A few router questions

All of the routers that I have had in that price range have died after about 6 months, right now I am using one from Linksys instead of a D-Link one, so hopefully it will last for a bit longer.

 

That's absurd. I'm not saying it isn't happening, only that it's absurd.

There's nothing inherent in a router that should cause it to die so soon; it's just a chip on a pcb and should last as long as any other computer component without moving parts, which is to say forever (if good ootb). I have a linksys wireless g that I got shortly after 802.11g was ratified, so that's about 3-4 years and it's fine. About 1.5 years ago I added a second router (Buffalo whr54g or something, it was $50 at bestbuy) to create a wireless bridge and it's also fine. Now, I guess you could install 3rd party firmware and overclock the chip and increase the transmit power, that may cause early failure, but I'd be seriously ticked if my router was dying on me twice a year...

 

I would suggest Belkin routers since they come with a lifetime warrantee. This is my second one and for the first one lasted about 2 years. I called them and they replaced it free of charge

 

I totally agree with you that it's absurd, but I've experienced the same sort of thing. In my case, it was Netgear wireless routers. I owned three Netgear wireless routers, one B and two like the OP has. All of them died in less than a year. Well, not completely, but flaked out enough that their wireless was worthless. I've had a few Linksys ones too, but none of those have ever died on me so I'm hoping that trend continues.

I don't know why routers would fail so much, but some certainly do. Especially Netgears. I guess the electronic components are just too cheap and/or run too hot.

 

Netgear is a no-no

It is absurd, but the current (well, ok, 2 years ago) range of Netgear routers seemed to require constant power-cycling. I think a lot of designers put emphasis on looks rather than functionality and as a result they overheated. I have used the Linksys WRT54GL and it works wonderfully, esp since you can put 3rd party firmware on it.

 

I have to disagree with you on netgear routers needing to be power cycling. I have two of them at work. (both cable a dsl there) an one at home an do not have to power cycle them at all. In 3 years time the one at home has been power cycle maybe 5 times not counting the times the electricty has gone off. The ones at work are newer but not had to power cycle them either.


jack

 

Netgear had QC issues with some of their power supplies causing 'progressive dementia' in their routers / access points. Yours could be affected. For a cheap router I'd also recommend the Linksys WRT54 series. For something as ludicrously cheap as they are they seem to have remarkably few problems.