Hi, I have had for almost 5 years now a Dlink DIR-655. It has in periods very stable, but I feel it could definitely better, and it has been far from user friendly. The router is placed pretty much in the middle of my 100 m2 two stories townhouse, so all the connected clients get excellent signal. Some of the issues I've faced with it have been:
For a long time I couldn't get the computers in my network to "see" each other, because of a very obscure and strangely named feature. I think I finally found it out more or less after having the router for a year (when the need for local networking for gaming first appeared).
I stream movies and tv series from a laptop (on a wireless connection) to a PS3 (also on wireless) and it has always been far from perfect. It will often pause for some seconds and sometimes drop out altogether.
It has been generally stable but at some points it has needed a boot, and when it comes back up, it often becomes invisible for whatever clients were turned off during the reboot, requiring a second boot after which everything is ok.
After deciding to go and update the firmware to see if they had solved some of the issues, it wasnt possible to restore the settings I hade made, even though I created a backup of the settings. unfortunately I found out that the backup normally only works for small version changes (which makes it compleltey pointless).
Not only that, but it has now become very unstable, dropping the internet connection frequently.
I have now given up with the DIR-655 (and Dlink, unless someone is extremely convincing to give them another chance, which they don't deserve after the experience i've had with this router).
I want something which is easy to set up, has great range (as we're planning to move soon somewhere bigger), is very stable, and is very user friendly. It is not that I am not computer savvy, it's that I don't want to spend too much time learning stuff I don't find interesting. Money isn't really the issue here, although I like saving money where possible. My dream would be to open the box, spend a few minutes configuring the router, connecting all the clients that will be connected, and then forgetting about it, and getting fastest possible performance at all times.
In the network there will be two ReadyNAS Duo NAT servers connected by wire, and all of the following, connected by wifi:
2 iphones, 2 iPads, a PS3, about 8 laptops and pcs (all running different versions of windows), a samsung tv, a nintendo wii, a PS Vita, an apple TV, a Samsung galaxy tablet, two htc sense mobiles, wi-fi printer/scanner, and other stuff I probably didn't remember.
Again, I want something stable, user friendly and where I don't need to spend an entire evening looking for every single possible item on the routers options to find out which one i have to toggle to make my computers see each other or something like that. It needs to be stable, and compatible with all my stuff. I want to continue streaming from a laptop and from the NAS to the PS3 without hiccups. It should of course be safe and reliable. It WILL be On for its entire life. I've concluded I need a simultaneous dual wifi capable of 450/450 Mbit (is there anything faster?)
I've found very good reviews about the Apple Airport Extreme, but reading here I've found a number of issues, and I would rather have something other than apple.
The ASUS RT-N66U Dark Knight Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router seems like my likeliest candidate right now.
I've also seen the NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router - 802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit which seems like a good second choice
or the Netgear N900,
or the Cisco Linksys E4200 v2 Maximum Performance Dual-Band N900 router
Which of these would be the best? Are there maybe others I'm overlooking?
Another thing, if someone is a guest in my local network, will they be able to be seen by my computers? that is, if a friend wants to bring his laptop to play say, civ v on a local network, will he have to connect as a guest or in the "main" network?
Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.
For a long time I couldn't get the computers in my network to "see" each other, because of a very obscure and strangely named feature. I think I finally found it out more or less after having the router for a year (when the need for local networking for gaming first appeared).
I stream movies and tv series from a laptop (on a wireless connection) to a PS3 (also on wireless) and it has always been far from perfect. It will often pause for some seconds and sometimes drop out altogether.
It has been generally stable but at some points it has needed a boot, and when it comes back up, it often becomes invisible for whatever clients were turned off during the reboot, requiring a second boot after which everything is ok.
After deciding to go and update the firmware to see if they had solved some of the issues, it wasnt possible to restore the settings I hade made, even though I created a backup of the settings. unfortunately I found out that the backup normally only works for small version changes (which makes it compleltey pointless).
Not only that, but it has now become very unstable, dropping the internet connection frequently.
I have now given up with the DIR-655 (and Dlink, unless someone is extremely convincing to give them another chance, which they don't deserve after the experience i've had with this router).
I want something which is easy to set up, has great range (as we're planning to move soon somewhere bigger), is very stable, and is very user friendly. It is not that I am not computer savvy, it's that I don't want to spend too much time learning stuff I don't find interesting. Money isn't really the issue here, although I like saving money where possible. My dream would be to open the box, spend a few minutes configuring the router, connecting all the clients that will be connected, and then forgetting about it, and getting fastest possible performance at all times.
In the network there will be two ReadyNAS Duo NAT servers connected by wire, and all of the following, connected by wifi:
2 iphones, 2 iPads, a PS3, about 8 laptops and pcs (all running different versions of windows), a samsung tv, a nintendo wii, a PS Vita, an apple TV, a Samsung galaxy tablet, two htc sense mobiles, wi-fi printer/scanner, and other stuff I probably didn't remember.
Again, I want something stable, user friendly and where I don't need to spend an entire evening looking for every single possible item on the routers options to find out which one i have to toggle to make my computers see each other or something like that. It needs to be stable, and compatible with all my stuff. I want to continue streaming from a laptop and from the NAS to the PS3 without hiccups. It should of course be safe and reliable. It WILL be On for its entire life. I've concluded I need a simultaneous dual wifi capable of 450/450 Mbit (is there anything faster?)
I've found very good reviews about the Apple Airport Extreme, but reading here I've found a number of issues, and I would rather have something other than apple.
The ASUS RT-N66U Dark Knight Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router seems like my likeliest candidate right now.
I've also seen the NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router - 802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit which seems like a good second choice
or the Netgear N900,
or the Cisco Linksys E4200 v2 Maximum Performance Dual-Band N900 router
Which of these would be the best? Are there maybe others I'm overlooking?
Another thing, if someone is a guest in my local network, will they be able to be seen by my computers? that is, if a friend wants to bring his laptop to play say, civ v on a local network, will he have to connect as a guest or in the "main" network?
Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.
.
