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router comparison question

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 5:49 pm
by Stephen
I had a Netgear N900 that died on me after a number of years. I got a Netgear R6300v2 on sale, and I am not at all satisfied with it.

I have one wired computer, two wireless laptops, two wireless IPads, two wireless phones. and a wireless kindle fire hdx that are all connected at the same time on occasion (it's a family affair...).

With the N900, everything was fine except we had sporadic dropping of the internet connection, which is why I decided to try a different model. The R6300v2 is much worse in terms of signal strength/range, especially on the 2.4 band.

At this point, I'm considering replacing the R5300v2 with another N900, or going with either the ASUS RT-N66U or the ASUS RT-AC66U. I don't need the ac at this time, but I'm considering it for future proofing.

Does anyone know from direct experience how either or both of the ASUS routers compare with the Netgear N900 in terms of signal strength/range?

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:27 am
by Pappnaas
You could try to disable the buildin wireless and get an access point (or two, for even more coverage), sporting the desired AGNB modes. Some TP-Link modells are cheap to buy and yield reasonable signal strength in return. As a plus you could place the AP at a different location for better spacial coverage, as long as it has a LAN connection to your router.

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:50 am
by washu
Is your new router using the same 2.4 GHz channel as the old one? It may have defaulted to a more congested channel than you were on before.

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:14 pm
by Stephen
washu wrote:Is your new router using the same 2.4 GHz channel as the old one? It may have defaulted to a more congested channel than you were on before.
Same channel....

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 7:57 pm
by xan_user
Stephen wrote:
washu wrote:Is your new router using the same 2.4 GHz channel as the old one? It may have defaulted to a more congested channel than you were on before.
Same channel....
maybe that channel has become more congested.

keep in mind wifi is a two way street. the connection is only as good as the weakest link. - and thats almost always the device, not the AP.

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 5:30 pm
by Stephen
xan_user wrote:
Stephen wrote:
washu wrote:Is your new router using the same 2.4 GHz channel as the old one? It may have defaulted to a more congested channel than you were on before.
Same channel....
maybe that channel has become more congested.

keep in mind wifi is a two way street. the connection is only as good as the weakest link. - and thats almost always the device, not the AP.
Tried different channels as well. Same problem.

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 9:02 pm
by CA_Steve
I've found this Android Wifi Analyzer app to be useful. A picture is worth a thousand words...

Here's a couple of sites that provide halfway decent reviews of wireless routers.
Smallnetbuilder
Hardware Info

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 8:36 am
by xan_user
CA_Steve wrote:I've found this Android Wifi Analyzer app to be useful. A picture is worth a thousand words...
great app! one of the few that im happy to pay for. (the free version is fully functional, it just has ads.)

Re: router comparison question

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:02 am
by xen
Just want to mention that wi-fi can act strange...

I was playing around with this Fonera router that I installed OpenWrt on and opened up two SSIDs (on the same BSSID obviously) one for private LAN and one for public WAN access only.

And before long (actually pretty much immediately) people's mobile devices were logging in and using my internet (neighbours, whatever). And I think I am confusing this with my main router, but it's the same thing regardless.

And I was using a Logitech Squeezebox Touch on the wifi channel of my private SSID. And I don't know what they were doing or what was going on, but as long as I had that public channel open, my Squeezebox refused to work properly. And the moment I turned it off (and kicked those users) it started working properly again.

And it can't have used a different band, at least I don't think so, and maybe that router was just messing up, but if you have like 6 wireless devices all churning away happily on their 802.11n (which I think is a faulty standard, I just know it....), you know...... don't forget to play around with disabling the "n" feature.

edit:

And I just changed "mixed mode b/g/n" to "g only" on my router and it feels physically better immediately, as if (and I am sure that is the case) I can feel the difference in frequency patterns being emitted. And I have never liked the "n", it appears to be a brute-force attempt at gaining more throughput but which comes at the cost of VASTLY higher power emissions. And I do not know about those things but I could check up on that.

Which I would do right away if my power measuring device was not still stuck in my main power loop for the computer :D. And I wish I could interpret its time-counter because there is 480 kWh on the meter :P. Must have run since September? No clue.