I'm very experienced and skilled with computers, but finding quality hardware seems to be a problem for me. I've been getting headaches from the past 2 routers I've purchased, and I'm sick of it. A few years ago I was using an old Linksys router (the square blue/black one with 2 antennae) that worked great as far as I can remember and didn't give me any problems, but it eventually died outright. I replaced it with a new Linksys router (the thin black ones that sit at an angle), and this had major issues. After using the router for an extended period, the connection would drop and the router would be unresponsive to http access. I had to power cycle it before it would work again, and this only started the timer for when it locked up again.
My current router is a Netgear WNR3500 I believe (not at home atm). It works fine but has 2 major problems. 1st, the wireless network becomes unusable occasionally. Attempts to connect to it fail until I power cycle the router. 2nd, the connection drops anywhere from 1-3 times a day for about 15 seconds. I know it's the router's fault, as it doesn't occur when I connect directly to my modem, and windows shows that I am not attached to any device for the duration.
I'm now convinced that the current generation of wireless routers are just too faulty. I'm sure there's a chance I can get a good one, but I don't want to deal with sending back bad eggs repeatedly. My current plan is to find a fast and most importantly stable router without wireless. I need wireless in my house, so I plan on using my current router as an access point for whatever new router I get. I don't need a router with many LAN ports as I already have a switch waiting to be used. Can anyone please give me some solid advice as to which direction to go?
1. Which wired only router best fits my needs? I have a 20mbps internet connection and rarely work across my LAN, but I do need support for a lot of bandwidth up or down. I don't really care about QoS, but I do need basic port-forwarding capabilities. I am comfortable spending no more than $300.
2. Should I install custom firmware on current router? I'm not confident it will solve my problem.
3. Should I use a linux machine as a router? Seems unnecessary and more problematic.
4. Or should I just buy another wireless router and hope for the best. This is my last resort at this point.
My current router is a Netgear WNR3500 I believe (not at home atm). It works fine but has 2 major problems. 1st, the wireless network becomes unusable occasionally. Attempts to connect to it fail until I power cycle the router. 2nd, the connection drops anywhere from 1-3 times a day for about 15 seconds. I know it's the router's fault, as it doesn't occur when I connect directly to my modem, and windows shows that I am not attached to any device for the duration.
I'm now convinced that the current generation of wireless routers are just too faulty. I'm sure there's a chance I can get a good one, but I don't want to deal with sending back bad eggs repeatedly. My current plan is to find a fast and most importantly stable router without wireless. I need wireless in my house, so I plan on using my current router as an access point for whatever new router I get. I don't need a router with many LAN ports as I already have a switch waiting to be used. Can anyone please give me some solid advice as to which direction to go?
1. Which wired only router best fits my needs? I have a 20mbps internet connection and rarely work across my LAN, but I do need support for a lot of bandwidth up or down. I don't really care about QoS, but I do need basic port-forwarding capabilities. I am comfortable spending no more than $300.
2. Should I install custom firmware on current router? I'm not confident it will solve my problem.
3. Should I use a linux machine as a router? Seems unnecessary and more problematic.
4. Or should I just buy another wireless router and hope for the best. This is my last resort at this point.