OT: My home WI-FI router sucks

I have had it up to here with Belkin routers. Last year the one I had at home would no longer connect anything wireless, it was several years old so I just chalked it up age. I bought a newer model Belkin to replace it, and it just crapped out the same way as the last one.

Time to stop being cheap. I went out at lunch today and bought a $250 Netgear, more range and speed. I use a lot of Netgear here at work and they have never let me down.

I will never buy a Belkin again!!!!!!!

Netgear and Linksys are far better than Belkin.

+1 for Netgear!...

TP-Link is my goto atm.

Here is what I bought:

Mark Snodgrass said:

I have had it up to here with Belkin routers. Last year the one I had at home would no longer connect anything wireless, it was several years old so I just chalked it up age. I bought a newer model Belkin to replace it, and it just crapped out the same way as the last one.

Time to stop being cheap. I went out at lunch today and bought a $250 Netgear, more range and speed. I use a lot of Netgear here at work and they have never let me down.

I will never buy a Belkin again!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Yes, Belkin is a low cost brand. That said, if you allow any router to run for several years without upgrading it's firmware, then you can expect to have trouble with it eventually.

I built my home network using a layer 3 Cisco switch with POE access points, standalone modem, and a Watchguard appliance. No issues here.

Why?

Consumer Wi-Fi routers, at a consumer-friendly price, have to provide a combination of:
a) switching
b) routing
c) WiFi access point
d) firewall abilities
e) a management web server
f) QoE, etc.
g) sometimes a modem, too
h) the firmware to coordinate these functions in a combined appliance
i) relatively frequent, but random, reboots

NetNathan said:

Netgear and Linksys are far better than Belkin.

Click to expand...

Belkin owns Linksys.

I usually buy lower-mid end consumer routers and put dd-wrt on them. Then I have an expanded feature set and in some cases better performance.

It is nice having a VPN server on a consumer grade router and access to the hardware options.

Just like sparkie, I have a $70 tp-link with DDWRT firmware in it. It runs like a champ.

dmroeder said:

Just like sparkie, I have a $70 tp-link with DDWRT firmware in it. It runs like a champ.

Click to expand...

It is worth a shot if you are replacing the router anyway. I bricked the last one I did this on and had to use a raspberry PI, serial console and the GPIO to connect to the serial pins on the board to get output for failure and rebuild the bootloader. It was a pain in the butt, but my friend was sitting there for an hour telling me how it was beyond my ability before I kicked him out and collected my ten bucks the next day

sparkie said:

It is worth a shot if you are replacing the router anyway. I bricked the last one I did this on and had to use a raspberry PI, serial console and the GPIO to connect to the serial pins on the board to get output for failure and rebuild the bootloader. It was a pain in the butt, but my friend was sitting there for an hour telling me how it was beyond my ability before I kicked him out and collected my ten bucks the next day

Click to expand...

Haha, next level! I only buy routers that support DDWRT anymore. Not that I buy them that often. You know, for at the office, family, friends, that sort of thing. Since I end up supporting them, they might as well be what I like. Plus, the user interface will always be the same.

dmroeder said:

Haha, next level! I only buy routers that support DDWRT anymore. Not that I buy them that often. You know, for at the office, family, friends, that sort of thing. Since I end up supporting them, they might as well be what I like. Plus, the user interface will always be the same.

Click to expand...

You are nicer than me. My friends and family know better than to PM me with anything other than a quick question (except for a few special people) as it always ends up being a never ending battle trying to give them support. I have school and work to worry about without their tech questions. I will usually give them one lesson: how to effectively use google.

Check if it's DD-WRT compatible before you buy.

I recommend a DD-WRT compatible router. The performance can vary with the hardware manufacturer, but it's a rock-solid OS/firmware for your router with gobs of features the manufacturer's firmware probably doesn't include. My old DD-WRT Linksys WRT-54G once ran for 3 years w/o a reboot, and that streak only ended because we had a power outage that lasted longer than our UPS. That same WRT-54G is now a wireless bridge for my mother-in-law's OOMA VOIP connection to her building WIFI. Nice to have the flexibility to re-purpose a device instead of adding to the land fills.

10+ years ago I had a Netgear WGR-614, and I was going to the basement to cycle power on it every 2-3 weeks. I got a warranty replacement, it worked just as poorly. I know Netgear makes some good stuff, but the WGR-614 wasn't in that category.

I have a Buffalo AirStation now, came with DD-WRT from the factory, works awesome, great signal strength, and it hasn't been rebooted since I installed it about a year ago.

+1 to the DD-WRT sentiments, but also recommend OpenWrt if you're Linux-savvy.

I've used Netgear in the past, right now I use TP-Link though. Pretty much have to go off of online reviews to differentiate between cheap **** and less than ****.