how much does one of these matter?
Mines about 5+ years old and my internet cuts like every few minutes. Usually have to turn off wifi from wifi and turn it back on and it works again.
my ISP (which sucks) is blaming my router, to buy new router or not? what should i look for?
>tfw 13 year old di-524
>tfw it's still working with not a single problem
Routers are designed to deliberately brick themselves after a few years, definitely consider a new one.
go to your local second hand store and buy a shitty one for $5 to test.
>my ISP (which sucks) is blaming my router
they do this so that you rent a router from them for an extra $15/month. I had FIOS for a while and when the tech came to install it he saw my router, the same one that they rent out except a year older, which I bought on CL from a former customer for $50, and said it wouldn't work because it was too old, and I should either rent or buy one from Verizon for $200+tax.
>Usually have to turn off wifi from wifi and turn it back on and it works again.
>my ISP (which sucks) is blaming my router
I have the WRT54GL and drops the wifi connection unless I restart it. The router is showing age and your ISP isn't wrong.
If you have the WRT54GL you could try installing custom firmware.
WiFi has made pretty significant leaps (consumer side) in the last few years. You can pick up a really decent N router for ~$30-$50.
i have a router looks like picture, bought at WalMart $30 new about 7 years ago?
& i don't think they are trying to get me to rent equipment, have free internet with them from my condo (20 speed, but tests around 7 speed) but it's free. they do have routers and i asked for one and they just told me the business contract i'm in doesn't give them.
just got a 4k TV and obviously this isn't going to work out as is
A lot. I just got myself an TPLink Archer C3150, and holy fucking shit its fast.
Lag in games dropped by half, I get full bars everywhere in the house, I get a decent signal outside, I have no more dead spots, file transfer is fast as fuck, etc.
All I did was replace my 5 year old Netgear router that was like $80 brand new.
they only support *firmware updates* on the newest ones because they're in cahoots with the router/modem companies.
>you could try installing custom firmware
anyone done this and can comment on their experience? not OP but I've been considering this because my linksys router doesn't let me assign IPs to MAC addresses and it pisses me off because occasionally it gives new addresses to some client and I have to fix hosts files on 4 different machines.
I never had an issue with them, except for noticing remote accesses from Verizon in the log every now and then.
C'mon user, make an effort to troubleshoot it. If the connection is stable on cabled ethernet, it's your router.
Also, yes, if you literally have a wrt54* you should upgrade. Get yourself some 5ghz action while most shitmunchers are still on 2.4.
I still have the original wrt54g. My internet speed hasn't changed since I bought it. 7/.5 all these years because the Telecom company is terrible.
>anyone done this and can comment on their experience?
I installed DD-WRT on my WRT54GL.
It was pretty smooth and even though it had like 8MB ram and 16MB storage, I could do things that even new routers can't, like setting up an open guest network with a captive portal.
This was ten years ago, and it was so awesome that I've never bought a router without dd-wrt compatibility since.
It paid off just a few months ago when my ping started spiking in games. Some neighbor started downloading stuff on my guest network, and my otherwise awesome Netgear router didn't allow me to rate limit it.
I didn't want to add a password or anything because everyone should be able to access the internet easily always (praise rms), so I installed dd-wrt and limited it to 10MBps while leaving my own network unlimited.
I have a WRT54G v5. Worth it? Any significant chance of bricking it? I looked at the wiki and all their tools are .exe .....
Tfw in Australia the UPS will send out a free shitty router when you sign up for their shitty services
>wifi
>on an ethernet only router
definetely keep in mind signal strength though
I bought a cheap linksys N router, and it drops off at the other end of my tiny house. its like they purposely under-power the entry-level routers.
run it in a vm if youre that worried.
and as a general rule, if youre not willing for the risk of having to buy a replacement, you shouldnt take the risk.
>Consider new router
>Consider new ISP
Yes
Check if it makes a whistling sound or open it and check for bad caps. 99% of the time is bad caps