[purpleblood]

I am looking to purchase a wireless g router for my brand new aluminum 15.2" that should be arriving soon, and would love any recommendations that you guys could share(persona./or what you have read) about which ones work the best(distance/bandwith) with airport extreme cards. Thanks for the help. A few of the routers people have recommended to me have gotten terrible reviews on cnet.com, like the LinkSYS WRT54G model which seems to be the one everyone likes except CNET. There is also the NetGear WGR614 that everyone seems to like.

[superlarry]

i get better range and reliability on my d-link di-624 (54Mbps) than on my old smc 2404 (11Mbps). it's also very nice on the pocketbook :c) the web config is simple and the speed is very nice.

[aaanorton]

Are you sure you need a g router?

[TheBum]

I have the Netgear WGR614 and love it! WEP is not as easy to set up on the client machines as with the AEBS, but it's quite manageable once you figure out the correct approach.

[ghporter]

Unless you will NEED to transfer huge files wirelessly between computers, you should look for deals on 802.11b routers, not G routers. Very few retail-level broadband connections go higher than about 3Mbps (that's BITS, not BYTES), so it's very difficult to even slightly strain a B wireless network's capabilities. Further, the B standard has been well tested over several years, and the manufacturers have managed to work out most of the bugs. This is NOT true of G!

Finally, any G client card will work with a B network, so you can buy a computer that's compatible with the (relatively) slower B standard, and upgrade your router/access point/base station when they finally get G working right across the board.

Plus the B equipment is getting cheaper every day!

[striker100]

I'd get the new Netgear WGT624 router with "super G" technology.
This router is just starting to ship, it uses an Atheros chipset, heres a link:
http://www.netgear.com/products/prod...14&view=hm

[kennedy]

I just setup a wireless g network using two SMC Barricade g wireless routers (I think the number is 2804?)... one configured as a router and the other as a wireless access point. I got a good deal on them at a recent CompUSA grand opening.

I was fairly pleased with the resultant coverage. Both are placed upstairs and the coverage was at least 50% signal level throughout the upstairs of a building that is 300' x 200' (using Internet connection on my PB12 as a tester)... three bars on the menu bar in all but a few spots, two there.

The signal was much weaker downstairs... a solid metal pan, metal rebar, and 5" of cement seemed to kill off much of the signal. I plan to add a third wireless access point downstairs to provide coverage to some conference rooms. I might need a fourth, though, because there is a 6" cement wall between two of the conference rooms. But walls shouldn't be as bad as the floor, which has a solid metal pan. We'll see.

With all that said, I have nothing to compare them to... so, for all I know a pair of AEBS's would have done much better. But I can testify that the SMC's work fine with AirPort Extreme cards.

HTH.

[TheBum]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
Unless you will NEED to transfer huge files wirelessly between computers, you should look for deals on 802.11b routers, not G routers.

That's exactly why I upgraded to the Netgear G router. I have a PowerCenter running Linux that I use for a file and print server. I found a 10/100base-T network card that was compatible with Linux on the PowerPC. With those two network interfaces in place, I've noticed a substantial increase in transfer speed to the server vs. my old graphite ABS.

[selowitch]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
Unless you will NEED to transfer huge files wirelessly between computers, you should look for deals on 802.11b routers, not G routers. Very few retail-level broadband connections go higher than about 3Mbps (that's BITS, not BYTES), so it's very difficult to even slightly strain a B wireless network's capabilities.

But is that always going to be true? Why not spend a little more for 802.11g so that when a faster broadband connection is available in the future, we'll have the network hardware to properly leverage it?

[ghporter]

Originally posted by selowitch:
But is that always going to be true? Why not spend a little more for 802.11g so that when a faster broadband connection is available in the future, we'll have the network hardware to properly leverage it?

Simply because the faster wireless equipment will be less expensive in the future. Today you pay a premium for "G" functionality, without any vendor having enough of a track record for interoperability and standards compliance to really bet on future compatibility. I would buy proven, less expensive equipment today, and upgrade later, once the "G" world has settled down. They'll probably have new features in place and working within the next year, as well.

Of course I lean toward dependability as opposed to speed in this case, anyway, and this is all my opinion. YMMV (bet on it!).

