WRT) costs $80
2. Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH (CPU 400MHz, 64MB RAM, USB, gigabit Ethernet, 300mbps 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, runs custom DD-WRT out of the box) costs $73

 

I would avoid the Buffalo WZR-HP-300NH. I had one that worked fine for 3 months, then started dropping connections. it's a common problem, and appears to be hardware not software related as it happens with both the original firmware and with dd-wrt to them. Sad, cause I've always like buffalo.

Replaced it with the WNR 3500L and am VERY happy with it running dd-wrt. I get 180+Mb/s connections all the time with it, and it's kinda noisy where I am.

 

Being in an apartment you may have a lot of wireless networks around to deal with. I would go the dual band route to get away from the crowded 2.4ghz band width.

If I recall Buffalo has a 3 yr warranty, how come you did not contact them and get it replaced?

 

I might, but all through the forums it seems they're trying to help people figure out how they've set them up wrong etc. Seems like a lot of pushback. I'll look into sending it back, but I needed wireless lan at the mo and didn't want to wait weeks to get it back. If I get a chance I'll send it back, but given the high failure rates I've read about I don't trust it to keep working.

 

Could someone explain to me where the speed bottleneck is in a wireless setup? According to the Time Warner website, Road Runner Turbo with Powerboost is capable of download speeds up to 15 Mbps, which seems to be far surpassed by all wireless routers. So what is the benefit of something like the Netgear WNR2000 with speeds up to 300 Mbps vs the Netgear WNR1000 with speeds up to 150 Mbps?

I'm more than willing to spend more for increased performance, but don't fully understand what benefits I'll see by dropping more than about $40 on something like the WNR1000.

 

There are two kinds of connections you'll deal with: Internet-to-network (WAN) and network-through-network (LAN).

WAN is basically internet->modem->router->computer.
LAN is computer->router->computer.

You're quite right in saying even a 54mbps wireless G will not bottleneck your WAN connection. However, the real benefit of the high-speed N-routers is their wireless LAN speeds, that is, moving files and streaming content computer-to-computer.

So.
2mbps internet->modem->router->2mbps computer
300mbps computer->router->300mbps computer.

(Just bear in mind that N-routers only really reach 100mbps in real life.)


In my case, I have a server wired into my router, and then my laptop hooked up wirelessly. (I rent a room; I can't physically touch the router and I don't think the landlord likes the idea of running ethernet cables around, haha). Since I stream content (mainly movies) from the server, I wanted the best throughput I could get. If I did not have a server, I wouldn't "need" a 300mbps router.

 

Thanks again for the responses. I currently have the WNR1000 that I got from Walmart to hold me over and am about to return before my 15 days are up. I'm now looking at the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH and the Netgear WNR3500L, both of which seem to be popular options and can be had for around $70.

Worth the extra $30?

Any suggestions on which is better between the two?

I'm intrigued by the option of hooking up an external hard drive for NAS. It looks like the Buffalo can't do NTFS, but that won't be too big of a deal for me since I already have a drive formatted in FAT32 for use with my PS3. I just won't be able to share the larger HD movies that are stored on my other external.

 

The Netgear has a Broadcom 480 MHz CPU, 8MB Flash and 64MB RAM.
The Buffalo has Atheros AR9132 rev 2 (0xb9) 400MHz CPU, 32MB Flash, 64MB RAM.

Spec-wise, I think the Netgear is slightly faster. (Flash memory only matters if you're aiming to put third-party firmware onto the router). The Buffalo will have a superior signal strength.

Personally, I would go for the the Buffalo because of the awesome signal strength. Also, I think it looks... cute.


Don't judge me.

 

I own one of each. That particular buffalo seems to suffer (or at least it did) from a fairly high failure rate of around 33% or so. Look it up on Amazon. Review after review saying the same thing that happened to me. Works for 2 or 3 months, then starts dropping connections. Didn't matter if it was on the original Buffalo firmware or DD-WRT. I wasn't in the mood to mess around with a warranty claim / being out of my wireless router for a few weeks, so I bought the Netgear WNR3500L, tossed DD-WRT on it, and it's been rock solid for me. Uptime right now is 50 days and that's because I accidentally unplugged it 50 days ago. I'm a HUGE fan of Buffalo routers, but the WZR-HP-G300NH doesn't seem nearly as stable as their older units. We use the older WHR-HP-G54s at work, and they are 100% solid reliable main battle tanks of wireless routers. Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Buffalo Technology Nfiniti Wireless-N High Power Router & Access Point WZR-HP-G300NH The one star and two star reviews for it keep saying the same thing, it drops connections or fails completely after a few months. Sadly, Buffalo's answer seems to be "let us help you tweak it" which isn't gonna fix the problems I was having. The cheaper WHR-HP-G300NH gets the same reviews over and over. Dropped connections, reboot router, it works for a few hours to a few days, then starts dropping wireless connections again.