wireless router choices and questions

[substance12]

Is it common to have to reboot your wireless router every so often? (weeks? months?) is this related to the amount of activity on the wireless portion? For example, I plan to use 2 of the hardlines and 1 computer on the wireless. Most of the activity going on will be on the hardline. The wireless portion will be not be as frequent.

I've narrowed my choices down to these 3:

linksys BEFW11S4 - I've only heard good things about linksys... they seem to be very reliable. I've heard the latest firmware isn't as good as the old.

SMC SMC7004VWBR - There's a sweet deal at microcenter for this. However I've read reviews saying this unit needs to be rebooted every so often. Now, I'm not sure if this is related to old firmware or if it's simply the nature of the beast (wireless routers). WEP enabled will slow down speeds worse than the other 2.

dlink di614 - supposedly very good. Faster than the rest and has higher encryption. No idea about the cons.

Having to reboot is absolutely unexceptable to me. Customer reviews aren't helping me much because I dont' know how firmware plays a role in the products in question. Professional reviews aren't helping because they don't test longevity.

 

[Mucker]

I just purchased the D-Link DI 614+ Wireless Router and the Airplus DWL-650+ PCMCIA card (bundled together from Costco, $180). I use Cox cable high speed internet and have my PC connected to LAN port 1 on the router (out of 4 available) and my laptop is connected wirelessly. Overall, a painless installation (both machines are running XP). I configured the network using TCP/IP. The router has its' own IP address and assigns IP's (using DCHP) to all connected machines. Didn't have to assign IP's as windows will automatically assign them for you. Just make sure to have the XP built in firewall turned off on both machines so that LAN networking as well as internet sharing will work properly. (At least that was the case for me, I'm still learning). Everything is running smoothly, both machines see each other fine, printing is fine from both, and the speed of connecion is very good (I am especially impressed with the wireless speed, 22Mbps, barely noticeable from a hardwire connect.) I have not come across anything that says the router needs rebooting every so often (or at all). The included router software installs tools to configure the router (firewall, dmz, etc.). Hope this helps some....

GPJ

 

[Widedaimon]

I just got the D-Link "Air Plus" DI 614+ wireless router, with two pc's connected using DWL 520+ wireless PCI adapters. It now works well, and was a breeze to set up the router and *one* of the computers. Setting up the other computer's adapter was hell, which was a puzzlement, since the two computers were *almost* identical, running the same OS (WinXP Home). Trying to install the adapter drivers on the "bad" computer produced hard lock ups, BSDs, etc. After tearing out my hair and wasting hours with D-Link's utterly clueless tech support, I remembered that there was one significant difference between the computers: the one that didn't work had a Soundblaster PCI 512 sound card, and the one that did had a Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal chip) sound card. Pulled out the Soundblaster card, and deleted its driver, and then the D-Link adapter driver installed with no problem. Had to buy a TB Santa Cruz so I'd have sound, but no incompatabilities arose there. I don't know what the problem was, since the TB and Soundblaster used the same IRQ, so it couldn't have been a simple IRQ conflict.

Anyway, the signal is excellent between the router (in my kitchen) and one computer (in a bedroom on the same floor, on the far opposite end of the house) and very good between the router and the other computer (in the basement on the far opposite end of the house).

 

[Mucker]

After reading Wides' comment, I just thought I'd say that the desktop PC has an Audigy installed and the laptop (Toshiba) has Crystal Audio. Fortunately, I did not have any issues. Good luck...

GPJ

 

[VezZiE]

Why don't you count NetGear mr314 in? Good enough you know..
Take a look at this Comparison.

Sorry it's a Google Cache. Last time I tried, the website won't open.