High Performance Wireless Router

[xinok]

I have the Linksys WRT54G v5 wireless router at the moment...

Earlier today, I tried browsing the web for the internet to be going extremely slow. I realized my brother was downloading in bittorrent, and had nearly 1000 connections open. It usually doesn't take any more than 100 connections to make the internet slow.

I can assure you it's the router though. Afterwards, my brother connected his laptop directly to the cable modem. After a while, he had just as many connections and was downloading FASTER, but he could browse the web at nearly full speed.

I only purchased the WRT54G because it seemed to have a great reputation online. Only after I bought it though is when I realized everyone liked the older versions of the router. The WRT54G v5 has half the RAM / ROM, different hardware, and some VmWorks firmware instead of previously Linux.

Questions:

1- This goes to anyone who has the WRT54G v3 / WRT54GL routers: If you have a lot of connections open, can you still do other things on the internet at a decent speed?

2- Excluding the WRT54G / WRT54GL routers, are there any other routers which can handle the bittorrent downloads? (If it takes an expensive router, like $300+, please just say so)

[Gouki]

I have the WRT54GS from Linksys. I LOVE IT! I now have WiFi in places where I didn't had with my WRT54G.

As for the speed, yes! The router is by far one of the best I have ever seen, however, this is not what you are looking for.

Take care!

PS: You should consider WRT54GS. It is a little bit more expensive than the WRT54G, but it gets the job done VERY well and eventually, it will pay up! Not needing to buy Range Expenders is a very good thing (cause they all suck!).

Edited December 26, 2005 by Gouki

[ssmokee]

I have the Linksys WRT54G v5 wireless router at the moment...

Does your router let you prioritize traffic? If it does, set bittorent (P2P) traffic lower than http.

[rendrag]

I have v3 of the router. I've tried the linksys firmware, plus just about every iteration of 3rd party firmware out there.

It's been so long since I've used the Linksys firmware however, that I couldn't tell you if there's any QoS built in, however all the other versions of the firmware out there have QoS in place so you could prioritize traffic, thereby allowing you to browse the web and use other high traffic applications.

check out http://linksysinfo.org if you haven't already. They list 3rd party firmware compatible with v5 of the WRT54G

re: WRT54GS

The "S" in WRT54GS stands for Speedbooster. That feature helps throughput for wireless clients using a compatible "speedbooster" wireless adapter. Other than that, there is no difference between the WRT54G and GS

other alternatives:

if you just can't get v5 to work correctly, D-Link makes an excellent gaming router. You check that out here: http://games.dlink.com/ . They run between $125-180 on pricegrabber

[DonDamm]

You are correct that the Linksys and others have limited memory. In multiple tests the same slowdown in connection speed has been observed in many different configurations. With as little a ten windows open the thing became almost unusable. Particularly with VPN connections.

The best one on the market right now in terms of memory (it has twice what the others have) it the one from Netgear. The WGT624 and the WGT624U are the fastest ones I know that can handle the number of connections you mention.

[Wicket20519]

I've got the WRT54G v3. I bought it back in August because it was on sale and I heard it was a good router. However, since two of my computers were still using 802.11b wireless adapters, the stupid router kept kicking them off.

So fast forward to Christmas - got 2 new 802.11g wireless adapters. They are very nice, and support WPA-PSK.

Well, haven't gotten kicked off yet. HOWEVER, my internet does slow down. And when playing CS, I lag like crazy. I never had that problem with my Netgear router, and that was 802.11b!

I'm ready to shoot my Linksys router!

[Gouki]

@rendrag

The range of signal with the WRT54G and the GS IS VERY DIFFERENT!

However, you are tottaly right on what you said.

[bujo696]

Netgear has some powerfull routers...

The best are Netgear and Linksys...