• Steam recently changed the default privacy settings for all users. This may impact tracking. Ensure your profile has the correct settings by following the guide on our forums.

Need a new wireless router

Abe Froeman

Gamer Dad
Enforcer Team
My old linksys wrt54gs just finally shit the bed for whatever reason. I'm headed out to an appointment and need to pick up a new wireless router.

Can you guys toss some suggestions my way over the next hour or so that I can read when I bomb over to Best Buy when I'm done working?
 

Seth

MD Party Room
Are you going to be using the 5.0GHz?
 

Seth

MD Party Room
That, my good sir, is one very interesting sentence.


Do you need a special wireless adapter to use the 5.0 Ghz feature with new routers?

You need to have Wireless N support on whatever you want to use 5.0 Ghz speed on that about it. I wish I had this bad ass router it be nice to have a NAS sever built into a router.
 

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
You need to have Wireless N support on whatever you want to use 5.0 Ghz speed on that about it. I wish I had this bad ass router it be nice to have a NAS sever built into a router.

Get an RT-N16. Its the most powerful router to date that runs DD-WRT. You can setup SMB (Windows) shares or FTP/HTTP access for a USB harddisk and use it for SSH tunneling to get around firewalls. You can even do SSH over SSL to hide your tunnel from smart firewalls. You can setup a captive portal for internet access authentication with a built in RADIUS server. All kinds of crap.

Heres a fraction of the precompiled packages for it: http://downloads.openwrt.org/whiterussian/packages/

Mine hasn't crashed even once in months since I first installed it. The specs are pretty good too: 480MHz MIPSEL2 CPU, 128MB RAM, 32MB flash for firmware and flashing packages, DUAL 802.11N adapters.
 

Abe Froeman

Gamer Dad
Enforcer Team
The range on the E3000 I picked up is garbage. I've been having such a fucking hard time not having a laggy match while playing on my 360 since I picked it up.

I've deduced that the signal range is worse than my old WRT54GS, which is pretty downright shitty for their highest end model.

I need suggestions on a replacement with good range if anyone has one.
 

Abe Froeman

Gamer Dad
Enforcer Team
It's tough to say exactly. The wireless router is on the second floor of my place and my 360/PS3 is in the living room downstairs. Beyond 50'.
 

Abe Froeman

Gamer Dad
Enforcer Team
Fuck, it just dawned on me that I may need to get the new Wireless N adapter for my 360.

Would that be causing the issue?
 

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
My RT-N16 seems to be quite direction specific. But its in a 9u rack thats closed on all sides except for the glass door. Stepping a few feet to one side makes it jump from 30% to 50%. I measured with a one floor difference and around 25' horizontal displacement. Must be going through 1 vertical wall on the way.
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
The b/g range won't he any better than your old router. you'll have to get a wireless N adapter if you want to take advantage of Ns full range. Each router will have different signal strength but that router you got should be one of te best. You could try the cheap DIY addons to improve the range of the router a specic direction.
 

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
Ok no difference inside or outside the rack. At the same distance but through 4 walls, its completely dead. However with DD-WRT you can tweak the transmission power, dunno if that has any real world benefits though.

http://www.cnet.com.au/asus-rt-n16-wireless-router-339298697.htm

Those values seem a bit much, but they must be for the same floor.

You really should be using cable for any kind of gaming though... Or set up a repeater. The loss in bandwidth should still result in it being faster than your internet pipe.
 

Abe Froeman

Gamer Dad
Enforcer Team
I've never had any issues with playing wirelessly and I actually used to host all of my old clan matches with the original GRAW, and everyone playing was in the UK. (Was on that ladder for gamebattles.) Even after the lag tests pre-match nobody would complain.

I'm thinking about just returning the E3000 and getting this: NETGEAR - RangeMax Dual-Band Wireless-N Router with 4-Port ...

Anyone with any experience with it? I read one thread on the Cisco forums complaining about the loss of range on the E3000 to other previous models, so I guess I'm not alone.

Linksys E3000 range? - Cisco Home Community
 

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
I need something today, so I can't order anything online and wait.

I tried different Tx power settings and channels and it doesn't make any difference.

I think you're going to be disappointed with anything on the market.

The problem is almost always with the client. Make sure the antennae are parallel to each other (the client and AP). The antenna is perpendicular to the plane of signal propagation, so tilt the AP's antenna so that the "disc" hits the 360's location. Align the 360's antenna parallel to the AP's.

I saw a massive improvement after doing this.

You could look for a heavy duty access point. In my college they had this crude steel box without even an antenna, labeled Sesame High Power Access Point. It had MASSIVE range. My PSP could pick up a signal around 100m away through over 10 walls.
 
Top