Good cheap wireless router?

[Gunslinger08]

My mom just ordered her first laptop, so I'm buying her a wireless router. 802.11b/g is fine. I just want to find something cheap that will be reliable and has good signal strength up to about 50 feet through walls/floors. I'm running an old Linksys WRT54G as one of my routers and I've never had problems with it, but I don't know if the newer versions are as reliable. Any input?

 

[JackMDS]

"50 feet through walls/floors", and ceap is a risk.

The two options are,

This would work as is, also if needed, it can be flashed with 3rd party firmware.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833162134

This need to be flashed to work well (it is $$20 cheaper than thew above).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320023
.

 

[PandaBear]

The cheapest solution for you us to use WRT54G/GL or WRT160N 1.0/1.2 or WRT150N. They have very high power RF.

You probably can't get it in the store anymore.

 

[Haroldfern]

Forget the WRT54G. The revision 5 model SUCKS. Even with firmware 1.0.6, it won't keep the PPPoE connection up for me more than 5 minutes. I've tried two other routes, and they work fine with the same cabling and everything. Common problem, apparently. Everyone recommending this router likely has an earlier revision.

 

[Harvey]

Newegg has the Asus WL-520gU for $35 after a $10 mail-in rebate. I set this up for a friend. It has excellent range and stablitiy. Once the software is installed on a base machine, setting up your mom's laptop is as simple as bringing it close to the router and pushing a button.

Versions of DD-WRT and Tomato are available for it, but its performance was excellent right out of the box. 🙂