# More $$$ :)  Now, new Router: ASUS RT-N66U?



## Sasqui (Dec 2, 2012)

I'm on a spending roll... Christmas shopping for myself 

Need a new WiFi router.  Currrently have a WRT54G V2.0  ...I want "N" speeds.  Found this on Newegg:

ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Route...

This would be used for everything WiFi... PC's, Consoles (Wi and Xbox), Phones and Tablets.  Med size two story house.  The RT-N66U is moddable (Tomato), see here: http://tomatousb.org/forum/t-513938

What others should I consider?


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## newtekie1 (Dec 2, 2012)

I went from my WRT54GL to an E3000 I picked up for $60 and love it.  For $60 it can't be beat, newegg still has them for $60 too(yes, it is a refurb).  You might want to consider that.

Refurbished: Linksys E3000-RM 802.11a/b/g/n 2.4/5G...


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## Sasqui (Dec 2, 2012)

newtekie1 said:


> I went from my WRT54GL to an E3000 I picked up for $60 and love it.  For $60 it can't be beat, newegg still has them for $60 too(yes, it is a refurb).  You might want to consider that.
> 
> Refurbished: Linksys E3000-RM 802.11a/b/g/n 2.4/5G...



The reviews aren't that great, can only find new here http://www.buy.com/prod/linksys-e30...efurbished/217168231.html?listingId=192354070 for $85


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## mlee49 (Dec 3, 2012)

Consider if the router is "Dual Band" or _true_ "Dual Band".

One will broadcast over 2.4 or 5 GHz and the other will broadcast at both frequencies at the same time.  I've had fairly good speeds offloading my 5GHz devices(phones and tablets).

Also, 802.11ac is emerging. It's high end, but may offer a future-proof solution.


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## hat (Dec 3, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> The reviews aren't that great, can only find new here http://www.buy.com/prod/linksys-e30...efurbished/217168231.html?listingId=192354070 for $85



Well, I'm happy with my E1000, haven't had any issues with it. I can even boost the power of the transmitter with DD-WRT if I want to, though I have no reason to.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 3, 2012)

inb4 remixedcat comments 



i wouldnt trust asus if it was me. their routers dont seem to be great. wait till remix comes, she knows some good wifi routers.


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## remixedcat (Dec 3, 2012)

ddd....

I got the Amped Wireless R10000 for under 100 at microcenter and it's got HARDCORE COVERAGE! LOL... 

it's not dual band tho but I don't have any 5Ghz devices.... I got it cuz my netgear's wireless wasn't all that great for xbox live and media streaming.... didn't care much about it till we started spending more time downstairs.... 

I might upgrade when I get 5Ghz devices and get enough money for a NAS so I can LMNASO....

but Amped does have a dual band version with usb for 139 at the very lowest and on newegg and microcenter it's 160 some last I looked. it's the R20000G. 

I would have gotten it at microcenter but my hubby wanted an SSD drive so I had to settle for the R10000 LOL... but it's still very nice. 

but as far as performance of my router I can stream HD at 120 some feet away and SD at around 215 feet without pausing-buffer-arrg.... 

and I got a wonky mixed construction house... it's got bits of the 1910, the 60s and 70s, the 90s and our recent renovations so the house got's all material's from all type's. some walls are plaster that are very thick and we got dropped celings in 3 rooms. with flourescent lights too.... and we got a very very fat cat as well.... 

it's also got stuff like QoS, a pretty good firewall with DDoS protection, DDNS, and the usual router features...


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## de.das.dude (Dec 3, 2012)

^see


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## alan (Dec 4, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> I'm on a spending roll... Christmas shopping for myself
> 
> Need a new WiFi router.  Currrently have a WRT54G V2.0  ...I want "N" speeds.  Found this on Newegg:
> 
> ...



Think about ASUS RT-N56U, it features 802.11n, 5GHz:300Mbps, 2.4GHz:54Mbps, it has great reviews, $99.99


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## Jetster (Dec 4, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> I'm on a spending roll... Christmas shopping for myself
> 
> Need a new WiFi router.  Currrently have a WRT54G V2.0  ...I want "N" speeds.  Found this on Newegg:
> 
> ...



Do it 

I resently did a review on the new WD My net and was very impressed Western Digital My Net N900 HD Dual-Band Router - ...


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## brandonwh64 (Dec 4, 2012)

I would prefer to build my own since I have seen what a custom router will do but the amped wireless looks quite nice but very expensive.


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## alan (Dec 4, 2012)

http://www.wirelessrouterhome.com/best-wireless-router-review/


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## Fourstaff (Dec 4, 2012)

Using N66U right now, its signal is pretty decent for unmodified consumer class router but I haven't gone around testing the connection strength yet. Would be willing to play around with it if you have specific questions in mind.


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## Xenturion (Dec 4, 2012)

I've got an RT-N56U and I love it. When I was shopping, I wanted something quality, but something a little different. I've used Netgear and Linksys Routers in the past and have never really been thoroughly impressed. They've always had niggling little issues or less than spectacular reliability. Admittedly, a lot of reliability really rests in the hands of the ISP and the quality of modem you have as well, and I will admit that they were leaps and abounds above the ActionTec and Tenda Routers I've also had the misfortune of encountering, but I wanted to try something new. Microcenter had a commercial grade Cisco router I was considering, but that was 802.11G. I needed to be able to broadcast a signal reliably throughout a small house (subdivided into 3 apartments) with heavy gaming/streaming requirements for 3 of the inhabitants and unknown requirements for the other 2. (If the 2 unknowns got out of hand, I intended to implement some throttling, which the RT-N56U has plenty of) It is a true dual band router as well, allowing us to evenly distribute the wireless load over both channels. (Any device that could see the 5Ghz band was connected to it) I definitely made sure that neither wireless band was using the same Wireless Channel as the neighbors, which is also key. I also downloaded the latest firmware.

