What Wireless Routers and Modems do you recommend

[Warren]

Hi,

I'm getting sick and tired of my Linksys WAG54G dropping the connection to the internet when I most want to use it.

I recall Gilad recommending to go down the separates route.

What wireless routers and modems do people find reliable.

[Rik]

I use a trio of D-Link 2100-AP's for access points.

Cheep as chips on eBay (2.50 for the last one !)

Rik

[GooseBumpAudio.com]

Warren Wrote:Hi,

I'm getting sick and tired of my Linksys WAG54G dropping the connection to the internet when I most want to use it.

I recall Gilad recommending to go down the separates route.

What wireless routers and modems do people find reliable.

Quality is important!

I have a separate cable modem (Thomson), and earlier we had a unstable wireless router connected to it. We switched to a D-Link DIR-655 and now the wireless network is as stable as it can get! :-)

The router support for a lot of features, 4 x 10/100/1000 switch ports, IEEE 802.11n (130 kbps wireless) amongst other things:

http://www.d-link.com/products/?sec=1&pid=530


I plug the NAS directly in the DIR-655 and have a pair of Devolo dLAN 200 AV (ethernet through power lines) between the DIR-655 downstairs and ths DS in the living room upstairs. I use my laptop but mostly my iPod Touch with the SongBook app. to send playlists to the DS (wireless). This configuration is stable and problem free.

If it will sound better or not with a different switch I can not say, but I doubt that it would make any difference to the sound.

In the future I will install a ethernet cable directly from the DIR-655 to my DS to minimize the risk of potential network problems.

I hope that you can get your network configuration stable as well. :-)

[ChrisW Linn Staff]

The newer Dlink WAPs are pretty good - specifically, the DWL-3200AP has particularly good packet-loss performance on UDP traffic, and is Linn's top recommendation.

Re routers, the two I have used with most success on DS systems are the Netgear RP614 and WGR614. Note - these are both Ethernet routers with no DSL port. They are designed to connect to an existing broadband router with an Ethernet cable.

The current versions are the ones I have most thoroughly tested.
Specifically, the RP614v4 with firmware v1.0.5_04.23
and WGR 614v9 with firmware v1.2.2_14.0.13.

Beware that if you do pick up an older one, then there may be some issues. The WGR614v7 in particular did have some dodgy DHCP behaviour which was fixed by the lastest firmware release - see http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.p...4#pid18194

Here's a brief guide to using an Ethernet router to set up a DS system
http://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/DS_Network_Setup

It includes a link to recommended components.

[vicdiaz]

I currently have a D-Link DIR-615 router and a D-Link DGS-2208 Gigabit switch and reliability and performance has been top-notch!!!

[RobbyD]

(2009-03-19 15:15)ChrisW Wrote:  The newer Dlink WAPs are pretty good - specifically, the DWL-3200AP has particularly good packet-loss performance on UDP traffic, and is Linn's top recommendation.

Just moved house and have taken the opportunity to redo my setup as per the Linn DS Setup guide. Have added the recommended WAP (D-Link 3200AP) and various recommended switches. Performance of the KDS, Kinsky Desktop, Songbook via wireless is now excellent.

Question: I plan to add an ADS to my HT setup in another part of the house. The wireless signal of the D-Link 3200AP is very poor in this part of the house. I would like to add another 3200AP. Should I do this using the same SSID and channel or set up a separate wireless network. Any advice on this appreciated.

thanks

Rob

[ChrisW Linn Staff]

Rob - there are two schools of thought here.
The official way to do it is to use the same SSID, but a different channel (preferably with a gap of at least three channels between them in fact.) This is certainly the way any corporate Wireless LAN will be set up.

The one downside with this is sometimes "roaming" between the WAPs doesn't work too well. Some devices will not "let go" of a WAP and reconnect to a nearer WAP until the original signal becomes very low indeed.

This is less common nowadays, but if you find it a problem, you can change the SSID to identify the room the WAP is in. This does mean you have to remember to manually connect to a different wireless network when moving from room to room, but at least you can be sure which WAP you are connected to!

One other tip. If you don't want the user of one DS system "accidentally" controlling the other one, put them in different VLANs. A Netgear GS108T is a cheap and simple way of doing this.

The NAS and router ports should of course be members of all VLANs. In this configuration, it is of course essential to have WAPs with different SSIDs connected to each VLAN.

This is what we do with our training suite, where we have many DSes in different rooms and don't want someone in one area interfering with a system someone else is using in another.

FYI, I attach a diagram showing how this is set up.

[RobbyD]

Chris,

thanks for the quick response and advice. I will give this set-up a try over the coming week in preparation for the arrival of the ADS.

many thanks

Rob