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Router advice

M

Matt Phoenix

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 6, 2006
113
0
Very soon, I shall be purchasing a new wireless router for the household. As of now, my iBook and my dad's PC are both wired in, as we don't have a wireless router. However, my sister shall be getting a Powerbook very soon, and my dad suggested the wireless thing. I'll be picking it up as my dad is totally inept when it comes to stuff like this. Also, sometime in the future, he may be getting a new PC laptop (since he dislikes Macs, no matter how many times his PC needs to be reformatted), so that would need to connect to the router wirelessly, too.

To sum it up: I need a router compatible with PC and Mac (are they all?) and is not much more than $60 (hey, gotta budget the money). I've been looking at Newegg (as I've bought a lot of stuff from them in the past), but most of the reviews are by PC users. I decided to ask for advice from this forum, as I have a strange feeling that people here use Macs. :side:
 
The linksys wireless routers are great, i have a mixed house with 2 macs and 1 pc laptop. Best buy usally has a good sale on the 802.11g ones i recently got one for 50$ there. I have used netgear before but always had problems, such as signal lose, and random problems. The linksys ones never had a problem that i havent caused lol. Hope it helps.

-Neal S.
 
Last edited:
Matt Phoenix said:
Thanks for the help so far. Right now I'm looking at the Linksys WRT54G. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833124010 Actually, it's even cheaper at Best Buy ($50). Anyone have any experience with this one? (I'm looking at you Zulgand, as you bought one recently for the same price by the same brand =-o).
Click to expand...

Have one. Love it. Its great. I've used it with Macs and PCs for a long time with no trouble. linksysinfo.org is a great place to find software hacks for the WRT54G. You can do stuff like boost the power output of the unit (or decrease the power so your neighbors dont borrow your signal) and you can enable cool things like WDS which is great if you want to use an airport express with your setup. so i say go for it!
 
wPod said:
Have one. Love it. Its great. I've used it with Macs and PCs for a long time with no trouble. linksysinfo.org is a great place to find software hacks for the WRT54G. You can do stuff like boost the power output of the unit (or decrease the power so your neighbors dont borrow your signal) and you can enable cool things like WDS which is great if you want to use an airport express with your setup. so i say go for it!
Click to expand...

Awesome! I think I shall run up there and buy one today! Everyone, as always, thanks for the help!
 
Matt Phoenix said:
Thanks for the help so far. Right now I'm looking at the Linksys WRT54G.
Click to expand...

I'd suggest getting the WRT54GL version if you plan on running any 3rd party firmware.
 
Thats the one i had recently bought from them, i love it took me 10 min to set up, havent had a problem yet. Also the range on it is great, i get almost full signal from any part of the house unlike the 802.11b one i had which was spotty. So enjoy ur new router.

-Neal
 
My Netgear drove me insane for months.

So one day, after about 12 weeks of putting off buying a new one, I calmly dissconnected it all, took it out onto my front porch.

And continued to jump up and down on it until it would route no more. :eek:
 
Any of the top brands (Linksys, Netgear, D-Link) should be compatible with both Mac and PC. A lot of times, it comes down to personal experience and which quirks, if any, you've experienced with particular brands. Some people swear by Linksys, others hate it. Same for all three.

My personal experience has been intermittent trouble with 3 different Linksys products, while 3 D-Link products have been rock solid. Others report just the opposite.
 
So I bought it today and set it up for WPA Personal. I had some trouble getting it to work initially, then I found a setting that said "Block Anonymous Internet Requests." I unchecked that and it now works. :cool:
 
I think that Netgear's routers have more features than the same Linksys routers in the price range. I got rid of my Linksys WET54G and replaced it with the Netgear 104MBPS wireless router and have been much happier with it. More features, and was half the price of the Linksys (staples had them on sale)
 
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