Router that can handle many devices.

[Evildropbear]

Hello

I live in a house with 7 other students. I am connected with a wire to the E2000 router, but when everyone is home and online, the connection drops frequently.
I am unsure if it is the modem or the router, but I don't really have any way of testing (default firmware doesn't show much info, and I don't want to flash custom firmware because its not my router), so I am planning to just buy a router and hope that it solves the issue.

Any recommendations? I won't list a budget as I'm curious about all the routers at different price ranges.

 

[Trip]

I once had to deal with an E2000 in much the same way; the unit would drop connectivity and actually lock up entirely every few months, then every few weeks, until dying altogether, all in the time span of little over a year. Indicative of the lack of quality of so much of this stuff...

That said, you could grab just about any all-in-one off the shelf for $50-100 and it would most likely perform adequately (which, in this case, would equal way better), and last hopefully for a year or two. If that's good enough, then Asus, Netgear, etc. are all probably fair game.

I could offer pricier and/or more technical suggestions, but I'm sensing those might be overkill for dorm living.

 

[fistv]

I think your wan setup may have some say in this matter. Maybe you might want to pool with the other 7 and get a better core router. Some of the cable companies allow 2-3 devices connected to their cable modem, if so you will need a switch between the cable modem and both routers. If you have DSL I don't know, same with FIOS.

 

[Evildropbear]

I think your wan setup may have some say in this matter. Maybe you might want to pool with the other 7 and get a better core router. Some of the cable companies allow 2-3 devices connected to their cable modem, if so you will need a switch between the cable modem and both routers. If you have DSL I don't know, same with FIOS.

The modem only has one ethernet port. I'm thinking about just trying with a cheap router first to see if I can at least get a stable wired connection/remove a variable from the equation.

I see the RT-N12 D1 is recommended as a cheap router, however it only has 10/100 support. We have a 100Mbit connection, would that be pushing the limits too much?

The annoying thing is that I can still access the E2000 when the internet connection drops :/
edit: Guessed the modem password, maybe now I can see what happens when the connection drops

 

[fistv]

Is it DSL or Cable ? never mind, 100mb suggests cable modem. Come out of the cable modem and plug it into port 1 of a 4 port switch, then plug port 2 into the wan connection on the old router, make sure it connects, then plug the new router into port 3 on the switch to the wan port on the new router, see if it gets an IP from the cable co. If it does you can run both.

 

[Evildropbear]

Well I just did some testing, and I'm still not sure what is going on.

Scenario of events:
1. Wired connection drops
2. 50/50 chance I can access the routers page
2. Wireless internet via router still works
3. I can still access the modem via the router..

So if my setup is [Router] -> [Modem] -> [Internet]

I can't access the router, I can access the modem, but I can't access the Internet.
And Wireless works

 

[sfx2000]

Hello

I live in a house with 7 other students. I am connected with a wire to the E2000 router, but when everyone is home and online, the connection drops frequently.
I am unsure if it is the modem or the router, but I don't really have any way of testing (default firmware doesn't show much info, and I don't want to flash custom firmware because its not my router), so I am planning to just buy a router and hope that it solves the issue.

Any recommendations? I won't list a budget as I'm curious about all the routers at different price ranges.

8 students - how many devices are potentially on the network?

At first glance - 8 laptops/desktops, probably the same number of smartphones, a couple of tablets, and a couple of game consoles - it adds up after a while...

Older AP's start to limit out at around 15 devices - it's a RAM thing as each device needs a NAT routing entry... some of them reboot, some do first in/first out.

It's likely not the modem - it's likely the router... most current N900 and above devices should be sufficient here, but take a good inventory of devices and get back to us...

 

[Evildropbear]

I bought a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND and all problems seems to be fixed Although nobody is home right now, the real test will be this evening.

Kind of a bummer this router doesn't have ipv6 support though, oh well, you get what you pay for