Wireless router for big house

[OVerLoRDI]

Hey guys,
I would use google but it is hard to google "router for lots of people" or something equivalent and get any useful information. So I'll explain here and hopefully someone with some experience can weigh in.

I live in 3 story house with about 20 people and approximately 15-20 wireless devices and 10 wired devices. We currently have a basic Linksys router that has trouble handling that many devices. We often have to reset the router and the signal does not carry very well to all floors of the house.

I have a budget of up to $150 to spend on a new router for this house. Does anyone have any specific models? DD-WRT compatible would be nice but not necessary.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

I'd get a router, place it on the 2nd floor, and then two extenders to put one on each floor.

 

[Emulex]

router with 128meg of ram or more - for all those people lol.

use hardlines to extra routers as AP to extend range.

i've got 4 to keep good signal at all 4 corners /floors of house

 

[JackMDS]

I would get 3 Independent Internet connections, and three Wireless Routers.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Cost is the limiting factor of getting multiple connections. So there has to be some central router that all the traffic flows through.

I did miss count there are more like 15-20 wireless devices and about 10 wired devices. The 2nd floor is wired for ethernet but the 3rd floor and attached apartment are not.

Extenders would fix the signal problem but it seems to me that the router itself can't handle all the connections because it locks up after a few hours of use.

 

[Emulex]

yeah spring for a $20 used pc with 512 meg of ram to *nix router - and $10 for a switch and you'll never see lockup lol..

i'm not joking at all.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

yeah spring for a $20 used pc with 512 meg of ram to *nix router - and $10 for a switch and you'll never see lockup lol..

i'm not joking at all.

That would probably be the best choice, but how do I broadcast the wireless without another router? Would I just plugin multiple extenders throughout the network? Or are their wireless cards I can use as broadcasters? Basically I'm asking how do I make a computer a wireless router.

 

[JackMDS]

Your main problem stems from over use of bandwidth.

Extenders, pass them, cut the bandwidth into half.

At the end you will end up with computers getting less than DialUp bandwidth.

Societal verbal desires have No limits.

However the laws and axioms of Physics can not be broken even by societal verbal desires. - -

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Your main problem stems from over use of bandwidth.

Extenders, pass them, cut the bandwidth into half.

At the end you will end up with computers getting less than DialUp bandwidth.

Societal verbal desires have No limits.

However the laws and axioms of Physics can not be broken even by societal verbal desires. - -

Are we talking about the wireless network bandwidth or the bandwidth provided by the connection? If it is the wireless network bandwidth are you suggesting I buy an additional router and split the network? The connection itself is pretty darn quick and most people that use this connection are just refreshing their facebook over and over again.

 

[Aarondeep]

Why not setup a dedicated PC router with something like IPCOP, smoothwall, or m0n0wall. Then setup a few access points on your network (routers can be used as access points). Make sure you set them with the same SSID and encryption settings. Also use non-overlapping channels like 1,6, & 11

I think this can be done within budget. Most of these NAT firewall setups run on minimal PC hardware (something old you have lying around) and tomato/dd-wrt routers can be had on the cheap 25-50$ each

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Why not setup a dedicated PC router with something like IPCOP, smoothwall, or m0n0wall. Then setup a few access points on your network (routers can be used as access points). Make sure you set them with the same SSID and encryption settings. Also use non-overlapping channels like 1,6, & 11

I think this can be done within budget. Most of these NAT firewall setups run on minimal PC hardware (something old you have lying around) and tomato/dd-wrt routers can be had on the cheap 25-50$ each

So your suggestion is 1 PC router, 1 wireless network, and 2 access points?

My thinking was to segment the networks, have 2 separate wireless networks and have the routers talk via Ethernet to improve wireless efficiency. It feels like to me the problem is not the bandwidth of our net connection but rather the fact that wireless is a shared medium and too many devices are trying to talk to one device.

 

[Aarondeep]

So your suggestion is 1 PC router, 1 wireless network, and 2 access points?

My thinking was to segment the networks, have 2 separate wireless networks and have the routers talk via Ethernet to improve wireless efficiency. It feels like to me the problem is not the bandwidth of our net connection but rather the fact that wireless is a shared medium and too many devices are trying to talk to one device.

Your best route would be to use roaming access. The clients will automatically connect to the bestAP based on signal strength
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point#Roaming_access

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Your best route would be to use roaming access. The clients will automatically connect to the bestAP based on signal strength
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point#Roaming_access

Perfect. Just ordered 2 WRT54GS (the hardware version with 16mb of ram) and will do DD-WRT and get that rolling. Thanks for the info.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Worked perfectly, things are up and running and the network runs a million times smoother. Our old router I found out had a grand total of 8mb of ram... That would definitely explain things.