Wireless router help needed:

Discussion in 'Buying Tips, Advice and Discussion (archive)' started by Siefer, Dec 22, 2003.

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  1. Siefer, Dec 22, 2003

    Siefer macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2003
    #1
    I've been having a headache searching for a wireless router the last couple of days, and before anyone asks, I DID use the search forum for related topics on this AND other forums.

    I'll list my needs:

    -Wireless router will first connect to my PC running Windows XP Home Edition, this will NOT be done wirelessly. I will have 2 iBooks on this network, one with an Airport 802.11b card and the other with a 802.11g card, the wireless router must work without problems in this setup. (I do not care if my home LAN speed is slowed down because of the 802.11b).

    -It must be relatively easy to set up, maintain, and be reliable.

    I've narrowed it down to four companies:

    -Linksys
    -Netgear
    -Buffalo
    -Dlink

    I've heard that best things from Netgear, and it's low price point does appeal to me, but the problems I've heard from it's 802.11g routers has been less than appealing (in its defence though, it doesn't matter to me if the router is 802.11g and I've heard similar bad things about most 802.11g routers, at least in the past).

    Dlink allows port forwarding, but I haven't heard much else about them.

    I've heard the least from Buffalo, but the little that I've heard has usually been good news from disgruntled Netgear/Linksys/Dlink users.

    I honestly haven't been paying much attention to Linksys, unless someone can convince me otherwise.

    Price is a factor, but it's not so important that I'm willing to toss out something that is clearly superior to the side for something cheaper.

    Thank you all for any/all help that you're able to provide me with, I truly appreciate it.

    ~Siefer
     
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  2. hugemullens, Dec 22, 2003

    hugemullens macrumors 6502a

    hugemullens

    Joined:
    Dec 15, 2002
    Location:
    Michigan
    #2
    I got a 50 dollar Dlink 614+ and its works great. I got a xp box wired to it, my powerbook wireless, another xp box wireless, and my friends ibook has no problem. Works great, wep is fine, no complaints at all, and its super cheap.
     
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  3. Westside guy, Dec 22, 2003

    Westside guy macrumors 603

    Westside guy

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2003
    Location:
    The soggy side of the Pacific NW
    #3
    I like D-Link because of their MAC filtering capability, plus the fact they test against Macintosh computers.
     
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  4. pinto32, Dec 22, 2003

    pinto32 macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2003
    Location:
    PA
    #4
    I just got a Netgear 802.11b router a couple of weeks ago.....best 30 bucks I ever spent. It has 4 ethernet jacks in addition to the wireless capability, so plenty of options. Easy setup, great little box. Check out cnet.com though, they have lots of great info on a ton of routers.
     
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  5. barrettd, Dec 23, 2003

    barrettd macrumors regular

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2003
    Location:
    Oklahoma City
    #5
    I've got a Netgear .b router as well. I've got it set to only accept my Powerbook's MAC address, and it's connected to my XP box via ethernet.

    BD
     
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  6. alset, Dec 23, 2003

    alset macrumors 65816

    alset

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2002
    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    #6
    Linksys all the way. It's more expensive, but it handles B and G flawlessly, has great range, flexible port-mapping, strong encryption and a friendly interface. Also supports four ethernet connections.

    Product page.

    Dan
     
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  7. question fear, Dec 23, 2003

    question fear macrumors 68020

    question fear

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2003
    Location:
    The "Garden" state
    #7
    as an earlier poster said, dlink is mac compatible.
    their tech support is also very familiar with macs, and has actually on occasion helped me with isp issues when my isp told me i was running an "unsupported" version of mac os X (apparently they were still on 10.1).
    -carly
     
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  8. iShater, Dec 23, 2003

    iShater macrumors 604

    iShater

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2002
    Location:
    Chicagoland
    #8
    I just picked up a Netgear 802.11b router from Amazon.com, got it Friday, installed it Saturday night, and I love it. It was cheap, $47 after M-I-R or so. I am already using the DHCP server on it to hand out IPs to 4 machines:

    iBook running 10.2.3 (Ethernet and WiFi)
    Notebook running Windows 98 (actullay I havn't used the laptop yet, I am sure it will be fine)
    PC running W2K
    PC running NT 4.0 Server

    They are all happy and I get a great reception. Oh, and I am happy :D

    I am not sure about all the forwarding and security features yet, I have only played with protecting the WiFi network, havn't played with the others.
     
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  9. Santiago, Dec 23, 2003

    Santiago macrumors regular

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2002
    Location:
    Mountain View, California
    #9
    D-Link has given me nothing but trouble. I picked up a D-Link wireless router due to a $35 discount coupon, to replace my old Airport base station when the capacitors burst a second time. There was a known bug in the firmware where it would not work with Lucent cards (i.e. AirPort), so I had to downgrade several versions, losing features like MAC address restriction.

    They finally fixed that this year, but closed network still doesn't work. If I do that, computers can connect once, but they fail to find the network ever again after waking from sleep, even if you explicitly type the name in.

    Also, there was a point where it went berserk and started serving DHCP on the WAN side, taking out the other half of our house network.

    I also had the misfortune to work with a set of three D-Link access points two summers ago, and they had terrible, Windows-only admin software, plus performance was really flaky and the hand-off from access point to access point did not work, making them useless for robot communications.

    I've use LinkSys products as well, and they haven't given me any trouble, though they are more expensive (and apparently worth it).
     
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