I give up -- buying a new router...what's good for ASUS z70va w/Intel Pro 2915

Ever since I got my ASUS z70va with the Intel Pro 2915 wireless card, I have been having continuous problems with loading on the internet. Sending it in to ProPortable to check on it is a course of last resort. I want to eliminate every other possibility.

So one problem, which has nothing to with the ASUS, has been my ISP's DSL service. They have now come to re-wire the line.

The second source of problem may be the router I have, which is a Belkin Super G whose most updated firmware is from 2004. I got it originally to work with Win98 which was on my old laptop at the time.

I currently also have a new HP dv1000t with Core Duo and an Intel Pro 3945 wireless card which is a newer version of the Intel Pro over the 2915. I do not have the problems on the internet that I do with the ASUS.

I have even brought the ASUS to the exact same spot that the HP is at and while the HP loads quickly and efficiently, the ASUS 3/4 of the time either loads extremely slow (much worse than dial-up) or says "page cannot be displayed. Repeated clicks eventually gets the page, sometimes 1 click will do it instantly sometimes several clicks are required and the page loads extremely slooooow. And it is extremely random what happens, one moment the page loads quickly, the next moment the page can't be displayed and the next moment it loads extremely slowly. This is on the same web site and with the same pages.

On occasion the ASUS just won't even connect.

So even though the HP with the newer Intel is not having any problems (except when the DSL itself is having problems-- which are also intermittent but largely gone now), I am hoping that it is the router which is not compatible with either the Intel Pro 2915 or the ASUS driver that runs it.

So I am willing to invest in a new and more powerful router.

So I was wondering... what would people recommend?

Also if anyone has any ideas as to what else I might check on the ASUS that might be causing the problem, I would welcome them. It is not any software I have loaded because this problem has existed with my ASUS from day 1 out of the box and I have checked all the updates on modem and router. I only have standard mainstream software on the ASUS. And as I have said, I have not ever had this problem on the HP.

 

Post in the wireless networking forum. I recommend the Linksys WRT54G from the reviews I've read. Im in a similar position as you though.

 

LINKsys only way to go.

 

Yeah, like mystery said, you might want to post it in the wireless forum for more/better advice...I'm like you though, I only really use the Asus forum on this site, and so I tend to post ALL my questions in here, no matter what they may be about. Good luck

 

l've used nothing but d-link routers and l've had no problems.

 

i have used DLINK netgear. linksys trend net. and many other brands.Honestly ive ran into alot of issues with 3 different dlink routers. i know people have luck with them but i wouldnt recommend them. And just so you know i have setup many networks wired and wirless offices and set up server rooms. Link sys seems to be the better of the consumer brands.

 

I've used both Linksys and D-Link routers in work and home use, and for the most part they're fairly reliable.

I installed a DI-524 for my folks last summer and its never missed a beat. I'm buying a DI-624 for myself.

I have used, and would happily again use a Linksys WRT54G. I've installed a half dozen of those routers at various job sites lately and have had no complaints about them, after the firmware was updated.

 

Yeah its always important to update the firware, it can fix alot of connectivity issues.

 

B,

I honestly can't believe you still haven't bought anything else. I've heard about you working through this with Sean and obviously emails between the two of us, but you not getting a wireless network to work properly makes your computer look bad and that makes PROPortable look bad... and well, me look bad when you make posts like this.

If I'm not mistaken, you have a Belkin router with the latest firmware dating back to February of 2004... is that correct? Would anyone else like to chime in to comment on how important that simple fact is to 99% of this problem?

Honestly...... $100 will buy you the best SoHo router on the market and $80 is certainly going to get more much more than you need........ $50 could get you something that'll work for a couple years....... just go buy one. I love Asus' 530g, but it's more dedicated to the power user who knows more about wireless networking........ I also use a Linksys WRT54G that's a good 3 years or older and I've got firmware that was updated for the latest 3915 intel wireless........ that's very important.

