Help choosing a wireless router...

RIO5.0

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Feb 16, 2001

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#1

• Jul 4, 2005

• #1

We had a couple nasty storms last week and my house got hit by lightning, THEN the next day my garage..W.T.F!!!!...Spooky hardly describes the feeling...I must be in the zone this year or some chit...
I took a hit thru my cable system...It hit the cable modem, fried my Linksys router and jumped into my PC and torched the Ehternet card, and my surge protector took a dump to boot...add to that 2 TV's, a phone and a few other items... :damnit:
Got the PC up an running for 80.00 and then 5.5 hrs of labor for the cable company to replace all the cabling inside the house and out to the pole...hopefully I wont take a hit again..as the system was not grounded before...It is now though...
Anyway can someone lend some advice or a recommedation on a wirelsss router??? I have 4 PCs in the house and would like to use my laptop in the garage, which is only 25 ft or so from the house...I figure why not go wireless this time...
This is one I was looking into....The whole A-B-G thing on these is kinda confusing...so if someone could enlighten me on that to...
Thanks in advance for the help...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=71501&item=5784648894&rd=1

 

Zero Signal

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Feb 24, 2003

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Jul 4, 2005

#2

• Jul 4, 2005

• #2

Ehh, just go to Newegg.com and pick one. For the most part, they're all the same anyway.

 

B

bayellowstang

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Jul 4, 2005

#3

• Jul 4, 2005

• #3

That is the wireless one that I have. It works great. The whole a,b,g thing is different connection speeds. Get one that is a b/g style. The A standard is faster then G which is faster then B, But not much uses the A yet. A B/G works for both speeds.

I bought one to play PSP online with. I sit in my house and my neighbor across the street taps in to my router. So you should have no problem using your laptop in your garage.

 

legalize420

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May 21, 2005

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Jul 4, 2005

#4

• Jul 4, 2005

• #4

we have the D link(D I 624). it has four outputs in the back and then we have the wireless to the laptop and the printer. it came with a disk to set everything up. it was easy.

 

urban96

bubb rubb says:"woo woooooo"

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Jul 4, 2005

#5

• Jul 4, 2005

• #5

linksys makes some nice wireless stuff

 

illwood

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Apr 3, 2004

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Worcester, MA

Jul 4, 2005

#6

• Jul 4, 2005

• #6

That looks like a good Linksys one you found on Ebay. I'd go with it. Like bayellowstang said, not much uses the A standard (even though it is a standard). Any wireless router you get that is a G standard can be used by older wireless NIC's that are B standard (the G standard is backwards compatible).

 

VIPERn94Five-0

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Apr 28, 2002

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Jul 4, 2005

#7

• Jul 4, 2005

• #7

i would suggest newegg.com for anything....shipping is dirt cheap from them...and and their prices are always very competitive....

 

RIO5.0

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Slick...Thanks for the info...

 

HoofnIt

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Jul 4, 2005

#9

• Jul 4, 2005

• #9

I just bought a netgear 4 port wireless router. It works excellent, I didn't even need a repeater for our 4K sq ft. home. I got this at best buy 2 weeks ago for only 29.00. The G is the fastest speed rating. Your wireless cards must match in order to get the fastest speed.

 

91LX_5L

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Jul 4, 2005

#10

• Jul 4, 2005

• #10

LYNKSIS dont bother with other stuff I got a DLINK it was crap just caused problems on one of the two computers, switched to a lynksis and its great. brothers dlink acts up once and a while too.

 

GRGT1994

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Sep 22, 2004

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Jul 5, 2005

#11

• Jul 5, 2005

• #11

I believe that Lynksis is the gold standard. Microsoft (believe it or not) makes good wireless gear. And Dlink is a good name too. Other than those brands, I don't know. But if I were you, I'd look for a strong brand first. If anything, you want a good company for the support phone number, features are essentially irrelevant.

As far as the a/b/g standard, I got confused by some of what was said above. So here's the straight skinny. The oldest and slowest standard is A. Then came B, which was significantly faster and can move data faster than your cable modem can. Finally we have G, which is the newest and fastest standard. It's not really nearly as fast as claimed, because the actual bandwidth achieved is often far lower than the advertised maximum. But still, each standard is faster than the last.

