Trying to improve my parents network

My parents are running an old Linksys WRT54Gv5 router that gets 17 down 8-10 up wirelessly whether downstairs or upstairs. The room with the modem (Comcast modem) and router are directly above the living room so I don't think they need a repeater at all since speeds seem to be consistent throughout the house (and 5 bars everywhere). I know my dual band router usually gets 30-35 down (of 57) on 2.4GHz in heavy 2.4GHz traffic areas (my apartment complex). They are supposed to be getting 57 down 10 up which they do get if they wire in but of course, they use one laptop. Also, we get lag spikes once every 20 or so min. Sometimes long enough to boot me from a game once or so every few hours.

On regular use, they have 1 fire tablet, 2 s4 phones, and one basic everyday laptop. I assume the phones are dual band but honestly, they almost never use their phones in home (not anything they need wifi for. And my mother barely uses her tablet and again, nothing she really needs wifi for). That just leaves my dad's laptop which is the main concern he has. I know for a fact it is not dual band. Not sure if it is 1 or 2 antennas. Either way, I plan on getting an N300 router for them.

Any recommendations?
I was looking at the following:
- http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wirel...1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408049486&sr=8-1&keywords=n300
- Amazon.com: NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Router with External Antennas (WNR2020): Computers & Accessories
- http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR...7?ie=UTF8&qid=1408049486&sr=8-7&keywords=n300

 

What is your dad's laptop to begin with?

 

Do a quick check to see if the wifi is crowded.

5GHz is cheap enough nowadays that l don't see a reason to get a N300 for 30 bucks.
Consider you are getting enough bandwidth, a 2.4ghz n device is not going to help compare to a 2.4ghz g device in most case.

 

Well, I bought this TP-Link N300 router for my parents. Amazon.com: TP-LINK TL-WR940N Wireless N300 Home Router, 300Mpbs, 3 External Antennas, IP QoS, WPS Button: Electronics

After messing with setting on my wifi card that was causing 2.4GHz bandwidth issues and setting up the router, I've seen an improved speed from 18 down wirelessly anywhere in my house to now 50 down. With both my dad's and sister's laptops running Dell 1702 and 1704 cards they've improved from 18 down to 25 down. I need to tinker with their wifi cards to see if I can get them any higher.

 

Some Dell wireless adapters are known to be rather low in overall performance, so there might not be much that you can do about it.

inSSIDer v3 which is free (but hard to find since they changed to paid for everyone with v4) could tell which 2.4 GHz channel are the least in use.

 

Yea, I use inSSIDer 3 all the time. After tinkering with some settings on my dad's wifi card, I have it averaging 35-40 down now. Basically I just sent antenna mode from auto to aux and turned off minimal power mode. Not quite the full speeds available. But a nice improvement over before.