I know you don't know a lot about wireless and would love to blame the computer just because that's easiest...... but if you start your computer and the centrino logo comes up - that means your card is installed and functioning... and if you can hit the wifi switch on the keyboard and the icon comes up turning it on and off without any error..... then it's working. That's honestly the most you need to be concerned with on the computer side besides getting into encryption and things like that which are beyond your needs at this point......

Two important things for you to realize.

1. your computer works and your wireless works... period
2. your routers firmware is 28 months old and belkin doesn't have updates... it's time to throw it out because it's useless..
3. your hp, even if it has the same wifi card, means close to nothing that it doesn't have problems..... the z70va connects and works and then it doesn't and it's about the connection to the router and depending on your setup, the z70va could be further down on the routing table and the router just can't reconnect after it turns it off..... it might not make total sense to you, but wireless networking is about the last frontier of good money in this business and people get a lot to set them up and know what's going on. Although you can just plug in a soho router and it work, doesn't mean you know squat about what it's doing or how to configure it..... so although you're making connections in your head that the hp has no problems and the asus does... throw all that out the window because to really know it has problems would be to really know wireless networking and frankly (and don't be upset... because not many people REALLY know wireless), but you don't know wireless.

Don't bust your head thinking about it and go out and buy something... please.... and remember that anything you buy in the store is probably going to need updating also. Routers can stay in a store for 6-8 months and their firmware could be a year old..... but better wifi products usually have updates every 3-6 months.

 

Justin is right. I have had many situations where the laptop works everywhere else but has an issue with one router. But other laptops work fine with that router. whatever it is alot of times cant be resolved. I have had to go out and buy a different router. the WRT54G is perfect for what you need, anything else is overkill.

 

I don't know what it is.... but if the WRT45G is still made, I'd buy it...... I mean, mine is old, but I still use it at my house along with some other ones and it works with everything and it's truly plug and play if you want it to be.... with say the Asus units, I can't just give that to my mother and expect her to figure it out.. it's soho unit, but Asus targets the more feature minded, techy type people... Linksys targets joe shmoe.

... let's put it this way and I think Steve will agree with me.... Wireless networking can be a real snap back to reality..... people who think they know their way around computers and such very well can be completely grounded when they run into a problem with wireless and not have a clue what to do. It's really one area that seperates the men from the boys (or the women from the girls)....

 

Im sure everything can eventually be figured out its just a matter or is it worth me trouble shooting for a week or spend 50 bucks i dont have the time. Sometimes all the settings are right and it still doesnt work. Justina Do you issues go away if you disable all encryption?

 

I have a linksys with the DD-WRT firmware and it's ABSOLUTLY FLAWLESS. Never ever have a problem connecting. I get incredible range; I get reception and can surf the net a full block from my house; in the house, I get nothing less than 54Mbps connection. The uptime on the router is currently at 243 days!

 

Hey flax ive read about firmware. but forgot about it. Where did you download it from and is it the same as flashing the official firmware?

 

I absolutely concede that I am not able to figure the problem out.

And at no point have I blamed the computer. In fact, I stated explicitly that sending it in was a course of last resort.


If you re-read my post and its title, this thread IS asking for a recommendation for a new router. And it explains why I have not gotten a new router until now.

As I stated, there was a compoundng problem with my DSL service (which affected the HP as well) that took several weeks to diagnose and resolve.

I am not able to devote full time to this though in fact I have devoted about 1/2 day just about every week for a couple of months now.

Now, problems still remained with the ASUS. Another couple of weeks of effort was spent to determine whether there might still be a problem with the DSL service or the modem. That has now been ruled out.

So now the next step was clearly, because of my conversations with Sean, to buy a new router... it would have been useless before while the DSL service itself had problems.

That seems to me a methodical and proper approach to resolving the problem.

The frustration expressed in my post comes from the fact that this has been 3 months of considerable time on my part and there is still a ways to go. I am sorry if my tone in my original post expressed too much frustration or gave the impression that I am anything other than extremely happy with my ASUS. I assure you, you should hear how I dealt with the DSL people to get their bureaucracy to fix their problem. I did not just express frustration but included the full force of "persausion" that my profession affords me.


