Router advice

[AliC]

Hi guys

I'm looking to boost the range and reliability of my wireless connection, at the moment im using a Sky Netgear DG834GT which came as part of my Sky broadband.

The Netgear DG834GT doesnt cover even half of my house and its not really capable of dealing with multiple clients (3 PCs, 3 Macs, PS3 and a printer) or any kind of media streaming. It tends to overheat alot and need rebooting. Now i have to keep using this awful modem as part of sky's T&Cs, BUT i can just use it as a modem and get another router to do all the routing, which in theory should take a load off of the netgear (so it doesnt have to do so much work, thus less reboots hopefully)

So what kind of router am i looking for? I would like one with better range and reliability, probably using the wireless N standard since all the computers in my house comply with that. Also i'd like it to be easily capable of media streaming including HD media (which can be problematic i know, but at least the PS3 would only be one room away). Finally, i'd like the router to be capable of providing some form of basic NAS (using an external HDD presumably) readily accessible by both the Macs & PCs
Above all of course i'd like it to be cheap as i dont really fancy spending much more than £100

With the above in mind im considering the Buffalo Nfiniti Wireless-N, NETGEAR WNDR3700 RANGEMAX and ASUS RT-N13U
of the 3 i'm leaning towards the Asus as it seems suitable and the best value, having said that i'd rather get your opinions first and see if you can suggest any better alternatives.

Cheers, Ali

 

[tipstir]

Why keep what you have and get Access Point cover those area's of your home that the wireless signal can't reach. So you have some dead spots in your pad? What type of home is this old country style, bread n' breakfast, old style manor?

 

[thiggins]

Of the three, I'd go with the WNDR3700.

 

[AliC]

@tipstir ive thought about that, but the problem isnt just range, its that my current router isnt really capable of managing several high demand clients at a time, let alone any kind of streaming.

@thiggins interesting, could you tell me why, judging from the user reviews on this site it seemed the worst option of the 3

 

[thiggins]

@thiggins interesting, could you tell me why, judging from the user reviews on this site it seemed the worst option of the 3

You will find bad user reviews for any product. My recommendation is based on my testing and day to day use of the product. I'm currently using it as my home router and it is trouble free.

 

[AliC]

@Excellent nice to be able to speak to someone directly who has hands on experience with a router im interested in.
Could you tell me a bit more about your experience of the netgear, does it handle multiple clients well? Do you stream media at all in your house hold? How user friendly is its NAS feature?, is it mac friendly? Did you find it to provide significant or noticable signal boost compared to your last g/n router

cheers

 

[thiggins]

@Excellent nice to be able to speak to someone directly who has hands on experience with a router im interested in.
Could you tell me a bit more about your experience of the netgear, does it handle multiple clients well? Do you stream media at all in your house hold? How user friendly is its NAS feature?, is it mac friendly? Did you find it to provide significant or noticable signal boost compared to your last g/n router

I don't expect a lot from a router and haven't met a router yet that gave me problems.

There are only two of us in the home and most of the time I'm the only user. I stream audio a lot, video rarely since I have Ethernet to my media center.

I don't use the NAS feature, I have real NASes and I don't use Macs. But I have no problems with it supporting an iPod touch or iPad, but, again, not for NAS features.

I did not see a range difference between the WNDR3700 and the DGL-4300 it replaced. But I don't try to push range.

 

[BBurgDave]

I have the WNDR 3700 as well and I could not be happier with it. I replaced an older DLink which was needing to be rebooted several times a week due to lost connections and I have only had to restart the WNDR once in something like 4 months. The 2.4ghz range is excellent and the 5ghz range is "okay" (but that is typical I tihnk).

I stream Netflix through it (to a laptop) and that is very smooth.

No complaints at all.

Dave