So the router back home is toast, and my parents have put me in charge for getting them a new one.  What I want to know is, what is an affordable (less than $70 or so is all I'm really asking for) router that is reliable.  They definitely don't need anything fancy at all, just something that won't die on them.

edit: okay so the guy who came to fix their internet told them the router was dead, but i plugged it up for the hell of it and it works fine, it just had to be reset two or three times...nevermind i guess!


great job internet provider a++++++

A few years ago I bought a D-Link DI-524 for like $70 and it's been working fine ever since.

Yeah, the one we have now is a D-Link (not sure of the model number).  It's been several hours and it hasn't done anything weird, so I'm just taking this as a sign that the guy who came to work on our stuff was a dumbass (which I should have expected from our ISP).

It's not to say the ISP doesn't know about routers, they just honestly don't give a damn. As long as you have internet connection to the modem itself, they're doing their half. Any way you use that connection in your at-home network is completely up to you, and any help you get from your ISP on equipment you haven't specifically gotten from them is out of the kindness of their heart.

For the record we have a buffalo high-power router (£35/$70) and it kicks ass. Runs cool as ice and never had any disconnection problems and most importantly it's cheap as chips.

My friends bought a linksys router that cost £120 and it has broken twice. Owned.

It's not to say the ISP doesn't know about routers, they just honestly don't give a damn. As long as you have internet connection to the modem itself, they're doing their half. Any way you use that connection in your at-home network is completely up to you, and any help you get from your ISP on equipment you haven't specifically gotten from them is out of the kindness of their heart.

No, the people at my ISP genuinely doesn't know about routers, or computers, or anything.  I've seen them when they were at our house before (because unless they come to your house they don't believe you when you say something is wrong on their end (i.e. having the wrong MAC address in their system) unless they see it themselves.  One guy even said "It's not working, see, those lights are supposed to be on....I think...aren't they supposed to be on?"  "I had my laptop fixed and for some reason it's really slow now and that thing, you know, when I start my internet up, the page is different.  I wonder why the page is different." (when he was describing his problem I came to the conclusion that they had reinstalled XP, and he didn't know why his homepage wasn't the same).  They are basically PROFESSIONAL MODEM PLUGGERS AND UNPLUGGERS.

They aren't obligated to help with any of our hardware, it's just that if you don't get them to LOOK at your hardware they blame it for everything.  They've convinced my parents to replace perfectly good parts before.

No, the people at my ISP genuinely doesn't know about routers, or computers, or anything.  I've seen them when they were at our house before (because unless they come to your house they don't believe you when you say something is wrong on their end (i.e. having the wrong MAC address in their system) unless they see it themselves.  One guy even said "It's not working, see, those lights are supposed to be on....I think...aren't they supposed to be on?"  "I had my laptop fixed and for some reason it's really slow now and that thing, you know, when I start my internet up, the page is different.  I wonder why the page is different." (when he was describing his problem I came to the conclusion that they had reinstalled XP, and he didn't know why his homepage wasn't the same).  They are basically PROFESSIONAL MODEM PLUGGERS AND UNPLUGGERS.

They aren't obligated to help with any of our hardware, it's just that if you don't get them to LOOK at your hardware they blame it for everything.  They've convinced my parents to replace perfectly good parts before.

It all depends on the ISP, I do tech support for a local ISP in Ontario, and we're not like that. If you have a router, and your connection isn't working, and powercycling does't fix it, then we bypass the router. If bypassing the router work, then it isn't our problem. We will tell you it's the router, because that's the case, it is. From that point you can either decide to reset it, have a friend or family member look at it, or speak to the routers tech support (all suggestions we give). Velfarre, when techs go out to the house, it's normally not the same people doing phone support, and they would have different knowledge.

Edit: To sum it up, it's not our job to know anything about your router, or know much about computers (only the aspects that relate to your internet). Why should somebody care what the lights on your router are doing when the ISP doesn't give a shit about routers.

Edit: To sum it up, it's not our job to know anything about your router, or know much about computers (only the aspects that relate to your internet). Why should somebody care what the lights on your router are doing when the ISP doesn't give a shit about routers.