The RT-N56U worked flawlessly. We never had any connection drops that couldn't be attributed to the ISP. (Maybe 1 loss of connection over a 6 month time frame) I love the router's interface and found it very intuitive and easy to use. It allows you to give certain traffic priority, which I set Games at highest priority and P2P Downloads at lowest, although I can't really comment on the efficacy of this setting. Plenty of controls for limiting bandwidth, connections, and protocols. The box advertises a number of simultaneous sessions (300,000 or something) which I'm not sure I can comment on, but the network processor in it is clearly very capable and does a great job managing multiple connections. We pretty much had 3 people on WoW or SC2, all on Skype with eachother, 24/7. Next time I need a router, I'll probably pick up another. And I'd imagine the RT-N66U is more of the same.


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## Mozbius (Dec 27, 2012)

Generally speaking Asus is vert reliable except perhaps for the RT-N66U or RT-AC66U which are totally to be avoided if you intend on streaming with your Xbox 360 wirelessly.

Search Google for "Asus Rt-n66u streaming Xbox Problem"


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## Sasqui (Mar 10, 2013)

Mozbius said:


> Generally speaking Asus is vert reliable except perhaps for the RT-N66U or RT-AC66U which are totally to be avoided if you intend on streaming with your Xbox 360 wirelessly.
> 
> Search Google for "Asus Rt-n66u streaming Xbox Problem"



Update:  I snagged the Best Buy variant ASUS RT-N66R, using a $50 off coupon someone graciously posted here, so cost on credit card was $119.

It's EXACTLY the same as the RT-N66U, same firmware and everything.  So far, it's awesome, 'N' speeds and ping are the same as wired v.s wireless!  Range covers entire house!  All devices work flawlessly, no dropouts, phone, laptop, pc, xBox, Wii.

I haven't tried AI cloud, and printer sharing via the USB has hiccups (only prints 1/2 of every page, arghh), will try updated firmware.


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## Geofrancis (Mar 11, 2013)

How many people live around you? 2.4ghz N can be useless when there are lots of other routers around. That's why I have a dual band router so I can use the 5ghz for the laptops and tablets then the 2.4g for the mobile phones.


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## Sasqui (Mar 11, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> How many people live around you? 2.4ghz N can be useless when there are lots of other routers around. That's why I have a dual band router so I can use the 5ghz for the laptops and tablets then the 2.4g for the mobile phones.



Thankfully, I'm pretty far from the nearest house, so I only see 1-3 low strength signals from the neigborhood.

Yea, there's a trade off.
2.4 Ghz is better going through structures, but suffers from interference
5 Ghz has a better open air range (AFAIK), but not so good through structures.  Doesn't suffer nearly as much from interference.

The RT-66R is dual band.  So far, only my laptop can use the 5 Ghz band.


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## Geofrancis (Mar 13, 2013)

Sasqui said:


> Thankfully, I'm pretty far from the nearest house, so I only see 1-3 low strength signals from the neigborhood.
> 
> Yea, there's a trade off.
> 2.4 Ghz is better going through structures, but suffers from interference
> ...



your pretty much correct but you also have to remember that a fast 300mbit 2.4ghz N router will run at 54G speeds if you have a 54G device connected to it because it has to drop to the fastest speed supported by the slowest device. 54g has the same problems with older 11b devices as soon as one connects the whole network runs at 11B speeds.

that's why i separate the N from the G by using N with 5ghz N devices only and everything else goes on the 2.4 G radio

5ghz:
4 laptops
ipad
samsung S3

2.4ghz
2x iphones
ipod touch
samsung tab 2


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## Sasqui (Mar 13, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> 54g has the same problems with older 11b devices as soon as one connects the whole network runs at 11B speeds.



That's one I've never heard before.  So if I connect and N device and G device to the 2.4 channel, all devices run at G Speeds?


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## Geofrancis (Mar 13, 2013)

sorry i made a mistake the 54g and 11b thing is correct but for N it will go slower but not as slow as 54G

if you have a 54G device transmitting all the time like streaming it will impact the performance of the network due to the long transmit times compared to 11n but if its only intermittent data 300N should still run at around 60% of the performance of a pure N network.

first generation N routers only had N and legacy mode (BG) so had to fall back to G with a G device connected
almost all routers now have Mixed mode so it can run at N speed with G devices still connected.


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## Sasqui (Mar 13, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> sorry i made a mistake the 54g and 11b thing is correct but for N it will go slower but not as slow as 54G
> 
> if you have a 54G device transmitting all the time like streaming it will impact the performance of the network due to the long transmit times compared to 11n but if its only intermittent data 300N should still run at around 60% of the performance of a pure N network.
> 
> ...



Huh interesting.  Xbox 360 is wireless "N", correct?  AFAIK, I don't have any wireless G devices.

The only device I have that is dual band is my laptop, nothing else I have does 5ghz, but that'll change with a new USB wireless adapter I'm getting and the next smartphone I get too...  my current Droid X is only 2.4 Ghz.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 13, 2013)

If you don't need 5 ghz my go to router is the netgear 3500L, if you do I use the E3200. Both have the aftermarket firmware support, and the E3200 comes with a heatsink and the cpu runs at 500 mhz by default. I just threw heatsinks on my 3500L and with toastman's tomato build it's pretty easy to set the overclock to 500 mhz.

This price is damn hard to beat and even being 2.4 ghz when I use the 40 mhz width I get pretty consistent speeds. http://www.ebay.com/itm/110826398646?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Not sure if any of those AC routers support the after market fimrware yet, but they might eventually since they're broadcom based. That's why I can't recommend the midrange Asus routers, they're all ralink chips.


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