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Wireless Router

I

insan56

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2005
93
0
I am looking to buy a Wireless Router with a few hard connections that will work both with my Mac and PC, any ideas?

What is the difference between Apple's Wireless Extream Base Station, and another router made by liksys?
 
With Apple's Extreme Base Station you have the option of sharing a printer & you have the ease of use with setting it up because you can use the airport admin utility.

Personally I use a belkin and it works just fine. it was easy to setup via a web browser, I have my xbox 360 & tivo hardwired to it no problems. while it serves the rest of the house wirelessly.
 
We have a linksys in our apartment that shares out to 4 computers - 2 apples and 2 PCs. does a great job. we had a belkin before it and it worked well, but the linksys definitely has more options and better stability (belkin sometimes quit on us randomly).
 
I have spent 2 days trying to connect my macbook into my belkin it still won't do it. I can see my network but I can't connect to it. DON'T ever buy a belkin for a mac it never works.
 
breakfastcrew said:
I have spent 2 days trying to connect my macbook into my belkin it still won't do it. I can see my network but I can't connect to it. DON'T ever buy a belkin for a mac it never works.
Click to expand...
don't say never just because you can't get it to work. we had one before the linksys we have now and it worked for two macs easily.
 
You can't go wrong with a Linksys. I have a WRT54G. Works great with a
wireless powerbook and some wired servers and a network printer.
Easy to configure as well. Real die-hards can also try their hands on third
party firmware with tons of extra features. (dd-wrt, openwrt ...)
 
Everyone has there own taste in routers. My last router was a Linksys speedbooster, I upgraded from that to a netgear rangemax wpn824. The netgear is the biggest POS I have ever owned. I have resetup this router via tech support (trying to get a replacment) 2 times now. It drops connection 2-5+ times a day. The more I'm on the router, the more it happens. If I'm on the computer all day, it will happen more then 5 times. Yesterday (saturday) I lost connection about 13 times all within 4 hours. I have to reboot the router and the connection comes back.

My next purchase will be a belin n1 (within the month I'll make this purchase).

Stay away from Netgear, there faulty products suck and there tech support sucks more when you try getting a replacment.

If you have the time to spend 2 hours on the phone and then, they tell you to call back if you have the same problem and you call back and spend another 2 hours doing the same ****. If you can handle this, purchase a netgear. Stay with Belkin or Linksys if you want something that just works. I search and read reviews all the time. The Belkin Pre n and Belkin N1 is the product to go with (highly recommended from the reviews I been reading over the last few months)

I never had problems with linksys other then wireless range, that was the reason for my upgrade. (not only that, netgear looked so much like my imac, white) I'm not buying for looks anymore, belkin is my next purchase.
 
Shotgun Pete said:
Linksys is the best bet, just please stay away from Dlink
Click to expand...

i so agree. i love my linksys at home, it is so easy to config, we have 3 pcs and a mac on it and it just works. i went to visit someone with a dlink a few weeks ago and it was a nightmare. took us 2 hours to get a pc and a mac onto it, another hour to make it a closed network and then the next day it didn't want anything to do with either computers. what a nightmare.

i dunno the linksys is cheaper than the airport right? i always go for the cheaper acceptable option.
 
fatties said:
i so agree. i love my linksys at home, it is so easy to config, we have 3 pcs and a mac on it and it just works. i went to visit someone with a dlink a few weeks ago and it was a nightmare. took us 2 hours to get a pc and a mac onto it, another hour to make it a closed network and then the next day it didn't want anything to do with either computers. what a nightmare.

i dunno the linksys is cheaper than the airport right? i always go for the cheaper acceptable option.
Click to expand...

Tell me about Dlink :mad:
 
insan56 said:
I am looking to buy a Wireless Router with a few hard connections that will work both with my Mac and PC, any ideas?

What is the difference between Apple's Wireless Extream Base Station, and another router made by liksys?
Click to expand...
The Airport Extreme base station only has ONE wired port to connect a computer to. Get a Linksys Wireless G router, most have 4 wired ports, and the router will probably work every bit as good.
 
Echoing what's been said about D-Link. My DI-524 had worked fine for 6 months. After I moved, it kept freezing with the new DSL service. After a number of rounds of resetting both router and modem, the D-Link died. They are supposedly going to do a replacement, but I'm not optimistic about it being any better.

The one question I have about Linksys is that I read elsewhere that they are not particularly Macintosh friendly (that is, that they have no Mac support at all). Is setup for someone who is not a particular expert possible despite this?
 
Can someone help me configuring my iMac with the Linksys WRT54G wireless router? I have an iMac with Tiger OS and I connected a Linksys ethernet bridge to it that supposed to wirelessly connect to my Linksys wirless-G router. But I'm not able to configure the iMac to work with the bridge. I go to system preferences and eventually get to the point where I choose to connect to the internet through a LAN. Then I'm asked for the IP, subnet mask, and router address. No matter what information I put there, it doesn't seem to work. I've called Linksys several times and they tell me they don't support Mac's(but isn't the bridge supposed to connect to any type of OS?) so call Apple, and I've called Apple support and they said to contact Linksys! Help!
 
I personally dont like linksys, the Wireless g router i had was nothing but trouble. It worked for about 3 or 4 months without a problem, but for whatever reason now I have to unplug the router 2 or 3 times a day. Also dont bother with there tech support, they are all from somewhere in asia and you cant understand a word that they say.

I ditched the linksys and went with a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 it is faster then linksys and is cheaper too. I have never had a problem with the buffalo router and I am getting better upload/download speeds on the internet. Also the setup was soooooo easy on both PC and Mac, they have a one button wireless setup for the new macbooks, and Imacs, you install the software and presss a button and you are now secure on the net.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833162134

If you are content on getting a linksys WRT54G read this article from tomshardware
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/06/08/linksys_wrt54g_v5_really_is_a_lousy_router/
 
Oh yes you can...

oblomow said:
You can't go wrong with a Linksys. I have a WRT54G. Works great with a
wireless powerbook and some wired servers and a network printer.
Easy to configure as well. Real die-hards can also try their hands on third
party firmware with tons of extra features. (dd-wrt, openwrt ...)
Click to expand...
I wouldn't recommend the Linksys. I've got the WAG54g. It gets very hot... I've even contemplated putting a fan on it. The ADSL link drops out quite a lot too, and it often needs power-cycling to get it working again. The wireless is OK tho'. I now recommend netgear routers to my friends and so far they've all been 100% happy :) . The Linksys is the darling of the Linux fanboys because you can re-flash the firmware with any number of "improved" versions... or at least you can with _some_ of the routers. If you want your router to "Just Work", then get a Netgear. :) :D
 
OKAY--I have to ask, what are you all doing to make the Lynkys work. I have the airport extreme two macs and a dell on Lynksys and the pc always drops the connection. It's to the point where the pc can't get online and I can't figure out how to get it to work.
 
Also have the WRT54W Linksys, and it doesn't work worth crap when I don't set it up properly. Every other time, it works like a charm. Funny how that work. :p
 
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