Router Recommendation

[DerelictDev]

I have 3 computers in the house, 1 on the 3rd floor, a laptop, and my personal one (wired) which is in the basement.

I've been using a linksys WRT54GS from past recommendations but lately ive been getting more and more sick of it.
First off, the router is located in the basement, which can't really be helped because thats the primary location of where the cable line comes in and of course i want my computer to be wired ;p.

The other computer 3 floors up is using the req. linksys adapter suited for this model router and its speed booster "BS" technology.
The connection is horrible, when it manages to connect on low its a good day. Typically its on very low and has connection/ reliability issues.
At first i accepted this fate but then found out that my friend was also getting ****** connections with the router and he lives in an apt. with the other computer only 3 rooms away!

And to top it all off, this piece of junk can't handle load. If the computer upstairs is on and connected and i put on lets say azureus and connect to a decent amount of users, it basically overloads. Constant loss of connection upstairs and snail like web surfing on my computer.

/rant off

So this is why im here, I need a router that can get me at least a medium connection for the upstairs computer and wont overload because too many ports are open using bittorrent programs.

Ive researched and looked up what look to be the best consumer wireless routers these days and heres the list.

Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP...on_Id=202570&pcount=&Product_Id=184316

Any of the top 3 Rangemax MIMO Netgear Routers
http://www.netgear.com/products/consumer/prod_router_wireless_hm.php

Linksys SRX Lineup
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellit...name=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

D-Link DI-634M
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=458

As you might have guessed, i don't really like linksys anymore and don't know if i should trust this SRX technology they claim. It might end up being just the same as this speed booster crap.

Im leaning more towards the Belkin because of its Pre-N technology and backward compatibility with B & G but the D-Link seems to also be a good choice.

Can you network savy guys/gals help me out?

 

[DaiShan]

I don't think buying a new router will fix your problem, WiFi depends on line of site, it can't go through walls (that well) That being said there are aftermarket firmwares available for the wrt54gs that allow you to increase the power for the radio on the router. I've done this to increase the range in my apartment. I use the sveasoft firmware, but there are free versions. I'd probably recommend however that you pick up a $10 wired router and use that downstairs, then run cat5 upstairs to your wrt54gs, that should alleviate most of your problems.

/edit also I doubt it is a load issue on the router with your P2P programs. You already said that you have very low connection strength, this means increased lost packets, each packet that is lost has to be re-sent, this greatly reduces speed.

 

[DerelictDev]

Let me rephrase it a bit, the load issue is on my computer which is wired to the router. I mean it's probably also an issue with the upstairs computer but that doesn't concern me as much as my own. After i have some p2p program running and it connects to lets say 150+ people, thats it. My internet is as slow as a snail, freezes horrible pings in games, connection loss for upstairs computer, etc etc etc... so i really think it can't handle the load.

Just as a note, i do have all the settings maxed for azureus, unlimited connections 25 outbound connection attempts, etc for the fastest speed possible (Usually hit around 400kb down and on good torrents up to 1.15Mb) and my upload is capped so im not saturating the pipe.

 

[skyking]

the routers seem to be fine, but the linksys clients are crap in my experience. Speedbooster is also unnecessary for surfing.
I recently used a couple of these.
hawking directional client
and have been quite happy with the results. it hs never failed to make connection in either environment. The linksys usb adapter was positively unreliable by comparison.
I would try replacing the linksys client first. It won't hurt you later, if you do switch routers.

 

[Atheus]

You know windows itself limits your concurrent connections to 10? It's so you have to buy server versions to run a server. There's a hack, I'll see if I can find it.

 

[DerelictDev]

skyking - Pretty interesting, maybe i should invest into a new client and dumped the stupid linksys card. But the fact remains that my computer still breaks down if i have too much activity using p2p software with or with out the computer upstairs.

Atheus - Yes i know of that and it has been hacked for some 60,000 allowable connections or something.

 

[DerelictDev]

Ive researched it a bit more and have concluded that im not the only person who experiences this type of problem. Its basically that my p2p software (Azureus) is maxing out the routers NAT sessions and overloading it.

Does anyone know if the Belkin Pre-N has a larger NAT table? Something with at least 2000+ entries?

 

[SleepWalkerX]

I would recommend you to flash your router's firmware with something other than the one linksys provides.

Check your router's hardware version to make sure its compatible, grab the V23 Final DD-WRT firmware from DD-WRT's site, set the xmit rate from the standard 28 mW to at least 40 mW (up to 48 is safe, but depending on your room temperature it can go up to 251, of course it gets much more unstable the higher you go) in your router's wireless advanced page to up the signal power, change the default number of ports in your router's administration page from 512 to 4096 to handle more connections, and follow this tutorial so your router won't crash from handling so many connections.