When buying a router, it's at least worth thinking about buying the fastest you can get, becasue that is the bottleneck for any accessories you get. If you get a laptop later that has G, and your router only is B, then you are limited to the B speed. Backward compatibility is generally quite good with wireless. So a G router will support accessories working on A or B (B will support A). And accessories with G will generally work well with a B (or A) router (though not at G speed).

In other words, don't worry about all the standard crap and just but a good brand name.

Also, buy a router will all the features you think you might need. Like get one with LAN connections if you will still use some stuff on hard lines. And get enough connections to cover you. Networking starts to get pretty complicated once you need to add a second router, switch, or other expansion. At that point, you will probably be into setting internal parameters, and spending way too much time with the support phone line.

Hope that helps.

 

VibrantRedGT

"STANGNET'S PENGUIN SMACKER"

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Jul 5, 2005

#12

• Jul 5, 2005

• #12

Top unit-Vonage broadband phone service router.

Middle unit-cable modem

Bottom unit- 4 port wireless router.

Not shown-Linksys PCI adapter for my sons PC for wireless internet.

Not shown-Linksys laptop wireless router card.

 

RIO5.0

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#13

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Thanks for all the info....Seems I have to buy like 5 network cards to support all the PCs' and modem.... The router is cheap...the cards are gonna be the killer....
My daughters BF has a brand new Linksys 4 port like I had and said it just sitting on his desk and I can have it...He's an IT guy...

 

GRGT1994

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#14

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You'd be surprised how cheap the cards are. When I got cable modem (4 years ago), the installer guy gave me a card free. Then I told him that I had a new computer on order (true) and i didn't know whether that card would work with it. He gave me two other cards (also free) just to give me some options in case the first two didn't work.

 

RIO5.0

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Jul 6, 2005

#15

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Looks like I gotta buy new cards anyway...I tried another router and it seems the fist PC I tryed to connect wouldn't work???? Checked it out and the ethernet card in that was blown to....so Im thinking it blew all 4 PCs in the house...Now thats Murphy's law...

 

VIPERn94Five-0

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Jul 6, 2005

#16

• Jul 6, 2005

• #16

wireless PCI cards are not too bad at all I mean...this thing isnt necissarily the best out there but you can't really go wrong...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833156141

 

S

Starman

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#17

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• #17

actually concerning the A, B, and G standards.......

B is the cheapest and is 11Mbps and operates on the 2.4Ghz frequency.

A is more expensive and is the faster 54Mbps but operates on the 5Ghz frequency which isn't effected by or does not interfear with cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc.

G is the same speed as the A (54Mbps) but operates at the cheaper 2.4Ghz frequency.

Because the B and G are cheaper, they are the more popular for home/small office users

 

94_Teal_GT

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Jul 7, 2005

#18

• Jul 7, 2005

• #18

You can get the router you are looking at on e-bay from Walmart for $59.88. The wireless NIC's are about $35.00 ea for the G standard.

I have the Linkysys(Cisco Systems) Wireless B router. It was really easy to set up and the configuration was simple.

How close are you're neighbors? I ask because after I installed the wireless NIC on the other computer, my next door neighbor's wireless network showed up when I did a 'scan for signal.' I suppose I could've logged onto their network as they bought the same brand and it was apparently left on the default settings.

 

RIO5.0

15 Year Member

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Jul 7, 2005

#19

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Thanks for all the help...Definatly a tad smarter now...
Im up and running but may still swap over to wireless, not really alot of money to change over...I checked the 2 other PCs tonite and sure as chit the cards are blown.... :damnit: What are the odds I would loose 4 network cards...W.T.F.!!!!

 

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EpiKk3

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#20

• Jul 7, 2005

• #20

I didn't even bother reading all that up there.. to be brutally honest, it doesnt matter which you get.. Unless you're gaming or runnin servers or something else that demands a high connection, I wouldn't even bother getting wireless g if it weren't so cheap these days.. save a buck and get whatever's cheapest, you won't be able to tell a difference