The other day we were in Staples, trying to find out what happened to the rebate we were supposed to get for a shredder we had bought, when a display of Wireless N Routers caught my eye. Donna noticed and asked if we needed that. “Not really, but it might help with streaming Netflix,” I answered. So today, when the $20 rebate showed up in the mail, she said, “Let’s use that for that router.”
I brought home a shiny new Netgear WNR2000 for $30. Before I disconnected the ancient Linksys WRT54G I went to various spots in the house where the laptop is typically used and took some signal strength measurements.
Disconnected the Linksys and put the Netgear router in place. First I tried to discover my type of network connection using the router’s setup wizard. The next steps caused me to drop my connection to the net. So, I rebooted both modem and router and tried it again. Same results. Reboot modem and router again. Next I ran a cat5 cable from modem to PC just to make sure I did have internet access. I did. Then I tried to follow along with the included flyer to do a “No CD” install. That met with the same fate as before.
The last option was to try the install with the included CD. I followed the prompts and, holy cow, it installed just fine. The install took a lot longer than I thought it should, but it worked and didn’t install a bunch of crap on the PC either. Should went that way from the start…
After setting up the security, I logged in with the laptop and walked around the house rechecking the signal strength. It varied from 6db to 13db WORSE than the old G router. The reported speed read 65 vs 54, but every time I tried a webpage it was very slow loading.
Disconnected everything and put the old router back in play. Guess we are going to Staples tomorrow and getting the money back.
and those two hours are important as you grow older—HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
We tried the lower priced router with the same signal problems. We have the TRENDnet 300Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router now and I guess the three antennas are somewhat better. Now I must find out what my signal strength is because you have me curious. If I had it to do over again, I might go for one better than this as we still occasionally have to buffer.
Jackie – Thanks for the sentiment and the reminder.
Mike – I used a little program called inSSIDer. It is very helpful in sniffing wireless networks in hotels.