Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:25 Post subject: Best cheap DD-WRT router?
I am in the market for a new router and I, along with many others are wondering what would be a cheap router that is well compatible and stable with DD-WRT firmware.
Must Be:
Wireless N
Strong signal and speed
Reliable, even after a few years. i.e. it does not continually lose the signal or require reboots
Well compatible with DD-WRT (i.e. it will probably have to be a Broadcom chip)
No more than $60
Does not need to have:
Dual band
Gigabit
And all the other extremely fancy features.
Right now I am looking at the TP-Link WR941ND which looks very good for its price. The only thing is that it's an Atheros chipset and I have heard of compatibility issues. For Broadcom, there is the E1000 but I have read some bad reviews from Amazon and Newegg.
Of course the best router community is DD-WRT ( ) so that is why I am eager to hear your opinions!
I just did extensive research on this subject and here are my findings:
Linksys WRT320N
Linksys WRT400N
Both were available recently on amazon and newegg for $60 (new), but I see the prices jumped in the last few days. Maybe they will fall back again.
The differences are:
WRT320N: Broadcom 354MHz (overclock 480MHz), GbE, non-simultaneous dual band
WRT400N: Atheros 680MHz, NO GbE, simultaneous dual band
Both have good DD-WRT support. WRT400N has slightly better wireless performance (although both are very good), simultaneous dual band and faster CPU. WRT320N has Gigabit switch. For me Gigabit switch was important so I ordered WRT320N.
Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 7401 Location: Little Rock
Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 3:39 Post subject:
UberB wrote:
Is it really worth it for 32k of NVRAM and a working reset button?
The choice is your's of course. Those other listings are great deals as well, and also, to dispel your disbelief about Atheros units, they work great as well, i have a wrt400n and a wrt160nl, both rock pretty hard with dd-wrt for me.
IMHO the wrt320n for $40, yes its worth it, the wrt320n has 354Mhz CPU (that can be OC'd to 480Mhz) 8Mb flash and 32Mb RAM (can run the mega and big builds) and has 1 dual band radio (2.4 or 5Ghz selectable), gigabit ports, yea to me, thats a great deal.
The conversion of the 320n to e2000 is once again choice, its not required to do in order for the wrt320n to function with dd-wrt, i have 1 320n that i left as is, and it works great.
Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 406 Location: AB, Canada
Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 3:48 Post subject:
mrg666 wrote:
m00nman wrote:
Asus RT-N12 - 35 bucks
-external antennas
-4MB flash, 32 ram
-Wireless N 2.4GHz
I can testify for that one
Why not? Is it a bad router? _________________
Nethear R6300 v2 - Latest Kong dd-wrt always
Linksys E3000 - Latest dd-wrt always
Asus RT-N56U - OpenWRT trunk
Is it really worth it for 32k of NVRAM and a working reset button?
The choice is your's of course. Those other listings are great deals as well, and also, to dispel your disbelief about Atheros units, they work great as well, i have a wrt400n and a wrt160nl, both rock pretty hard with dd-wrt for me.
IMHO the wrt320n for $40, yes its worth it, the wrt320n has 354Mhz CPU (that can be OC'd to 480Mhz) 8Mb flash and 32Mb RAM (can run the mega and big builds) and has 1 dual band radio (2.4 or 5Ghz selectable), gigabit ports, yea to me, thats a great deal.
The conversion of the 320n to e2000 is once again choice, its not required to do in order for the wrt320n to function with dd-wrt, i have 1 320n that i left as is, and it works great.
Edit: also yes if you use alot of VPN certs, big custom firewall scripts etc, yes having the extra nvram is always good to have, makes dd-wrt run more stable.
Hmm you make a great point. I'm really thinking about getting the WRT320N refurb, but I can only find it for $50 on buy.com
Also, how safe is it to transform the 320n to a E2000? For what it's worth, I don't know much about DD-WRT but overall I'm a rather tech savvy person. I have no idea what a JTAG or serial cable is, so if I brick my router I would probably be screwed, but I can follow instructions okay