Re: another poster's suggestion as to posting the question in wireless.. it already has been posted here However the responses were sufficiently ambiguous that I wanted to seek advice from ASUS owners as to what their experience was with regard to what router was most likely to work well with the ASUS. I certainly did not want to spend the time and energy only to learn that the new router I purchased was not the one most likely to resolve the problem.

Also, if other ASUS owners had similar problems and found solutions apart from buying a new router, I wanted to learn about those as well.


I appreciate everyone's input; it sounds like the Linksys is the way to go. Is there a difference between the WRT54G and the WRT45G? Or did some digits get accidently reversed.

I am perfectly happy to go further upscale and more modern, the difference between $50 & $100 does not bother me... it is the time spent which is more costly for me.

My apartment is on the 30th floor (top floor) and stretches from one end of the building to the other. And I work all over my apartment. We are talking about a potential distance of about 50 feet max. What is the SoHo router you were mentioning, Justin? Might you recommend that to me?

Justitia

 

A router I have read only good things about is the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. Look it up on newegg.com.

 

The Linksys WRT54G works perfect with my M6Va with Intel PRO/Wirless 2915AGB.

 

We have an Asus W5F, a Fujitsu P1510D, an 4-yr old Sony laptop, and a 2-yr old Dell desktop in the house. All of them work flawlessly with the Linksys WRT54G. The desktop is wired to the router, while the 3 laptops work wirelessly. The router is our first router and was set up 1 year ago. I'm not a tech savvy user. With my experience w/ Linksys' technical support, I would say it is reasonably good.

 

50 feet max is nothing for the linksys. you dont need a SOHO router.

 

Can you clarify what the Linksys model is that you have? and I assume that the DD-WRT firmware is a third-party and something to buy. I did understand that the WRT54G will serve my needs but for certain reasons I would not mind having assurance of greater range.

 

I would say go for the linksys WRT54G series. IF you need extra distance you would need to get an access point. most routers have aroundt he same distance the linksys i think is one of the better. but a SOHO router is more to do with features than more power.

 

DD-WRT is third-party open-source. If you don't know what that is or you are not the tinkerer kind, stay away. The Linux-based router you should buy for DD-WRT is not the latest version of WRT54G (v5), but WRT54GL.

The Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 I mentioned above works wonderfully even at 80-100 feet. HP comes from High Power. It has a built-in amplifier.

 

I just feel like I need to throw a few things in here even though I don't respond to most of these post because of time restraints...but this one jumped at me.

1st…everyone is praising this linksys router (WRT54G) and dogging that belkin yet the last time I checked..linksys cut the specs on the current version of that router to half of pretty much everything making that router crap when I switched to it. You think linksys disclosed this on the packaging? hell no...screw linksys far as I’m concerned...her belkin will our perform version 5 of this router any day of the week, as long as she can get it to connect. The linksys will connect…but its going to stutter like hell anytime you do some heavy wireless activity.

I'm getting the impression that everyone is dogging belkin on this and cause low and behold it can't be an precious asus malfunction. But I'll put my pre-N belkin up against any linksys router on the market...and im going to out range it and get higher through put....and know my specs haven't been cut in half.

My advice, wait for them to fininsh your dsl line testing…and if that’s not the problem then update your router. And even before you buy a new router, completely reset the router and clear all its setting and they try it out if you already haven’t. If that fixes nothing buy a new router and what ever you do don’t update to a WRT54G, what was once golden is now crap.

…I won’t buy linksys anymore but I’m not going to go as far and say they make total crap. Just you get what you pay for (that goes for every router company)…so if you want a good linksys these days…if its over 80 bucks..its prob good. If not…you’re taking your chances.

I felt in know way this poster was attacking Justin or Asus computers and it was just wrong to put this poster on the defensive like this, when she clearly stated it was most likely her dsl line or router. She is doing what we all do in this situation...try to eliminate out all variables. And unfortunately that might mean sending the PC in to Justin to check if there is a problem on the pc side of things. That happens even with Asus computers you know. It just should have been recommended that sending her pc in should be the LAST thing to check, cause chances are things are fine on that front.

