Costco has Linksys E3000 for $119

[Capt Caveman]

fwiw, Newegg now has it for $117 w/ $10 gift card

http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemai...EFL121710-_-EMC-121710-Index-_-E0-_-PromoWord

 

[digiram]

Still happy with my wrt54G from like 5 years ago...this thing is a beast. Running a custom fw on it of course.

 

[thegimp03]

I just use a WRT54G-TM that I got for $5 a year ago. Because I'm old school, I have it hooked up to a gigabit switch that sits right next to it and feeds out to my tv, ps3, tivohd, and a 50ft cat6 wire that runs into the 2nd bedroom where i have another gigabit switch that feeds out to my desktop, cable box, and xbox360. I'll keep this router in mind if my wife complains about the 50ft cat 6 wire and forces me to put everything on wireless. I'm still leery to adopt full wireless because I've ripped nearly my entire media collection to my computer and stream them to my ps3 and I don't know if wireless can handle upwards of 10-12gb mkv files.

 

[Heinrich]

Not sure what the point is to hook a gigabit switch up to a WRT54. going 10/100->Gigabit you are limited to the originating 100MB.

Wireless N is technically capable of HD bandwidth. In my experience, my Xbox 360 streams ESPN HD just fine over wireless N (and that's 2.4ghz.) However, Blu-rays have been *almost* but not quite able to feed over 802.11n. I have a stacked washer/dryer AND a A/C heating pump next to it that is right in the path of the signal. If it was just drywall / sheetrock I bet I would get streamed blu-ray just fine.

That's the nice-thing about Costco - the extremely flexible return policy.

I wound up running Cat-6 from E3000 to E3000 and setting up the access points seperately.

I had trouble setting up only 2 SSIDs (2.4ghz and 5ghz) on the two routers. I wound up with 4 different SSIDs. I'm going to try again next week with a newer version of the firmware.

 

[Jim]

Not sure what the point is to hook a gigabit switch up to a WRT54. going 10/100->Gigabit you are limited to the originating 100MB.

The point is your internal lan then runs at 1000mbit while your external internet etc is still limited by the 100mbit WRT54.

 

[thegimp03]

Not sure what the point is to hook a gigabit switch up to a WRT54. going 10/100->Gigabit you are limited to the originating 100MB.

Wireless N is technically capable of HD bandwidth. In my experience, my Xbox 360 streams ESPN HD just fine over wireless N (and that's 2.4ghz.) However, Blu-rays have been *almost* but not quite able to feed over 802.11n. I have a stacked washer/dryer AND a A/C heating pump next to it that is right in the path of the signal. If it was just drywall / sheetrock I bet I would get streamed blu-ray just fine.

That's the nice-thing about Costco - the extremely flexible return policy.

I wound up running Cat-6 from E3000 to E3000 and setting up the access points seperately.

I had trouble setting up only 2 SSIDs (2.4ghz and 5ghz) on the two routers. I wound up with 4 different SSIDs. I'm going to try again next week with a newer version of the firmware.

Yeah, like what Jim said, now my internal LAN is gigabit as the only thing hooked up to my router is a cable going to the modem and a cable going to one of the switches which acts as a hub for everything else. It works well for me now but in the future with a larger house it probably won't so I'll have to devise another plan then.

 

[lopgok]

Let me know where I can get the wrt310N for that price! I want one!

black friday at tigerdirect

 

[Jhatfie]

I tried the E3000 and several other wireless routers before settling on the WNDR3700. The WNDR3700 had vastly superior range and better throughput to every corner of my 3 story 2300 sq/ft home. I love DD-WRT, but it did not fix my reception issues that would have required me to use a repeater. With the WNDR3700, I do not need one and it has been rock solid with Xbox360/HTPC/Son's computer/LG BD570/Wii/wifes laptop/Droid all connecting to it wireless with nary a hiccup.

 

[KPACOTKA]

No surprise, WNDR3700 rated one star more on MSN
http://www.bing.com/shopping/search?q=WNDR3700&FORM=HURE
So certainly I would pay a bit more for much better router. I also had a good expereince with Netgear in past, my first wireless router was Netgear it worked very good.

 

[Apex]

FYI, the WNDR3700v2 is coming out. It's already on netgear's site. Should be very similar, though the rumor is it'll be a in a smaller case and it'll have an external 5ghz antenna.

 

[lopgok]

Years ago, I bought a netgear router. I had the worst tech support.
See http://www.weasel.com/comp_netgear.html for the gory details.

I have heard their new routers are nice, but I won't buy their stuff due to lying and incompetent tech support.