Need help selecting a new network router

[Bill Miltner]

My router has died so I need to buy a new one. I have no idea what model. My uses are: three tablets frequently connected concurrently, two network printers and one network hard drive. No gaming but we do have Netflix. My house is single story and the range needs to about 150 feet or so.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Jerome Stanek]

I know it is not very expensive but I have had real good luck with TP Link routers and adapters. They get good ratings on Amazon and Micro Center. I bought mine from Micro center on the advise of the Network sales person. He could have pushed a more expensive unit but steered me to one that was on sale for about $15.00. I went in thinking of spending about $100 +

[Scott Shepherd]

Bill, what "died" on it? I had a Cisco that was getting really spotty on working, and I downloaded new firmware from dd-wrt and it basically took the existing cisco router hardware and gave it the dd-wrt firmware. That thing has been awesome. You have SO much more control over things than I did with the Cisco. You can actually crank up the signal strength in settings as well. Since I did that, I never once had another connection issue.

Google dd-wrt and give it a shot if you are a little tech literate. It might bring your old, non working router back to life, providing it still powers up.

[Bill Miltner]

It physically died. I Tried several power supplys but nothing.

[Myk Rian]

I have a Belkin N-750 that has been working very well.

[Scott Donley]

I bought an Asus and have been very happy with it. Great coverage, Netflex, and just had my daughter and her husband here for a week, her on her laptop,him on his tablet and me on my laptop at the same time. No problems.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o04_s00

[Bruce Page]

I replaced an old Belkin that had trouble reaching my shop PC with an Asus N 600.
I've been happy with the results.

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Dual-Band...eywords=router

[Eric DeSilva]

For routers, I like Cisco. For the Wireless Access Point, I'd just buy a D-Link that is dd-wrt compatible. When shopping for a router, make sure you understand the WAN gateway speed, which may be different from the "router speed" prominently displayed. I had a router from a reputable brand that advertised itself as a 1 gbps router, but the LAN-to-WAN transfer rate was under 12 mbps. Figured that out when I upgraded to 30 mpbs service and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting the speeds I was promised. I was my router's fault.

[Cary Falk]

I just replaced a Cisco router that kept dropping it's signal and leaving a dead zone in half of our 2 story 2400sqft house with a Asus AC1900. Not cheap at $199 but it rocks!!!!! It gives better coverage across the whole house and is much faster. Not quite as easy to get going as the Cisco but not bad. We have 3 tablets, 3 laptops, 1 network printer, 2 phones, Wii, Playstation, xbox, 3 media players, 1 Roku, and one desktop computer. The router is located in the corner upstairs office. The Cisco was starting to drop the signal in the kitchen which is downstairs center of the house. We never could get very good coverage out on the back deck either. We now get full signal all over the house. The least I ever seen it was 1 bar less than max.

[Curt Harms]

Bill, what "died" on it? I had a Cisco that was getting really spotty on working, and I downloaded new firmware from dd-wrt and it basically took the existing cisco router hardware and gave it the dd-wrt firmware. That thing has been awesome. You have SO much more control over things than I did with the Cisco. You can actually crank up the signal strength in settings as well. Since I did that, I never once had another connection issue.

Google dd-wrt and give it a shot if you are a little tech literate. It might bring your old, non working router back to life, providing it still powers up.

DD-WRT is kinda handy, isn't it? Plus once a router model is discontinued that's often the end of firmware support. If there's a security issue with a discontinued model I wouldn't bet on a firmware update to fix it. DD-WRT may have an update for the abandoned-by-the-manufacturer router. At least one manufacturer, Buffalo sells routers with DD-WRT installed from the factory.

[Dan Hintz]

As someone who has torn down multiple Chinese-based routers (Cisco would not be one of those, mind you) during vulnerability research, there are honestly only a few truly different designs from a hardware standpoint (and they're not that different from each other, to be honest). They are all based upon a couple of reference designs, tweaked mostly from a software standpoint to support the features the company wishes to offer. This is also why dd-wrt is able to offer so many "upgradeable" models. Belkin, ASUS, TP-Link, etc. all from the same subset of designs.

Find one that has the features you're looking for (or dd-wrt can enable it on the model you're looking at), then rank those based upon reviews for quality control (i.e., infant mortality rate... are users claiming they died within the first few months). Throw down your credit card and be happy.