Wireless AC Router suggestions

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Kaos Kid
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Wireless AC Router suggestions

Post by Kaos Kid »

After 5 years my DIR-850L router's wireless radio is going wonky, get anywhere between 1Mbps>30Mbps download. Normally I blame Charter but when I hooked a PC up directly to ethernet I got crazy fast speeds of up to 130Mbps down and up to 12 Mbps up so for whatever reason the wireless radio isn't playing nice anymore. My needs aren't that great, I have about 13 devices that can connect at any given time (mixture of PCs and phones). I don't want or need cutting edge (I would like to get at least AC currently only have one AC adapter, the rest are all N. I'd like to keep it under $100 if possible but can go a bit higher if the features are strong. What are you using for your home network? Any particular brands/models to stay away from? Thanks
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KnightRid
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Re: Wireless AC Router suggestions

Post by KnightRid »

I still use a Linksys e4200 N router :) Our internet sucks though so I don't need anything more than a 6mbps (MAX) throughput for the internet.

I would stay with linksys myself because this thing has really worked well for all these years!

https://www.amazon.com/Linksys-AC1900-W ... AQMVY?th=1

There are the different models and as you go up in price, you get more speed and gadgets. I would not go with the lowest (AC1200) but either of the next 2 should do fine for you.
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Kaos Kid
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Re: Wireless AC Router suggestions

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Thanks for the heads up on that, I will keep it in mind if I can up my budget a bit. I did find one that looks promising for about half the price

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product
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Re: Wireless AC Router suggestions

Post by KnightRid »

The ASUS is a 1300 so the closest Linksys would be the 1200 for $79 - still more but only a little.

I have read tp-link is a good one - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BUSDVBQ/ - $70 for a 1750.

So now you have 3 manufacturers with multiple options each :) Just depends on what you want to spend. I think most at this low end will offer basically the same things. I would worry more with how the antenna are set up to get coverage (unless you have a small apartment or house) than the speeds they say you can get. Streaming 4K content from a NAS to multiple devices would need a LOT of bandwidth but other than that you should be fine.
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Re: Wireless AC Router suggestions

Post by Sallyford »

Only if all your devices in your home is equipped with 802.11 ac. But as of today inly high end mobile devices comes with ac support where most of the other available devices support 802.11 n. So practically cchoosing a router with both n and ac option would make the router available for all kind of devices and will work for more years as you dont have to switch to another router later. If you dont have any device with ac capablity I would say its safe to go with router which supports both 802.11 ac & n
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Re: Wireless AC Router suggestions

Post by royden »

Another vote for Linksys. Very reliable and the connection is steady.
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Kaos Kid
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Re: Wireless AC Router suggestions

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Update: After a couple of firmware patches for KRACK and SPECTRE the DIR-850L is working much better so I am still using it. My son got an XboxOne so is on Fortnite every minute so I think I may have to rethink a better router for the future. I believe I bettered his lag time by putting it on the 5Ghz band and since his room is directly above the router in the basement he is getting good signal. Only place my signal really suffers is the MBR bathroom probably due to horizontal support beam and a lot of metal duct work in direct line between router and bathroom, but perhaps a repeater/extender would help that a bit? I've been looking at routers on line but of course the ones in my price range, although NIB, are 4-5 years old so I really don't think it would be that much of an upgrade to the cheaper name brand routers. I no longer have G devices on the network so it is set to N/AC mix. Anyone have a decent router left over from a review (hint hint) that is just collecting dust and wants to turn into cash for a reasonable price?

PS I saw the Linksys Velop AC2400 (2 nodes) for $99 which sounds really good but not sure whether I would need mesh since my house is a 1500sq/ft ranch.
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