Now how does that make Justin look bad I don't know, cause last time I checked most companies wouldn’t do this as easily as Justin did it. That's just good customer service. But on the other side of things...when Justin responds all defensively like this...it appears to me like your chastising the customer and that’s just wrong. All you really needed to do is say ..”hey my expertise in this says its prob your router. I’d buy a new router before you sent that computer back to me…” Anytime you ship a laptop your taking a risk that it might be damaged in transit…why risk that.

No one wants to hear “hey, you don’t know anything about wireless, I do” …cause they already know that if they can’t solve the problem.

Hell Raiser – raising a little hell when its needed.

 

You are right about the V5 linysys. I would not call it crap at all though. I have used them on clients and they still work great. Why would you even compare a PRE N router different class. any linksys will be more than enough for her.

 

I only brought up Pre N because it seems that anytime some some says belkin, its automatically assumed ..THERES THE PROBLEM. And all im trying to say is they make good stuff just like everyone else.

And as for version 5 of the WRT54G...your right its not crap considering the cost of it BUT....its not the best in class at that price range anymore because of the spec drops. To me it felt like crap cause my 8.11b linksys was faster at getting me to the internet than the wrt54g v.5 was. and thats doesn't make since in my book. Then when gaming through it..o man its horrible. I'm sure its fine for business usage but other than that i'd stay away.

 

SO I appreciate the input (and the defense... but I am used to Justin's gruffy ways... I think it comes along with his intelligence and youth... I still take great comfort that he will do right by me if needed and that it will be done extremely intelligently....)

SO back to the router.... I still need a recommendation....

I have read elsewhere about the v. 5 of WRT54G.... I just stay away from it because I can't afford the time to monkey around. Updating my Belkin router is out of the question because it has no firmware more up-to-date than Feb 2004.

I want a GREAT router. I do not care if it is expensive. Even the HP loads a little slowly at times. These seconds and minutes lost are at huge cost to me. My time is the most precious commodity.

So if people would chime in with what I should get.... I would greatly appreciate it. It is true that at this moment I am clueless as to how a router works,,, which means if I get a sophisticated one that requires knowledge... I am going to depend on these boards to guide me in setting things up. I am not a dummy.... I just lack knowledge. I was a systems analyst for Univac at the age of 20 before you were all born... and a systems analyst started from scratch, writing all the programs and keypunching them into the cards (that's right ..key punching...) debugging every program and building everything up to a whole system....

SO we are not talking about lack of capacity but lack of knowledge. The rate of technological change has been enormously fast and for a high level busy professional like myself... time is of the essence... but so is quality.

I would rather spend time setting up a good router (and learning about how they work) that will work and work for some time to come... then deal with the frustration and wasted time of constantly facing slow loading pages or pages that do not load at all.

I do my serious work on the ASUS. The HP is just for my bedside (and a back-up in case.)

So, please fire away with upscale router recommendations.... I want to order one soon.

 

What was the problem with the dsl? I personally prefer cable for a dozen different reasons - some which do include issues with multiple computers on a soho router (big enterprise routers and switches seems to more suited for dsl for some reason).... but I can imagine your pain.... personally, if I came there and helped you out, I'd probably be in the same position because you probably couldn't fix the dsl problem yourself.... and your routers out of date firmware and no available updates would have killed me.... I hope everything's going well.

 

since we are already discussing routers, could anyone recommend one thats got the longest range available... after some research my current choices are;

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WNR834B.php
http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WPN824.php ( im aware that mimo is useless atm but its still backward compatible and offers great range)

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...513404&pagename=Linksys/Common/VisitorWrapper


any other recommendations?
cheers!

 

Believe me, with the problems I have had... I would definitely go cable...but my ISP (Earthlink) doesn't provide cable service in my area (they do in other areas) and Comcast, which is the only one that does, I hear nothing but nightmare stories about it...service going out, etc.

I am going to start a new thread for a discussion on routers for the ASUS z70va. Noctorne... I will link to your post here...