| Jan 4, 2007 @ 5:28 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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Artemis122
Posts: 623
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Am upgrading & shopping for NIC/Router for add-ons to DSL home usage.....
I've been told to "not only" buy from a Reputable Vendor but more emphasis should be placed on Customer Support (phone calls) in lieu of talking to my DSL provider, NIC customer support and then Router customer support?? It may drive me BONKERS 
of course finding a "good deal" on Online is important, but I rather pay a little more to eliminate the headaches that may come with Product Installation and Troubleshooting... any idea?? Thanks in Advance!!
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| Jan 4, 2007 @ 8:23 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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sealacamp
Posts: 3,151
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Cisco systems makes good products and has a good technical service too. That would be my recomendation.
S
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| Jan 4, 2007 @ 8:45 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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waterfire
Posts: 2,921
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IMO Linksys would be your best bet (Cisco bought them out), I have been using them for years, easy to setup and they have good support. I admit I have never called them, if I had any questions I would use their online knowledge base.
I would buy a 4/5 port router just in case you decide to connect a few more computers in the future. Wireless is easy to setup but make sure you enable wireless security or others around you will be able to use your connection, also browse your computer if it is not secure.
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| Jan 5, 2007 @ 10:09 AM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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encorrgbl
Posts: 1,390
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Business or home use Artemis?
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| Jan 5, 2007 @ 6:02 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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Artemis122
Posts: 623
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Seal,
I heard Cisco has good products along with Support dept. Lately I've been eyeing Belkin, US Robotics, 3Com, Kensington, etc. so much to comb through, patiently...
Waterfire,
THX for suggestion about future additional PC connections; I haven't thought that far ahead, including checking Wireless Security... btw, I'll checkout Linksys also...
Nice to see you're back!! 
encorrgbl,
for now mainly Home use, convenience and using my future Laptop at HotSpots like Starbucks or local libraries...
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| Jan 5, 2007 @ 8:15 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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waterfire
Posts: 2,921
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Linksys has been Cisco product since 2003 and probably has the best wireless router (consumer) on the market, well at least better than D-Link and NetGear (personal experience)
All routers will perform much the same when connected via cable, it is the wireless connection you might want to research. Reading user feedback in different forums might help, also if a site has product reviews (like newegg) check those out.
OT
Thanks Artemis
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| Jan 6, 2007 @ 5:17 AM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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waterfire
Posts: 2,921
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Grrr, I mean:
Linksys has been a division of Cisco since 2003
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| Jan 7, 2007 @ 2:17 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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encorrgbl
Posts: 1,390
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I agree with Waterfire. Linksys has got great products. Cisco has great products and they're expensive beyond what you want to pay for your home use, and you'll usually see their products in place at a company rather than a person's home.
Support wise you can buy a product that has great support and then find out shortly thereafter they have outsourced their tech support to India.
So Waterfire's suggestion of checking out NewEgg's (www.newegg.com) customer opinions of the products is good, because a lot of the posts will speak of how their experiences with customer support with the product you're looking at has gone.
A lot of the series 802.11g routers will give you more than enough bandwidth to get to the internet, expecting at most you're going to be running an internet connection from cable broadband giving you maybe 7 - 8Mbps download. Since you're saying DSL, you're probably running less than that.
If you get a 54Mbps communication speed with your router (which is what an 802.11g series is rated at), it's doubtful you're going to need something more than that since your internet connection is much smaller than your total throughput with the router, so don't get caught up into buying the 'N' series units (or any of the really high end wireless routers), because they're more bandwidth/transfer rate than what you'd need.
The only time that idea changes is if you're going to have several other computers connecting to the router and then transferring a lot of data between them. This changes things. Then you'd need something heftier like one of the newer 'N' series types (which, they call it 'N', but it's not been standardized by the industry, so a lot of different companies are calling them by different names) to transfer data back and forth (for example like if you were doing graphics art work or video editing).
Where you're physically going to put the device once you get it also will effect your signal strength and data transfer rate. (So try not to put it someplace where the signal has to go through a lot of metal or brick/cement.)
Keep in mind too, if you like using a phone at home that's cordless, the two signals can conflict (so make sure the router and the phone are on different frequencies when you set things up). I know there's been cases where people's signals on the routers have dropped when they've answered their phones! lol
Most routers nowadays also have good interfaces to modify their settings, and security to keep your data safe (at least to a decent degree, but never perfectly).
Also, one last thing. When you get the laptop, most laptops nowadays come with wireless NIC's in them. You may want to double check to see if the wireless card in the laptop will be compatible with the Linksys router you'd get (or whatever router you'd get). Most times they're compatible and it's not a big deal, but, it has happened where there's been problems. The solution in those cases is to buy a PCMCIA Wireless NIC card from the routers manufacturer and put it in the laptop, and that's taken care of the issue (if you can't update the drivers for the NIC in the laptop to work with the router that is). Obscure or rare though that may be, just something else to keep in mind.
Hope that helps!
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| Jan 7, 2007 @ 3:12 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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freestylegreek
Posts: 220
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At work we have a noname brand router and it works and we got it for $30 but then again i rather pay extra and get the support and get what other people are using cause if you have a problem with a noname brand router who are you going to call or send a message too? Basically nobody but if you get a well known router you have alot of people to speak too.
