Looking for a Recommendation: Wireless and Hardwire Router w/Extras?
Nick Knight
I picked 2 seemingly general networking groups to try this question in,
please forgive me if I've chosen poorly :)
I have a home network setup that has been working for many years.
Originally, my Netopia R9000 (I believe that's the model ... I'd check but
it's pretty burried) did all the hardwire work I needed. Even better, it
could map my home-based cable IP address by port, so I can send web requests
on port 8080 to one machine in my home, 8081 to another, and so on. I have
some mail server tricks in there, too; same idea, different ports.
I have about 7 machines hard-wired to this box, one of them being the WAP
mentioned below ... at one time I had all 8 ports filled.
Later I found I needed a way to support wireless AND expand to more than 8
connections. My son got himself a laptop, as did I, and the Tivo needed a
connection, then I built another HTTP machine ... it's easy to go crazy.
So, I purchased a Linksys Access Point - WAP54G. This did the trick nicely.
The Wireless capability gave me the expansion I needed.
Well, I'll try to cut to the chase. I just tried to upgrade the firmware on
the WAP and now the unit is fried. I'm trying to get an older WRT54G to
take its place, but it appears to be bad, too. Well, instead of trying to
replace old hardware and piece it all together, again, I'm wondering what I
can get to replace the entire combination.
What I'd like to find is a single router that:
- Has 6 hard-wire LAN ports for PC's (common is 4? Are there ones
with more?)
- Has wireless built in.
- Can pass incoming requests based ports to a specificed
machine (and port?)
- Oh. And that works well hardwired at 100Mbps (my network
always defaults to 10 .. I will replace cables as needed).
- A plus would be support for the new N wireless protocol,
but this isn't required at this point.
Given all this, the price also must be practical and realistic. To me, at
least :)
Any/all recommendations will be appreciated. My wireless is down at the
moment, so I'd like to get something soon!
Thanks in advance,
Nick
James Egan
>Well, I'll try to cut to the chase. I just tried to upgrade the firmware on
>the WAP and now the unit is fried. I'm trying to get an older WRT54G to
>take its place, but it appears to be bad, too. Well, instead of trying to
>replace old hardware and piece it all together, again, I'm wondering what I
>can get to replace the entire combination.
Have you tried tftp or any of these other methods yet to try and
recover the ap or router.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Recover_from_a_Bad_Flash
Jim.
Nick Knight
>>Well, I'll try to cut to the chase. I just tried to upgrade the firmware on
>>the WAP and now the unit is fried. I'm trying to get an older WRT54G to
>>take its place, but it appears to be bad, too. Well, instead of trying to
>>replace old hardware and piece it all together, again, I'm wondering what I
>>can get to replace the entire combination.
>Have you tried tftp or any of these other methods yet to try and recover
>the ap or router.
>http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Recover_from_a_Bad_Flash
Thanks for the pointer. Actually, after I posted, I googled one more time
(had read gobs of problem reports and potential solutions before, of which
none worked). I hit on an exact description of what had happened to me, and
the fellow posting finally found a solution. It was almost embarrassingly
simple.
The default IP address (after reset) for a Linksys WAP54G is 192.168.1.254.
This didn't work on my network, years ago, and I had changed it. However,
once reset, I had ASSUMED (and most other references suggested) the default
was 192.168.1.1. NOT! Oddly, Linksys' own setup utility couldn't even find
the device. However, once I browsed to the 254 address, I could access
everything via the web interface and set up the proper settings.
So, my old wireless setup is back. I've recorded this piece of important
info on the WAP's setup book with all my other settings notes. Why Linksys
didn't put it in hard print is a mystery.
But that doesn't negate my original query. I've had it on my list for some
time to upgrade my network. The prospect of running N-level wireless is
intriguing, and having 1 unit instead of 2 (based on that old Netopia
router) would also be nice.
Reading up on the N routers currently available, I didn't see anything all
that impressive. NOTE that I tend to focus on customer reviews and read the
poorer reviews with interest. There seems to be many problems in the N
router world, and with Linksys specifically in mind. Most of the reviews
claimed performance worse than their previous G-level routers, and many
turned back. There was one SMC model that seemed to fair well, but even it
had complaints of range reduction (apparently common, even tho N boasts an
INCREASE in range).
Is it soo early to start thinking about the faster standard? I thought it
had been out for awhile and should be more mature, but my reading suggests
otherwise.
Thanks for the reply!
Nick
James Egan
>Is it soo early to start thinking about the faster standard? I thought it
>had been out for awhile and should be more mature, but my reading suggests
>otherwise.
I think so. If your other equipment is working okay I would wait until
the N range issues get resolved. I can recommend upgrading to the
dd-wrt firmware if you want added features.
Jim.
Yousuf Khan
> What I'd like to find is a single router that:
>
> - Has 6 hard-wire LAN ports for PC's (common is 4? Are there ones
> with more?)
Probably impossible to find in any home router, 4 really is the max.
These days some companies are even making routers with nothing but a
single paltry LAN port. They probably expect you to connect mainly via
wireless, or add a gigabit or fast-ethernet LAN switch to the network.
Actually the LAN switch is your main solution to get more ether ports to
connect to, even if you have a router with 4 ports already. You can get
yourself a fairly inexpensive 5-port switch. You'll have to dedicate one
port on the router and another one on the switch to connect to each
other, so your usable ports will go down to 3 + 4 on the router and
switch respectively. That's 7 usable ports.
> - Has wireless built in.
Almost all of them are like that these days.
> - Can pass incoming requests based ports to a specificed
> machine (and port?)
Most routers can do that these days, some better than others. You may
also want to obtain a router that can give you static DHCP addresses to
specific machines, if you want to make sure they get back to the same
state after you have reboot either the computer or the router. D-link
routers can assign static DHCP, but I think Netgear or Belkin ones can't.
> - Oh. And that works well hardwired at 100Mbps (my network
> always defaults to 10 .. I will replace cables as needed).
Most should easily work well at 100Mbps, the current state of the art is
whether they work at gigabit speeds.
> - A plus would be support for the new N wireless protocol,
> but this isn't required at this point.
Well, the N protocol is still not ratified as a standard yet. All
routers that are advertised as N-capable are really "draft N" routers.
That means that the protocol is based on a pre-release of the N spec,
not the actual real final N spec.
You're probably better off with a turbocharged G spec. These are
variously known as Range Booster G, Super-G, etc. They are the G spec
which work normally with regular G computers, and usually have a bit of
extra power available to extend the range of the G signal.
Yousuf Khan