Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 19:59 Post subject: Hardware for many wireless clients
My household has maybe a dozen wireless devices that can be connected to the ADSL modem/router, a D-Link 2604B. 3 laptops, a PC, 3 Xboxes, Wii, iPhone, iPods, printer and sometimes a guest or two Not all at the same time, but you get the picture.
Wireless performance is somewhat flakey! Browsers frequently hang, wireless signal is erratic, and usually problems are at their worst when someone comes in and switches on a device. Our ADSL is a bit under 6Mbit downstream and we don't do much file or printer sharing.
So, my plan is to use the D-Link purely as a modem and buy a new router for the wireless part. What hardware features am I looking for to cope with a large number of clients? I would like to put DD-WRT on the new router as I've a feeling that might also improve network stability.
Go for WZR-HP-AG300H if you can wait a bit, or else buy WZR-HP-G300NH from Amazon or newegg. _________________ Upgraded to
DD-WRT v24-sp2 (03/25/13) std -
build 21061
May I ask why Atheros? Up to now I assumed Broadcom was the way to go - looking at Asus RT-N16 and E3000 for example.
No sign of the AG300 here in the UK, but I can get a D-Link DIR-825 which seems to have similar specs, for twice the price of a N300. Would that do a similar job? (My bad experience with the D-Link 2604B is making me cautious.)
Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 7401 Location: Little Rock
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 16:19 Post subject:
tbayley wrote:
Thanks for the replies.
May I ask why Atheros? Up to now I assumed Broadcom was the way to go - looking at Asus RT-N16 and E3000 for example.
No sign of the AG300 here in the UK, but I can get a D-Link DIR-825 which seems to have similar specs, for twice the price of a N300. Would that do a similar job? (My bad experience with the D-Link 2604B is making me cautious.)
To me it depends on what you want in your networking, I've only recently began using Atheros units though i have had a couple for over a year now. What i see difference wise, the atheros units seem to have much stronger radio's and CPU ratings as opposed to broadcom units, The fastest broadcom offering is 480Mhz CPU and thats on their top of the line units. I have a mid lvl Atheros unit (wrt400n) that has a 680Mhz CPU in it and i can tell the difference in my network.
The wrt400n is much better unit than my RT-N16 and E3000, even though its considered somewhat of a lower lvl router. And i can't comment on the d-link, i'm like you about that one, d-link didn't meet my expectations so i haven't really messed with their products since, and not to mention, i don't like d-link's version naming scheme, they use letters instead of numbers for version, can be confusing to an average user.
Sorry, newbie confusion. I did I search for WZR-HP-G300NH and google came up with something described as N300 - it's actually the WHR-HP-G300N. Looks inferior to the WZR.
About the WHR-HP-G300N and WZR-HP-G300NH router. Do they have real wireless differences?
Actually, I see differences about WAN and LAN ports (10/100/1000 on the WZR-HP-G300NH) and a USB port to add a USB (on the WZR-HP-G300NH)... but both of them offer "High Power".
WZR-HP-G300NH is twice the price of the WHR-HP-G300N and I dont really care about USB NAS (I prefer use a real NAS unit connected by RJ45) and 10/100/1000 on WAN and LAN. Only about wireless performances.
Thanks for the link but I've already read this article which only compare the WZR-HP-G300NH to other competitor but not the WZR-HP-G300NH to the WHR-HP-G300N.
They say "Since Buffalo specifically claims that the WZR-HP has higher transmit power"... but they put the same technology ("higher transmit power") on both router (WZR-HP-G300NH and WHR-HP-G300N)...
Actually, I only see
- No 1000 BaseT (Gb) switch (wich I dont care)
- No USB 2.0 (wich I dont care)
- Different chip (AR7240) with less ram (32/4)... Do I have to care about this??