[selowitch]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
I would buy proven, less expensive equipment today, and upgrade later, once the "G" world has settled down. They'll probably have new features in place and working within the next year, as well.

This is certainly a valid point; however, given that there is backwards-compatibility and that, for example, you cannot installl a "regular" (802.11b) AirPort card in a new iBook or PowerBook, I see little reason not to at least invest in an 802.11g card. The router can arguably be 802.11b, but with the prices being so low I think it's worth experimenting. For me, the key issue is wireless print serving -- in that case, there's a clear possible benefit from "going G".

[tooki]

Come on, Glenn... it's an extra $50, maybe. And the bugs with G have been worked out, now that the standard has been ratified.

I wouldn't recommend to anyone to get just a B router now if their computer is G.

I just bought a D-Link DI-624 to replace my Netgear B router that died for the second time. There's a $20 rebate on it through today, bringing it down to $80 at Best Buy, where I picked up mine.

tooki

P.S. Oh yeah, and I'm happy with the D-Link so far... it has far more features in its interface than the Netgear ever had, and has a removable antenna (not sure whether the newer Netgears do... the old ones did not).

[ghporter]

Tooki,

You're right that prices have gone down, and that the standard has been settled on. Unfortunately, there are a lot of products "in the channel" between the factory and the store, and I've heard some discouraging news about some products not taking upgraded firmware properly. So I'm chicken about moving up to something new.

I guess I'm either behind the curve or too interested in bargains.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by TheBum:
I have the Netgear WGR614 and love it! WEP is not as easy to set up on the client machines as with the AEBS, but it's quite manageable once you figure out the correct approach.

I have the Netgear WGR614 and I absolutely despise it. It will not function as a wireless bridge. I'm using a linux box for DHCP and routing, so I don't want to use the router functions of the Netgear. I disable DHCP in the netgear, but it still won't pass DHCP to the wireless clients. The wired clients work properly, and manually assigning IPs work properly, too.

Anyway, I'm RMAing to Newegg, and I don't recomment the lousy WGR614 if you have any business use for it.

PS, the Microsoft MN-500 router I was using before the netgear worked perfectly, never ever had the slightest problem with it for a year.

[soellman]

Originally posted by striker100:
I'd get the new Netgear WGT624 router with "super G" technology.
This router is just starting to ship, it uses an Atheros chipset, heres a link:
http://www.netgear.com/products/prod...14&view=hm

does the airport extreme card in the new powerbooks do 108mbps? I'm thinking of getting the dlink di-624 which apparently has a firmware upgrade to do "super g."

[selowitch]

Originally posted by soellman:
does the airport extreme card in the new powerbooks do 108mbps? I'm thinking of getting the dlink di-624 which apparently has a firmware upgrade to do "super g."

Great question!

I don't know the answer myself, but I would suspect that you would need a PC card (e.g., one from D-Link) that has that feature embedded, which means owners of iBooks and 12" PowerBooks may be out of luck.

[John Strung]

Jason, you probably already know this, but if you are using the router as bridge, you have to leave the WAN port empty. Plug the Linux box into one of the other ports (or uplink a hub), but do not plug anything into the WAN port.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by John Strung:
Jason, you probably already know this, but if you are using the router as bridge, you have to leave the WAN port empty. Plug the Linux box into one of the other ports (or uplink a hub), but do not plug anything into the WAN port.

Thanks, and yeah, I'm not using the wan port. I'm not sure why the netgear is not allowing DHCP traffic to pass thru it to the wireless clients. I can manually assign IPs to wireless clients and they work fine. I can also unplug the netgear and use the MN-500 and it will properly pass DHCP. So it's undoubtedly a problem with the netgear and external DHCP servers, maybe they'll have a firmware fix for it one day.

It's worth mentioning that it works just fine if you let it handle DHCP, which is very limiting. Anyway, it's getting RMA'd and I'm still deciding what to replace it with. I'm thinking a true access point (bridge) will work better, even though they cost more for some reason.

[selowitch]

Originally posted by jasonsRX7:
I'm thinking a true access point (bridge) will work better, even though they cost more for some reason.

See also this thread.