First of all I'm very aware it depends on the ISP, I was saying that mine is terrible.  And the flashing light thing was about the modem, he didn't know whether or not it was getting a signal at all because he didn't know what the clearly labeled lights meant.  Also I wouldn't be surprised if the tech at the house was the same one on the phone, because this ISP is so small.  They've sent me to people in billing for tech support before because of their lack of phone people (I can understand being short on staff but what are billing people going to do for me except say "SORRY I'M IN BILLING" like they did).  This ISP operates out of an insanely small building and doesn't have people elsewhere, so it's a safe bet that the people I've talked to on the phone and the one person who comes to our house are about the extent of their staff.  I know they aren't really required to know anything about routers, but they ARE required to know about the aspects that relate to my internet, as you said, and they really don't.  I think needing the MAC address on file is an aspect relating to my internet, and they didn't know what a MAC address was.  Finally when I started listing it they figured out that it was that weird number they were supposed to put in their systems (incorrectly).  It doesn't matter if they can't do anything about routers when the router is unplugged and removed from the situation and they're still saying it's the problem.  Or when we tell them we've been hooking our computer in to the modem directly and somehow it's still the router.


Dude, I am not trying to rip apart people who work at ISPs, just the ones who work at mine because I have dealt with them personally!

I would recommend a WRT54G by Linksys.  Great router.  You can also put DD-WRT OS on it and basically up it to a $500 router or so.  Or perform at a higher level.  I've been very pleased with it.  I picked mine up at Circuit City for $40, so that should definitely fit your budget.  I'd strongly recommend getting any Netgear products as I've had two of their recent products that completely sucked and had hardware issues.

The WRT54G may be on sale at Fry's for $35, if you have one near you -- I was seeing something about it a week ago.

--Terin

WRT54G, ONLY get it, imo, if you're willing to put on DD-WRT, which is quite a very solid custom firmware. Very good stuff, risk of bricking your router, but just follow instructions and you are good. WRT54G gave me a lot of problems with torrents and other things without the software.

Btw Velfarre, I was just saying that because there is a stigma against tech people, which comes from people who know shit all about computers, and think they are always being scammed and given the run around. 80% of the time, you don't know what you are talking about compared to the tech. Whenever I tell somebody to do something, half the time they say "But nothings changed! What did you guys do!" and they are in the mindset that it's all the ISP problems. 90% of the problems at my company are literally client side things, nothing on our side that we can do or change.

Btw Velfarre, I was just saying that because there is a stigma against tech people, which comes from people who know shit all about computers, and think they are always being scammed and given the run around. 80% of the time, you don't know what you are talking about compared to the tech. Whenever I tell somebody to do something, half the time they say "But nothings changed! What did you guys do!" and they are in the mindset that it's all the ISP problems. 90% of the problems at my company are literally client side things, nothing on our side that we can do or change.

I can understand that, and that's why I needed to clarify that it is specifically these tech people.  I've dealt with other tech people who were wonderful and knew exactly what they were doing, so I don't automatically assume tech people are asshole idiots, but these people have convinced my parents to replace perfectly good equipment several times and have been nothing but trouble.  All of our client side problems were things I fixed myself, the only time we called them were when we knew for sure that it was on their end, and they refused to believe us ever.  They won't even CHECK to see if they can do anything, they automatically tell us to replace our modem or router or any other equipment we mention having.  As you can tell by the fact this topic exists, we would have laid down money for a new router for NO REASON had I not double checked to see if it was okay.

WRT54G is the shittiest router I've ever gotten. Almost every person I know who's had one, including me, has constant internet outages every 5 to 10 minutes lasting a minute or so unless the router is literally in the same room as the computer.

is this isp like theo nly one in the area, and everyone is forced to go with them? that could have something to do with shitty customer support.

There are one or two other ISPs, but going by other people who use them, they are even worse.  I could try to complain to the ISP, but I doubt I'd get anyone on the phone that isn't one of the people causing the problem.

Maybe the WRT54G needs to have the DD-WRT, as Grog was saying.  I've had no problems.  I came from a poorly-working Netgear and am VERY happy -- my router has been online for about...  4 weeks straight right now, with no hiccups?

--Terin

I find that the latest firmware on wrt54g works great, especially if you lower your max connections in bittorrent, easily the number one culprit for it crashing.

I haven't done anything to my WRT54G except upgrade to the latest official firmware. It really sucked though, because when I did torrent, it would go extremely slow, and I wouldn't be able to browse the web. I fixed it by tweaking some settings in utorrent, but it was such a hassle trying to figure it out. By the way I set my max connections to 230 or some shit, but I'm not going to touch it again since I'm getting good speeds.
I've read up on the DD-WRT and it seems like it's pretty solid. I really should switch to it, but I haven't been disconnected in weeks, even while using torrents. The router is right next to my computer though!