Suggestions for a new router, please
We currently have a Belkin Wireless G (model F5D7230-4), and it's rubbish. It keeps dropping the connections, and all you can do is restart it, preferably after a cooling-down period, as previously reported. This is very, very frustrating, and I'm looking to replace it stat.
Does anyone have any good suggestions for routers they like?
It needs to have space for 2x Ethernet and 2-4x wireless connections (we're using 2x Ethernet, will hopefully have 1x wireless card in short order, and others come round with their wireless cards occasionally).
The problem has gone away, after a fashion... Virgin Media agree that they will send us a new router as promised, and it's being couriered over next week. The chap I spoke to didn't know what kind it was, but the previous chap, while unable to remember the exact make, gave me a clue that lead me to believe that it's going to be a Netgear router. So I'm very pleased about all the good recommendations for Netgear in the comments, thank you very much!
Meanwhile... we now have Virgin Media cable TV/ phone / broadband, the latter however only via plugging directly into the modem. The first two worked almost straight away, which I was impressed with; the latter, not so much. It got 'activated' about three times, inc. the final time when I was on the phone to their support line; they in turn figured out that I had to use DHCP to assign the IP address, rather than the fixed configuration I'd introduced for the router. I don't know that I'm bothered to figure out how to get the modem and the router talking, given all my problems with the Belkin, so I might just leave it as a direct connection until next week, when the shiny new router arrives along with all its documenation. I forget now anyway why I assigned an internal IP; I think it might have been to solve a problem for SoulSeek. Ah well, next week.
Another problem has piled itself on top: now the PC has decided one of its OS files is corrupt or missing. While I should be able to fix this by booting from CDrom, in practice this is not possible because for some reason, pressing the "any" key during boot-up does nothing at all, making me think that the USB keyboard isn't being recognised. The lights come on eventually, but you can't get into the BIOS or boot from CD, so something's fishy, and I don't like it. That's on top of the monitor being very temperamental, requiring its power key to be pressed in certain ways and preferably having the mouse wiggled meanwhile to get it to come on at all. I'm glad my little laptop is more reliable; really, I only use the PC anymore because I happen to have my business email set up with Outlook, and Office not (yet) installed on the laptop.
Just a quick note for anyone considering a move to Virgin Media: so far, I've been very happy with their service. Signing up was easy, everything was explained well, the engineer was brilliant, and support got to the point quickly. While phoning IT support is expensive, they refund you the cost of the call if the issue is at their end - magically, they decided that in this case, it had been, huzzah!
I hope this good record continues, really.
Thanks again for all the comments, I'll update with any news I have.
Does anyone have any good suggestions for routers they like?
It needs to have space for 2x Ethernet and 2-4x wireless connections (we're using 2x Ethernet, will hopefully have 1x wireless card in short order, and others come round with their wireless cards occasionally).
The problem has gone away, after a fashion... Virgin Media agree that they will send us a new router as promised, and it's being couriered over next week. The chap I spoke to didn't know what kind it was, but the previous chap, while unable to remember the exact make, gave me a clue that lead me to believe that it's going to be a Netgear router. So I'm very pleased about all the good recommendations for Netgear in the comments, thank you very much!
Meanwhile... we now have Virgin Media cable TV/ phone / broadband, the latter however only via plugging directly into the modem. The first two worked almost straight away, which I was impressed with; the latter, not so much. It got 'activated' about three times, inc. the final time when I was on the phone to their support line; they in turn figured out that I had to use DHCP to assign the IP address, rather than the fixed configuration I'd introduced for the router. I don't know that I'm bothered to figure out how to get the modem and the router talking, given all my problems with the Belkin, so I might just leave it as a direct connection until next week, when the shiny new router arrives along with all its documenation. I forget now anyway why I assigned an internal IP; I think it might have been to solve a problem for SoulSeek. Ah well, next week.
Another problem has piled itself on top: now the PC has decided one of its OS files is corrupt or missing. While I should be able to fix this by booting from CDrom, in practice this is not possible because for some reason, pressing the "any" key during boot-up does nothing at all, making me think that the USB keyboard isn't being recognised. The lights come on eventually, but you can't get into the BIOS or boot from CD, so something's fishy, and I don't like it. That's on top of the monitor being very temperamental, requiring its power key to be pressed in certain ways and preferably having the mouse wiggled meanwhile to get it to come on at all. I'm glad my little laptop is more reliable; really, I only use the PC anymore because I happen to have my business email set up with Outlook, and Office not (yet) installed on the laptop.
Just a quick note for anyone considering a move to Virgin Media: so far, I've been very happy with their service. Signing up was easy, everything was explained well, the engineer was brilliant, and support got to the point quickly. While phoning IT support is expensive, they refund you the cost of the call if the issue is at their end - magically, they decided that in this case, it had been, huzzah!
I hope this good record continues, really.
Thanks again for all the comments, I'll update with any news I have.