[John Strung]

Is it possibly a subnet problem? Is the LAN IP address of the Netgear on the same subnet as your DHCP server (but outside the range used by it)?

I have a somewhat similar setup using a LinkSys BEFSR-41 to connected to a cable modem. The LinkSys acts as the DHCP server serving a wired network in our office. I have also uplinked three Dlink DL614+ wireless routers as bridges. Have turned off DHCP on the D-Links, but it was essential to change their LAN addresses to put them on the same subnet as the LinkSys. They work fine and I get IP's from the LinkSys.

The one last thing you could try is manually putting the IP address of your Linux DHCP server into the Gateway or Router IP address box in your TCP/IP prefs to make sure that your client computers are looking in the right spot for the DHCP server.

[ghporter]

Originally posted by selowitch:
Great question!

I don't know the answer myself, but I would suspect that you would need a PC card (e.g., one from D-Link) that has that feature embedded, which means owners of iBooks and 12" PowerBooks may be out of luck.

Actually, these "double speed" features are proprietary, so you need both a D-Link access point AND a D-Link card. I don't think D-Link is big on Mac support, so that breaks down. Other vendors' "double speed" hardware will only work that way with their own products. There are several different approaches to this feature, mostly using two channels at once, but it is not at all standardized.

[selowitch]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
Actually, these "double speed" features are proprietary, so you need both a D-Link access point AND a D-Link card.

I suspected as much. Which of the wireless-router-and-card vendors (besides Apple's AirPort, which is too expensive) would you deem to be the most Mac-friendly?

Belkin? Netgear? SMC?

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by John Strung:
Is it possibly a subnet problem? Is the LAN IP address of the Netgear on the same subnet as your DHCP server (but outside the range used by it)?

If the netgear was able to properly act as an access point, the IP address of the netgear as a client wouldn't matter. In fact, that is how I intentionally configured the MN-500. I placed it on a different subnet than my network, so that if anyone did happen to break the wep encryption (which is easy enough) they would get an IP address on my network, but wouldn't be able to find the IP of the access point.

The IP of the MN-500 itself didn't matter because it was just passing along traffic between the LAN and WLAN. That's exactly what I want the netgear to do, but for some reason it is trapping DHCP. I think its just an issue in the firmware.

Well, it's a non issue in about 2 hours... I'm about to head to the Apple store in Durham to pick up an Airport.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by jasonsRX7:
Well, it's a non issue in about 2 hours... I'm about to head to the Apple store in Durham to pick up an Airport.

And that solved the problem. Turning off DHCP in the Airport base station makes it function as a bridge, like it should, and my wireless clients are able to get DHCP from my linux router. Why the netgear was unable to do this, I have no idea.

As for a comparison, the Airport has a bit better range than the netgear, the netgear had perhaps slightly faster transfer rates. Not very noticible either way. I have WPA-PSK enabled on both.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by purpleblood:
I am looking to purchase a wireless g router for my brand new aluminum 15.2" that should be arriving soon, and would love any recommendations that you guys could share(persona./or what you have read) about which ones work the best(distance/bandwith) with airport extreme cards. Thanks for the help. A few of the routers people have recommended to me have gotten terrible reviews on cnet.com, like the LinkSYS WRT54G model which seems to be the one everyone likes except CNET. There is also the NetGear WGR614 that everyone seems to like.

lynksys works for me.
No the easiest setup but works solidly and the range is good.

[Lizard7]

In my experience with the netgear B router, you still need to change the router ip after turning off DHCP. It doesn't convert to a pure switch with that one change. Otherwise, you will have 2 devices with the same IP.

Just change it to something high like 192.168.0.55 and don't worry about it. And don't use the WAN port for the bridge.

Originally posted by jasonsRX7:
If the netgear was able to properly act as an access point, the IP address of the netgear as a client wouldn't matter.

[ginoledesma]

I just recently got a Netgear MR814 (Wireless router) and have been quite satisfied with it. Its quite dated, so it doesn't have WPA support.

Much as I'd like to get a G router, they're twice the price of the B routers over here, and twice the price of what they cost in the US. Arguing for the sake of speed for me doesn't really hold much weight, since 54Mbps is still about just half of what I could be getting with a 100Mbps wired network. I haven't seen a substantial increase in the speed from 11Mbps to 54Mbps, and range seems to be inconsistent across brands/models.

