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shawsinio

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 29, 2006
167
0
UK
heya guys,

weve been struggling in my house for 2 years or so with a belkin router with built in modem. we always have problems with it, needing to restart it everytime we log into hotmail etc, and it took hours (literally!) on the phone to belkin to set it up initially.

we have just bought a new linksys wireless g router with built in modem today, as the belkin was just annoying us too much! anyways, it took me 5 minutes to set it up, and it working great! (touches wood!)

are all routers normally this easy to set up? or have i been really lucky here? has anyone else had problems with belkin routers?
 
My Linksys router is great, except is hicups sometimes and refuses to serve us the internet. A reboot fixes it.
 
mad jew said:
Despite it's other shortcomings (like value for money), I find the AirPort range the absolute easiest to set up. Gotta love Apple. :p

Airport for me was simple too. Wire it up and fill in the blanks... boom! :D
 
Cant believe nobody has mentiond Netgear ....... EXTREMLEY EASY to setup ... and is built very very well ... The best manufacturer of Routers on the market today!!

Never had 1 single problem with mine!!

Awsome kit!

Netgear ftw!
 
beatalliance said:
Cant believe nobody has mentiond Netgear ....... EXTREMLEY EASY to setup ...

I just setup a Netgear router for a friend and it was a PITA compared to a APExtreme/Express.

The fact you have to connect it by ethernet first in order to turn on wireless through 192.168.1.1 is asinine.
 
treblah said:
The fact you have to connect it by ethernet first in order to turn on wireless through 192.168.1.1 is asinine.
Although it tells you to do this there is no need to - at least it worked for me OK.
 
Yes, I would say that Airport is the easiest I have ever used, but then closely after that, both Linksys and Netgear are very self-explanatory. :) However, the problem comes in more when there's something goofy about your setup.
 
seems like netgear and linksys are easier to set up than many others! im so glad ive made the decision to dump belkin and go for linksys, working nicely!

i dont think ill ever buy any belkin network stuff again!

shawsinio
 
I have gone through a Linksys, a D Link D-524. and now I use a D link DGL - 4300. The Linksys WAS THE WORST PEICE OF, anyways they have gotten better, I hated that thing, constant dropping of connect, slow 11mbps. The We got the D Link, it worked better, faster set up, maybe lost connect once a week. No I ave the D Link gaming router and it's even better, yet the range could use some improvements, fastest set up ever.
 
Another vote for Netgear. My wife & SIL got me a Netgear Pre-N router for Father's Day last year and it works like a charm. Had it up and running within 5 minutes out of the box. Every now and then, I'll have to log in router and tell it log back into my dsl account but its only once or twice a month.

It's a big improvement over the Dell POS router I had. That thing would lose the internet connection several times a week and frequently would have to be left unplugged overnight before it would log back into my DSL account.
 
The linksys ones are awesome - I love 'em. I, however, with the new house we are building, am planning on buying about 5 AirPort Express for the wireless music. I have one AirPort Express and it's awesome. (Not buying, really, my dad gets them for free at work :D)
 
With everyone gushing about Linksys, I think I'll have to get myself one.

I bought a cheap DSL plan (the 768kbps/$14.99), but I called them and complained a little and they sent me a free ActionTEC wireless router (along with the standard router) which is slightly on the crappy side. But it was free so I can't complain too much.
 
I'm not such a linksys fan myself. My uncle bought one and it still doesn't work. I keep trying to convince him to buy a netgear (i bought one and I'm completely in love with it!!) I have absolutely no problem with it. It works in all areas of my house, including in the backyard. I get about 6000kbps wireless and 14,000kbps wired.
 
I have not used Airport before, but use Netgear and Linksys for our company and at home. I have a preference for Netgear. They have been as reliable a manufacturer as any I have dealt with over the years. I can only remember one failure. I had a fan stop on a 16 port hub several years ago. I still have it and actually use it.

But, I am just impressed with how good this technology has become over the years. When they added the DHCP capability to routers, it changed everything for the home users (and those of us who spent evenings and weekends setting up static IP's for friends and family). Nowadays, the only things that require configuration knowledge are setting up multiple sub-nets and/or VPN tunnels.

The other day I was musing; young people just starting to work with technology are entering a world where the vast majority of things WORK. They know nothing about the times when things seldom worked straight out of the box.
 
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