Category: Geeks r Us
Hey all! What brand and model of wireless router do you use? How do you like it? Is it a easy set up? I'm rather clueless when it comes to this secure stuff, how was that set up? Also, how about the bad of it? Any brands to stear clear from? Thank you.
I use a D-Link, can't remember the specific model. They're generally pretty simple to set up, you just log into 192.168.0.1 in your browser and I think all of them have a web interface where you set them up. I have not had any major issues with mine, had to reset it a few times over the last 2 years but that's pretty normal I think. You can get them pretty cheap, down to $20 or so on sales. D-Link is good, Linksys is pretty good, have not heard of any specific ones to avoid, make usre you get 800.11g compatible *but they're probably all that way now) and you should be fine.
cheers
-B
Thanks for the info. There is a D-link one I'm looking at, I think with rebates it is $29. Do y'all know, if you unplug these things, does that mean you have to set up all the security again? In NC with the thunder storms and such, I was told to unplug the computer. Right now, we have a netgear, it's about 2 or 3 years old. Turns out it wasn't very secure and I think the nextdoor neighbors hijacked it. I've disconnected it all and now their connection doesn't show up. Hmmm, is it possible for us to resecure it? Thanks all!
I don't think you have to reset security if you unplug, no. Another thing you may want to do is to buy a $30 or so surge protector for these types of situations, this way you can leave the computer plugged in during thunder storms.
You can just lock your network with a password which will keep your neighbours off of it and you don't have to reset that. You can go super strict and only allow certain mac addresses to access thenetwork but then you'd have to find the mac address of every wireless card of a pc that needs to access the network and input it. I did thatonce but had issues with it and it wasn't necessary since I certainly don't keep millions of dollars in my computer or anything. A password should be good enough to keep unwanted people off of your network.
Yes, all have a user web interface. We at verizon sell a modem/router combination with wireless capabilities and yes all need resetting from time to time. The only thing bad about our modem/router is that the web page has a constant refresh going on so it's kind of difficult for jaws users.
Troy
Troy, love that westell combo that the refresh is a killer. My thoughts on wireless are as follows. Delink is excellent for range. I use a Netgear simply because I couldn't find a delink when I needed one. I did have an older dlink and it was great. Netgear is a little less powerful and has a little less range then dlink but is really easy to set up. Also, when securing the wireless network you will want to use wpa which is a nice form of security. You creat a pass phrase which is easy to remember. Stay away from linksys. I have seen more problems with linksys units dying, frying, or just not working. Stick with dlink or netgear.
I miss those westell combos, all you had to do if you are PPPOE was just to create a dialer on the pc. I agree mac filtering is a pain. Also one thing about wireless connections it all depends on interference like cordless phones, etc. You may have to change the channel a few times to find a good signal. That is one of the first things I do with a customer if their internet keeps dropping. But yeah the wep security is a good thing to have. You can choose between 64 bit or 128 bit. Also the only time you have to reset the wireless settings is if you reset the router using the reset button, so I wouldn't recommend doing that unless necessary.
Troy
Troy, actually the beauty of those westel combos is you actually don't even need the dialup connection. All of the information is stored in the unit. Even the new westel modems that verizon uses are like mini tr routers. Now, if they would only make one of those for cable I would be so! pleased!!!!
Do these wireless routers ever have a USB port? I was looking at creating a wireless network, and I believe I read something about using my USB flash drive to connect all my computers. Am I getting this correctly? Save my connection settings onto the USB divice, connect that to each laptop, then back to the wireless point? Lol, I'm really not fully getting it. Any thoughts?
Hmmmm. don't know about the usb flash configs but what you would have to do is be sure that DHCP is enabled on your router which usually by default it is. Then you would have to on each machine join a work group and give each machine a name. Example, your workgroup might be MoonBeams and one machine might be named polka the other dots and the third and! Yup, the humor gets worse as the our grows late... Creating this in Windows xp is quite easy. Evenn got the Mac on the network!!! Oh joy, oh happy day! once this is done you can configure file sharing and even share a printer.
i had linksis before. and mine fried. so we have to retern it back. and now we have the router with modem combination
i have the netgear 834gt, which is very easy to set up. securing the wireless port is also very simple, no USB flash needed, as you just create the wep keys as you need them.