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| Jan 7, 2007 @ 3:25 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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SunBabe
Posts: 12,251
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Be sure and check out TigerDirect, Artemis...they have great deals and I found that the order-taker who I talked on the phone with was quite knowledgable and helpful! He even told me what I DIDN'T need, which was amazing...and the site offers loads of technical information for comparison.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=35
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| Jan 8, 2007 @ 12:16 AM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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freestylegreek
Posts: 220
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I would be careful with Tigerdirect cause reason being they have low prices is they sell refurbished items and say their brand new. I should know cause a friend had to return a couple of times and even contacted 1 company about an issue with an item he gave the serial number and they said its listed as a refurb item and it isnt brand new.
They also sell alot of NO NAME items for example another friend bought an LCD monitor that was a no name monitor. When something happened Tiger Direct didnt want to touch it nor even tell my friend where he could get the monitor fixed.
He found a small computer store that actually told him the right place where to get the monitor serviced. The 2nd computer store he went too actually told him he has had alot of tiger direct items sent to him since Tiger Direct doesnt want to touch the items. So once my friend got his monitor fixed he sold it and got a Samsung LCD Monitor.
I was going to purchase 2 well known external harddrive cases. So I saw it on the site and thought i would call they didnt have it nor would they even bring any in. I asked if they had any brands that had fans and they basically told me they didnt know.
So what I did was go to another computer store and the guy even told me about how cheap tiger direct is.
So I rather go computer shopping else where then Tiger Direct.
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| Jan 9, 2007 @ 11:49 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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MetryTechie
Posts: 1,345
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I agree with these guys. For consumer products, Linksys is great. Cisco has always been the best. I was so happy when I heard that Cisco bought Linksys a few years ago. At that time I liked Linksys anyway. For Cisco to put their name on the product says a lot about Linksys. 
If you have a SamsClub membership, you can purchase there for a reasonable price. I also saw it at Radio Shack (pure chance...I was looking for resistors) for a decent price. It may have been a Christmas special...not sure.
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| Jan 13, 2007 @ 6:20 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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Strandedboarder
Posts: 440
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The router you want is the Belkin F5D8230-4
The place to buy it from is Newegg.com
My sister recently replaced her laptop and her existing Linksys router keep dropping the connection. After some research I found that many, many people with the same old router had this problem, and Linksys hasn’t been able to fix it. So I started shopping for a new router.
Wireless routers are extremely difficult to evaluate well because there are so many variables involved. Not only do you have to consider the quality of the components but also there’s software setup and existing radio traffic that can cause interference. I read tons of reviews from different sites on many routers. The Belkin F5D8230-4 seems to be the one that received the greatest proportion of good reviews. At 100 bucks, it’s also an expensive router. But as I found out, you get what you pay for.
Not only does it not drop the connection, but my sis now has connectivity like she’s never had before. This thing maxes out the cable connection (currently at 9.5 Mbps) and provides a solid and fast connection on any floor of the house. That’s much better than the Linksys ever did. I highly recommend it.
Newegg is very well known as the place where computer enthusiast purchases their goods. They generally have the lowest or nearly the lowest prices, and have service that is second to none. I'm a computer programmer and I've built many computers over the years for myself and friends and family. I buy everything from them.
ResellerRatings.com is a good place to check out the experiences of people at various online vendors.
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| Jan 17, 2007 @ 2:18 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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waterfire
Posts: 2,921
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One example does not make a rule, go to newegg and read reviews on Belkin wireless routers. You will find many have disconnect problems, you will also find the same if you read the linksys reviews but it seems Linksys out sells Belkin 10 to 1.
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| Jan 17, 2007 @ 2:33 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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Strandedboarder
Posts: 440
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Apparently you didn’t read all the reviews. Out of 105 reviews, few had disconnect problems. The majority of the complaints had to do with odd setups that people couldn’t get working like VOIP.
Amazon has 192 reviews for this router and they’re good reviews. There are other very good routers out there but this Belkin is definitely on the short list of solid reliable routers. It’s a safe buy.
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| Jan 18, 2007 @ 12:56 AM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router... |
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waterfire
Posts: 2,921
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Actually there are 206 (4 products) reviews of Belkin products and yes I read most if not all.
I do admit I did not read all of the 1535 (22 products) reviews on Linksys products though.
(only read reviews of products I have used/installed)
[Edited on 1/18/2007 1:04 AM]
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| Mar 15, 2007 @ 7:12 PM |
Wireless 802.11g NIC and Router...
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Artemis122
Posts: 623
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just a Final note here -
I received a ZyXEL WiFi-Adapter with HotSpot Finder  for my B-day... Lesson Learned -- BROADCAST not hint as to what I want for a Gift "shamelessly..." 
for my Router, guess what, the Class Action Lawsuit against Microsoft is done (after almost 4 years...) and I finally received a Voucher for $45.00 to buy software from any Vendor or Basic hardware peripherals (... too bad Routers are NOT included...  but it's always good to get $$$ from bill gates... )
if I haven't said this before, I APPRECIATE all your Inputs and Insights!! 
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