If you want to save a bit, buying a B router/AP isn't too bad. It will give you the benefits of wireless freedom. But if $50-$70 is small change for you, then by all means get the faster ones.

Oh, and one thing to note, there is still this issue of a single 802.11b client bringing down an 802.11g network to its heels.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by Lizard7:
In my experience with the netgear B router, you still need to change the router ip after turning off DHCP. It doesn't convert to a pure switch with that one change. Otherwise, you will have 2 devices with the same IP.

Just change it to something high like 192.168.0.55 and don't worry about it. And don't use the WAN port for the bridge.

That's how I had it configured, and I wasn't using the WAN port. Trust me, I do know how to set these things up (I'm a network admin). It's a software limitation/bug that they may overcome with a firmware upgrade. I even went so far as to contact Netgear (which is excruciating because of the heavy accents) and what they said to do was exactly what I had already done.

[cybergoober]

I can't recommend the Linksys WRT54G any more highly. Haven't had any problems with it so far (OK, I've only had it since Christmas).

If I were to go out and buy a "G" router to today it would be the WRT54G if for no other reason than the info I stumbled across earlier this week:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/foru...e=flat~days=10



Of the two available third-party firmwares, I am currently using Sveasoft's. I will probably download the WiFi Box firmware and try it out as well.

The amount of additional functionality is simply astounding.

[selowitch]

I just ordered a Belkin Wireless-G Router and a Belkin Wireless-G Access Point because OfficeMax had a very tempting sale-and-rebate combo that netted me both of them for just over $100. I couldn't resist that!

[Boondoggle]

I've got a netgear g router at home (don't remember which model) and a linksys wrt54g at work. They both work well, but are a bit different. I get a better signal on the netgear, and I've tried both in the same location. That surprised me a little because the linksys has 2 antennae.

The linksys has a more comprensive and straightforward setup including WPA which the netgear seems to lack. Both have WEP.

The netgear looks great next to my 15 Al 1.25 Powerbook.

[Blizzake]

i had the .g netgear. i bought it because its what everyone said was best. i personally hated it and even after the firmware update, it would constantly drop signal and have to be reset.(g4 powerbook) .

i took it back and got the buffalo (http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/...on/WBRG54.html) and ive been more than pleased. setup is a breeze and its user freindly.

its just damn ugly...

[brettcamp]

went into the Mac Store to get an Airport Base station, but they pointed out that they had routers on sale for $69. said to be one of the most mac friendly companies, and very good reviews all over the net. I was nervous about losing apple ease of use, but this was a pretty easy set up, explained fairly well. after less than an hour, we now have a powerbook and ibook connected wirelessly. free at last....

[brettcamp]

sorry, left out the model: Asante 2004AC VP router. the manual was actually pretty easy to understand. Only had it for a day, but all is well.

[ginoledesma]

Amazon.com has incredible great deals on the Netgear WGR614. Price after mail-in rebate is only ~$60.

I'm considering selling my Netgear MR814v2 (which, with its price locally, will fetch the Netgear WGR614 in the US _easily_). I just lost my wired Ethernet cable so am unable to hook up my iBook to the wireless router for speed transfers. Now I'm stuck with a 600KBps transfer rate moving ~500MB files between my Mac and PC. SLOOOOOOWWW!!!! I'm not expecting a HUGE improvement with 54Mbps, but it'll at least get my in the megabyte range.

[ghporter]

Originally posted by brettcamp:
sorry, left out the model: Asante 2004AC VP router. the manual was actually pretty easy to understand. Only had it for a day, but all is well.

When it comes to wireless networking, Apple doesn't have a lock on ease of use anymore-if they ever had it. "Apple friendly" isn't really an issue with this stuff anymore. In fact, Apple is the only company I know of that insists on using an application on a host computer to control their access points (the AirPort Base Station or AirPort Extreme Base Station), while everybody else uses a mini-web server in their hardware.

Anyway, if you can use a browser, and can translate terminology between Apple and everybody else ("network name" = SSID, for example), you can manage just fine with just about any brand. And if you need help with translation, just ask here!