Piss Poor SOHO routers

[YosemiteSam]

Notice how all SOHO routers now have piss poor reviews? It's like they all suck.

I remember Linksys used to be a rock solid router until Cisco bought them. (like that makes any sense)

Netgears were solid, but if you did have a problem. "Fugetaboutit!!!" Their tech support sucked horribly.

I bought a Netgear last year and it has DHCP issues. Most mobile devices (phones, etc) have trouble getting a ip lease from it. If I go static it's fine, but the problem is we use several different networks and it becomes a pain.

So I started looking at a new router and almost every single SOHO router out there has piss poor reviews.

The Linksys-Cisco routers appear to have all types of problems, but if you get the ones where you can install DD-WRT, it resolves the problems.

I'm thinking about going that direction. Anyone else use DD-WRT with Cisco or any other SOHO router? I would like to hear your thoughts about it.

EDIT: also to note, a lot of the routers only have 100mb internal switch ports. What is with that?!?!? GB is the standard today. (not the uplink port, I understand that)

 

[TheCount]

NERD!

Kidding. I just got an ASUS rt-n16 yesterday cause my old router crapped out. I'm thinking of returning it and getting this instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122326

I was also considering the Apple Airport, but not really willing to pay $180 and get one less LAN port in the process.

I think I may just keep the ASUS and go with TomatoUSB vs DD-WRT instead, the stock firmware for the ASUS is crap. I wanted the Dual Band but not sure how much benefit I'll actually get from it.

 

[Meat-O-Rama]

I still use my trusty Linksys WRT54g, and it's what I set everyone up with who asks for my help/recommendation. The hardware is rock solid. I use Tomato firmware (a derivative of dd-wrt) and I can make it do exactly what I want. I never have issues with needing to reboot the router etc.

My next upgrade will be to the Netgear WNR3500L. Which has gigabit ethernet and Wireless N. The great part is that it is much like the WRT54g in that you can install 3rd party firmware such as dd-wrt on it.

 

[Yeagermeister]

I just replaced a dlink gaming router that I bought about a year ago with a Linksys E400 or something like that. So far no problems. The only reason I replaced it was the wireless stopped working. I would broadcast the signal but wouldn't accept the password. The wired connections were fine.

 

[TheCount]

I still use my trusty Linksys WRT54g, and it's what I set everyone up with who asks for my help/recommendation. The hardware is rock solid. I use Tomato firmware (a derivative of dd-wrt) and I can make it do exactly what I want. I never have issues with needing to reboot the router etc.

My next upgrade will be to the Netgear WNR3500L. Which has gigabit ethernet and Wireless N. The great part is that it is much like the WRT54g in that you can install 3rd party firmware such as dd-wrt on it.

Yeah I wouldn't mind that either but at this point, not having gigabit is pretty stoneage. I was working some dinky combination of non-gigabit router with a gigabit switch and it was fine except it made it really hard to get everything to see everything else, especially once you involve wireless.

 

[YosemiteSam]

So, I finally ordered the replacement for my Netgear with the DHCP issues.

I went with the Cisco Linksys E3000 and will probably put DD-WRT on it. B&H Photo had a hell of a deal on it yesterday. I got it for $133.66.

GB Ethernet, Dual-band and can use both at the same time for really high speeds, has a USB port so you can attach storage and use it as a file server, six internal antennas, etc. Lots of goodies on it.

Anyone else have one of these and if so, have you put DD-WRT on it?

 

[Meat-O-Rama]

Anyone else have one of these and if so, have you put DD-WRT on it?

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

Says it's supported. Don't know anyone with one that's running it.

Let us know how it works out, sounds like a nice deal.

 

[kmp77]

I still use my trusty Linksys WRT54g,

Yeah, the WRT line is pretty good. I have an older one and recently got my parents the new one. The range is the only thing that's not the best in the world but what do you expect for a $50 home router. I had to get an access point so their wireless radio could connect to the network on the other side of the house (router is on one side, radio on the other).

 

[YosemiteSam]

Yeah, the WRT line is pretty good. I have an older one and recently got my parents the new one. The range is the only thing that's not the best in the world but what do you expect for a $50 home router. I had to get an access point so their wireless radio could connect to the network on the other side of the house (router is on one side, radio on the other).

The new E series replaces the older WRT series. Basically the WRT610v2 is the E3000 for the most part. I believe their are only slight differences besides the obvious casing changes.