Need help choosing a new router please.

cmoon1975

OK guys here's one for you...

I'm looking to buy a new router for my BT Broadband (I am finding the Home Hub V2 very unreliable of late), what I need is something that will connect the devices;

Laptop PC (Wireless)
Desktop PC (Wireless)
PS3 (Wireless)
Network Printer (Ethernet)
WII (Wireless)
& Possibly a Hard Disk via USB for network storage purposes

Is there anything you guys & gals could recommend.... possible for under £50 (will push to more if required)

Thanks In Advance for any and all help/advice offered.

Hammyman

Draytek Vigor 2820n. Has a USB port you can use for a printer, storage or 3g dongle. Downside is they're far from £50. You're not going to find one that'll let you connect up a USB device for £50.

simon.griggs

Dear cmoon1975,

In terms of a new router, just about anything will do the job and you should be able to pick one up for less than £50. Below is a link to an 802.11n unit that will give you faster speeds if you have N capable network cards in your devices, but if not, will also give you nearl full 54Mbps speeds in your other gear.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155638

I have used both this company and the Tenda product, both have been very reliable. As far as sharing your USB drive goes, there are a couple of options. If you can remove the drive from its enclosure, it would be possible to fit it into an enclosure like this one,

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/205835



This would enable you to share the files with all the machines in your network. Alternatively you could hook up the drive to your desktop and share it on your network. Connect the drive, then right click it and select the option to share. Once this is done, turn off any firewall running on both machines, as otherwise this will not work. You may need to reboot both desktop and laptop to achieve this too. Once both machines are up and running open a command prompt and type ipconfig on both machines. Take a note of the IP address of each machine. Next type ping followed by the IP of the other machine. So if your laptop has the IP 192.168.1.2 and your desktop has the IP 192.168.1.3 then from your laptop type ping 192.168.1.3 and from your desktop type ping 192.168.1.2. In both cases you should get a report that says four packets have been sent and four should have been received. Once you are there, type [URL="file://\\192.168.1.3\"]\\192.168.1.3\[/URL] and you should see your drive listed

aldrich.11

D-Link DIR-615 Wireless N Router will be good. For security, the router features virtually all encryption standards found in wireless routers including all the variations of WEP and WPA. It also supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup, a feature that allows for quickly adding wireless clients to the network without having to manually type in the encryption key.