Which wireless router ?

albertross_2

Lots of ISP's give away free Netgears (AOL/sky/virgin), if they were rubbish, they'd choose another brand. Any brand should work, but some are harder to configure than others, and many are ugly imo.

If you buy it from PC World or any high street shop, you'll probably end up paying through the nose for it, the one I linked to is £43 from Amazon, or £80 in store at pc world, or £60 on the pcworld website.

Whatever you decide on, make sure it is adsl, not cable/dsl.

lolarentt

albertross wrote: »

If you buy it from PC World or the high street, you'll probably end up paying through the nose for it.

If you have a son-in-law in the IT business you get it free!

albertross_2

If I had a son in law in IT, I'd expect him to get the free Netgear working

ormus

i only use netgear wireless routers where possible. ive had all sorts of problems with belkin and linksys routers.
esp belkin.
id be disappointed if i found a belkin in the street.

superscaper

ormus wrote: »

id be disappointed if i found a belkin in the street.

I'm now trying to visualise where you live:

drunkenmonkey

I'd strongly recommend the netgear DG834G of any of the newer models of it. Very, very good stable router, easy to set up and lots of functions!

I'm surprised linksys is getting rated here, linksys is usually the make that gets the biggest slagging in the IT industry due to unreliability and high levels of break downs even though it's owned by the highly respected cisco.

superscaper

drunkenmonkey wrote: »

I'd strongly recommend the netgear DG834G of any of the newer models of it. Very, very good stable router, easy to set up and lots of functions!

I'm surprised linksys is getting rated here, linksys is usually the make that gets the biggest slagging in the IT industry due to unreliability and high levels of break downs even though it's owned by the highly respected cisco.

In that case I'll add my 2p. When I've had a choice I've gone for Netgear. We used to have a DG834Gv2 and we've since replaced it with DG834N. Been very happy with netgear routers.

Only bad thing I can think of about Netgear as a whole is that they're disappointingly extremely dismissive of Linux. I've only played with linux a bit and the only stumbling block I come across is trying to get Netgear hardware to work (although that's more the cards and dongles rather than the router).

ormus

little_miss_messiah

As a slight aside - but noting people here seem to know what they are doing:

I have a Netgear (free with AOL with a PS3) and am currently using it hardwired to my pc - my laptop bizarrely doesnt have wireless (it's only 2 yrs old). Am i better getting a card or a USB thingy - and if so which one - I see there are 54 and 108s - not sure what this affects, if it's actual connection speed I live miles away from my exchange and will probably never get the full benefit (or am I barking up the wrong tree?)

Cheerz in advance

albertross_2

cards are better for laptops, as they don't dangle out as much, and are less likely to break or damage the usb port. If you work on a flat desk, then usb ones are ok, and are more reusable (for desktops etc). Be careful if you plump for a card, and only have a more modern express slot, most cards are standard pcmcia, not express.

I wouldn't bother with 108, 54 is fine, and is way faster than your internet speed.

Are you sure it doesn't have wireless, sometimes you have to flick a switch or fn + Fx to kick it into life.