Networks Asus routers or is there anything else I should look at ?

Looking to replace my router and I keep looking at Asus. My current Dlink DIR 15 is pretty much useless, it only half works. UPNP is non existent, the LAN ports work when they want so any of my hard devices running on Ethernet just drops off without warning, very annoying when playing games when I happen to be downloading something.

I'm also finding the wifi signal in certain parts of the house is either very poor or there is no signal at all, whilst I appreciate that will be to do with the lay out of my house and environmental/atmospheric issues, I'd expect my tablet to be able to actually connect to the router - I know my tablet isn't faulty as Ive fired up my old BT Home Hub 3 and it connects to that fine.

So whats the general consensus on Asus for routers ? I've had Netgear routers before when I was at my parents place on ADSL but the most recent one my Dad got he had nothing but problems with and still as even though he was sent a brand new replacement.

So if TLDR I need a new router ideally looking to find out peoples experiences with Asus ones, needs to have a good wireless range and not be crap !

 

What sort of price range are you looking at?
Are you connecting to a fibre connection or standard ADSL broadband?
Also are you looking for one with a built in modem or do you use an external one?

Whenever I'm looking at a router, I often weigh it up between Asus, Netgear and sometimes D-Link.
I often find that for sub-£80, Asus is hands down the only option I'm happy with because I've never had one of their router's fail and they have a very nice and friendly UI.

The £110+ area is generally when I find that Netgear starts to become my number one contender for range, signal strength and connection performance.

 

I'm on Fibre and I've already got the BT Open Reach Fibre Modem so I don't need one with an inbuilt modem.

I might phone up Plus Net this evening and have a bit of a whinge as they sent me an ADSL modem router when I signed up as opposed to a cable/fibre router and see if I can get them to send me one of their routers for the time being whilst I save up the pennies to get a decent router - did see an Asus one for nearly £200 and I almost bought it - from looking at it was very high end.

 

Which router did plus net send you? If it's the tg582n I think you can just flash it with the fibre firmware.

 

I would have to advise a draytek, im running a 2925n which is superb

 

I previously owned an RT-N66U and it was a very good router. Only reason I got rid was because I'm about to fly the nest and felt that a BT Home Hub was more appropriate to leave behind.

The range and speed from the wireless was generally very good although I'd caution any claims to that because generally that's dependent on the access point AND the device(s) connecting to it. For your tablet you might want to look at a repeater if it's just for general surfing.

The router was stable and didn't reboot for random reasons. Loads of options available through the web interface. Hardware quality was good. Only thing not tested was customer support and RMA. I'd definitely recommend Asus.

There is also a user called Merlin who makes custom firmware for it and has helped Asus develop loads of fixes and improvements. Worth checking out.

 

I've not clue which one they sent, but it has just 4 ethernet ports, none of which are an uplink port.

 

to be fair, I always ditch the providers router in favour of something else, my preference is Netgear, but for myself I tend to go for business class stuff (ProSafe) just waiting for them to release a proper prosafe AC access point.

for normal retail customers prosafe stuff is too expensive unless you want to spend > £200

 

Does it look like:

 

With the Plusnet router (Technicolor as pictured above), Port 4 on the back is used as the WAN port for Openreach modem. I understand that if you plug the OR modem into the back, power up the router and leave it for 10minutes, it'll download it's config and setup automatically.

Any issues, send me a PM.

 

No it does not look like that one at all.

Its alot smaller.

 

If you're looking in the region of £150-200, I bought myself a new router last year in that region and had my sights fixed on the Asus RT-AC68U and the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk as the two I was weighing the choice between.

In the end I stuck with the Nighthawk as after some tests I found it had a little bit better reach on the signal range and liked that it had a simple and plain interface as I struggle with viewing things on some colours.
I tested the Asus one as well, which covered my entire house with it's signal but the Nighthawk just tipped it by managing to have the signal reach the top of my garden (fairly large garden) and seemed to run a bit faster.

The Asus however did have the advantage of being able to instantly recognise what/who's devices were connected, the Netgear's interface on that area is a little vague so you have to completely know what your devices are and their addresses as it doesn't display nicknames names that you set on the regular network map (strangely the mobile app, Netgear Genie, does allow you to display it with nicknames).

The Nighthawk is very gaming oriented, though both worked at the full speed of my network so I couldn't tell if one was out performing the other in that respect.

 

Consider rolling your own? It's an option many people never consider. While it is some extra effort to build something, install and configure an appropriate networking based *nix distro it can be well worth it on a cost to performance basis. Hit the used market and find some reasonable cheap Atom board with at least 1 pci-e 4x slot and a mini pci-e slot. If you can manage to score one with onboard power that is always a plus since it's one less thing to buy and generally will allow you to use much smaller cheaper cases. If you get really lucky you might find one of the network oriented motherboards that come with 4x (or more) gig-e nics. Otherwise grab a quad port gig-e pci-e card and a mini pci-e wifi ac or n card. Intel is preferred as they generally have better driver support for *nix but others may be suitable as well as long as you make sure to check. Add in suitable stick of ram 512MB-2GB is generally sufficient depending if you want to add additional duties. Running the OS from a USB is usually fine, or if you happen to have an older small ssd to use.
You also may be able to take a shortcut if you can find a good price on a firewall appliance. In many cases those are already set up in a near ideal configuration with only a piece or two like wifi to add in.
With the right choices you will end up with a relatively low cost hardware that is at the enterprise level with excellent performance and rock solid reliability. With the choices of distros you can have things like a much more robust firewall/intrusion detection, set up to perform extra functions such voip pbx, torrents, etc. and when new things come out like updated wifi standards you can just upgrade the card instead of the whole thing.

 

I can second this, i've owned 2 Asus RT-N66U's. One in my parents house and one in mine. We've never experienced any drop outs or slow downs. You can flash them with Merlin's software to get even more features!

 

I would love to do this, and if I lived on my own I would. But I don't. I have to convince Mrs Behemoth to have it all out on display well in the hallway where the current fibre modem and router currently live (on top an Argos flat pack shoe cupboard) as thats where the phone socket is.

Really am liking the reviews of the Asus router and people have said about it here too. But given the Nighthawk has come highly recommended I'm now also considering that.

 

If the newer Asus routers are anything like my RT-N56U then you won't be disappointed ! I love mine, had it years but it's trusty and has never let me down.

 

I've got a RT-AC66U and it's been working great for us. As phem0r says, if you can't stand to own something without modding it, then Merlin's firmware is based off the stock firmware with extra features and bug fixes.

 

I had a chat with PlusNet last night, they agreed the router they sent was indeed an ADSL one but told me how to make it work on Fibre. Will give it a try but I don't hold much hope of the wireless part of it being any good.

 

If you do end up getting new kit I also own an NT66u and it has a been great after having previous issues with belkins and netgears (sub £100).

I had it up for 117 days once before I upgraded the firmware. Its been up right now for 32 days (since power cut).

It really is just set it up and forget about it. I've not had a single issue with it and I've been using it since 2012.

A couple of good things that I make use off on the ASUS routers are some features that they've added during the more recent firmware updates such as support for Opvn giving you an easy way to connect home and be safer on public wifi connections.

The DDNS stuff that Asus provide for free can be a bit flaky though. I don't use it that much but its been down a couple of times. You can always use your own DDNS provider though. I think they recently added noip support as well.

 

I've no real need to connect to my network when I'm out. Whilst it would be nice its just something I really don't need access to my system when out and about. I've only got a 2 gig allowance for data on my mobile contract anyway.