Linksys Wireless modem with iMacs???

[Spike88]

I currently have an old technology 2-Wire modem and I hear its not the "friendliest" with Macs. Especially when configured in wireless mode. Thus, I'm thinking of replacing our old 2-Wire with new technology Linksys WAG160N modem/router (for my current 10 Megs DSL service).

re: http://www.linksysbycisco.com/ANZ/en/products/WAG160N

If you have this Linksys modem/Wireless Router, any good, bad & ugly on it?

thanks.

 

[Spike88]

What about the next higher up ADSL Linksys modem/wireless router?

re: http://www.linksysbycisco.com/EU/en/products/WRT320N


For the usage chart perspective, the WRT320N appears to be better.


thanks.

 

[wirelessness]

All I know is the 2Wire is a terrible WiFi AP and a worse Router. The UI is a freaking joke. Anything would perform better than that thing. I have not tried either of those models with my iMac but I have tried several other wireless only models recently in an effort to bridge a very long distance between my DSL hardline location and my iMac. All the major vendors I tried from Linksys/Hawking/Dlink all performed pretty much the same in terms of wireless strength and connection with the iMac. I used iStumbler to compare the various signal strengths and system profiler to compare the dB's. The strongest signal received by far was from an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station Router. The only problem was connecting it with the POS 2Wire router. I finally got that working and things seem to be going OK.

If possible I would try to buy a standard DSL model that is compatible with your service and connect it to an Airport Extreme Router. That is what I am going to try next because I hate having to link my AE to that POS 2Wire in bridge mode. I think it is causing some hick-ups but I can't quite prove it.....

 

[Spike88]

Thanks for your feedback wirelessness.

My old (now broken) Win XP box and Win 7 Laptop works great off my ISP's 2-Wire box. Been working great in both UTP wired and "wireless" for many years. A few weeks ago. I connected my wife's new iMac (via UTP connection) and its download speed was slower then our Win xx boxes. And, our 2-Wire box NOW suddenly "times out" when downloading large files to our Win xx systems. If wondering, the Win xx boxes never timed out before. I think my new iMac is making the 2-Wire box "SOFT reset" and its dropping the download sessions on our Win xx systems. But, there's no "loss of DSL modem" type message on our iMac. Very strange...

Like you, I cannot prove my wife's new iMac is NOT friendly with our 2-Wire DSL Modem box either. Don't have the tools or in-depth knowledge to provide if its the iMac or the old technology 2-Wire box. So... I did a Google search of "2-Wire and iMac". Amazing how many URLs came back. It appears I'm not alone in my 2-Wire + Mac frustrations. Like you say, me thinks its time to replace the 2-Wire DSL Modem and go with something much better" Something that's now NEW Technology - for our new technology iMacs.

Many thanks for your feedback...

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