Need help on a router

Right now, I have a wireless b router I think and it makes my connection extremely slow. I'm looking to upgrade to hopefully an n router but my budget is only 50$ so if I can only get a g it would probably be fine. Any recommendations?

 

[First of all- „b” network is 11mbps (about half of this is what you can actually achieve in terms of file transfer). So if your connection speed is above around 6mbps the router can be a bottleneck, otherwise it’s probably sth else.
If your connection to your ISP is slower than 6mbps you should look for another explanation i.e. there may be a neighbor using the same wireless channel, router can be placed in a wrong place resulting in low coverage and so on.
So I’d recommend checking for other networks with netstumbler (or insider on Vista) and changing wifi channel if needed and placing router in other place if possible.
And to finally answer your question- if you are low on budget and still need a solid router you should probably look for a used Linksys WRT54 GL.
It gives you a lot of possibilities with alternative firmware has detachable antennas and is generally considered solid (not to mention it’s sth of a legend right now)
Changing network to “g” is recommended anyway as ”b” type offers inadequate security.

 

Well our network is protected by a 16 character password so I doubt out neighbors or anyone else is using it. The thing is, when I plug my computer into my router with an ethernet chord, it gets up to 9 mbps but when unplugged it hovers around .5 mbps. So is "n" just out of the question in my price range?

 

I still think N routers are overrated. I'd stick my money with G routers.

 

eric

what are you usieng for your internet?

 

OK. So the bottleneck is actually speed of "b" network. You can't afford a decent "n" router for that price and I'm not sure you actually need it (depends on how much LAN traffic is between your computer and do you need better WiFi coverage) I'd rather stick with a good "g" router rather than cheap "n" anyway.
As for the security- 16 char password for WEP takes about a minute to crack so don't be overconfident. When you move to "g" network use WPA2 and AES and max number of char available (63 ASCII or 64hex if I remember correctly)
As I wrote earlier I’d look for a used WRT54GL (if new ones are too expensive) This router among other things allows for use of alternative firmware. It’s not sth you have to do but in case of any problems with P2P, VoIP, QoS or other things you may not even use right now alternative firmwares like DD-WRT are much more flexible and offer more options.

EDIT: I just saw that you wrote "hoovers around .5mbps" I missed the "." Did you mean 0.5mbps or 5mbps?
If it's 0.5mbps it's not the "b" type network that causes problems.

 

might try looking on ebay for a good used wireless n
i did see some on walmarts website for around 50 but they arent linksys