Looking to replace a 5 year old router with something that is relatively future proof. This MU-MIMO

tech seems pretty plausible and Im interested in a router that has this.

 

Shortlist is down to two contenders:

 

1. Asus AC3100 (same as AC88 but with fewer pan ports)

 

2. Linksys ea8500 (but i hate the company )

 

Problem is Im reading too many stories of even top end routers dropping networks and devices.

And it seems it is always the customers fault. Did you update firmware to the latest.

Reboot, recycle, rest to factory settings, connect every device individually…yada yada yada

 

These people don't seem to understand that all we need is a router that just bloody works.

 

Anyway….pleas recommend a router….and maybe even an online place to buy it.

 

Amazon and ebay are out….too many peeps selling old models and no warranties.

Can you be a little more specific on your requirements or feature sets?

 

- Ethernet Router plus

- WiFi AC, Single, Dual or Tri-band, 4x4 MU-MIMO ?

- Internal or External antennas preferred?

- 4 GbEthernet LAN Ports (unmanaged)

- 1 GbE WAN Port

- USB 2.0/3.0 ports

- VPN Support?

- Flashable to 3rd party firmware?

- ???

 

 

InvadeIt carries the ASUS RT AC3200  ...though I'm not sure I'd want to drop more than 11,990 THB on one.

How big is your home and what is your current Internet speed? There is no point getting an AC3100 router but you have only 100mbps fiber at home. Do you do alot of file transfer video streaming within devices connected?

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Speed is 1gb/sec fibre. 

 

Home is about 2,000 sq feet...all on one level

 

i want dual band, usb 3.0 connectivity, mu-mimo, 4 lan ports, 3rd party firmware not a must but i hear asus runs better on merlin. Need this router to last at least 5 years or more. 

 

 

Speed is 1gb/sec fibre. 
 
Home is about 2,000 sq feet...all on one level
 
i want dual band, usb 3.0 connectivity, mu-mimo, 4 lan ports, 3rd party firmware not a must but i hear asus runs better on merlin. Need this router to last at least 5 years or more. 
 
 

If your home is this big I doubt the most expensive router can cover your whole home even you place the router in the middle of home. You might want to get the highest end Asus Linksys or Netgear router and add on wireless repeaters around your home to boost 5Ghz signal. Even though you have gigabit, you will never get gigabit speed with AC1300 connection because of wireless limitation.

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please don't worry about coverage….that is what it is.

 

Im more concerned about getting a router that is powerful (3167mbps) and doesn't have bugs in its firmware, or bloatware apps that cause it to behave erratically and drop connections, networks etc.

 

Its amazing how many complaints you read online about even high end routers…and no one seems to have any answers…they just say try this try that.

 

 

 

 

Asuswrt is great and stable.

ddwrt is not stable, I don't recommend flashing ddwrt to any router.

 

Go with Asus. However, if you have 1gbit wan speed, don't expect to receive that speed via Wifi no matter what configuration you use.

if you need a good firewall, you could consider untangle or similar firewall os on a mini pc like zotac ci-323 (dual ethernet) and then use a cheaper tp-link connected as wireless access point (no routing, just wi-fi)

 

However, for most cases, single high-end router enough.

A good list of modern routers can be found here https://lede-project.org/toh/views/toh_available_864

 

I recommend the Lede third party firmware as it is completely modular and you can install only the things you need or want to use. For example you can turn your router into a torrent download station with storage on one of the USB devices... You can upgrade or downgrade firewall software... and have several firewall programs you can select.

 

Lede Firmware basically turns your router into a Linux computer, and you can run any software you can run on a Linux computer... obvious LibreOffice would be completely useless on a router so not sure if that is available. Lede Firmware also uses one of the latest Linux Kernels (the heart of any Linux box) which garantees that you have the latest security fixes.... On my router I have currently Kernel 4.4.X which most routers even the expensive one from famous brand names still use a Linux Kernel from nearly 6 years ago (version Kernel 2.6)... Just imagine in the last 6 years how much security treats did we had... sure the big brands released patches to fix it... But patches are not the same as new kernel build that includes security from the ground up...

 

Also it's possible to install a much newer version of Samba (MS Windows compatible networking and file system)... Samba used in most commercial routers is to work with Windows XP... while Microsoft have since Win XP introduced several new options for networking and device discovery. Not using MS Windows computer, with the Lede firmware you can also install the packages that make the router work flauwless with Apple Mac computers without using Microsoft network layer (big safety advantage, as anything Microsoft is often the target of hackers)....

 Replaced my old WRT54G Version 2 router by the Asus T-AC68U router. Thus far no complaints with the straight out of the box Asus firmware. Experienced a significant improvement in speed for those network adapters which do also support 5 GHz WiFi.

 

After having read some Asus T-AC68U related complaints on the internet I decided not to accept the automatic upgrade of the firmware for the  Asus T-AC68U router. So, have not tried to upgrade the firmware and have not tried to install other firmware yet because this router is still working well.

 

Btw. in case you decide to connect a sharable USB (network) disk to this ASUS router using stock firmware then that disk will probably never ever go to sleep. Some people claim that this particular problem can only be solved by installing other firmware which is capable of spinning down the connected disk. Haven't tried this.

 

14 minutes ago, jacnl2000 said:

 After having read some Asus T-AC68U related complaints on the internet I decided not to accept the automatic upgrade of the firmware for the  Asus T-AC68U router. So, have not tried to upgrade the firmware and have not tried to install other firmware yet because this router is still working well.

 

yes these firmware upgrades need to make the router run better not start malfunctioning.

 

i had a similar problem when an auto firmware upgrade made my router drop the 5ghz network…its never recovered since then.

I had this conundrum in 2014 and I went out and built myself a custom router. In 2017, this router still kicks butt and I expect that it will continue to do so for many years, with 4 cores, 16GB(!) of RAM,  3x3 2Ghz and 3x3 5Ghz wifi, 4 gigabit ports and ability to sustain over 3Gpbs of IPSec throughput (although the ethernet network interfaces themselves cap out at 1Gbps) all in a 15W package.

 

For me, the real problem with the proprietary devices is the software that stops being supported after 2 years - I built my router to use OpenWrt / LEDE. Ok, I had to make a few customizations to the code to squeeze out max crypto performance, but that wasn't a must.

 

Faced with the same set of requirements for high-end performance and longevity, I would again choose to build a custom router rather than go with the off-the-shelf variety.

Hope the following will be of some use.

 

https://www.connectedly.com/how-to-choose-best-router

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398080,00.asp

 

On ‎29‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 2:47 PM, ravip said:

Hope the following will be of some use.

 

https://www.connectedly.com/how-to-choose-best-router

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398080,00.asp

 

Very helpful - especially the first link. Thanks.