Yet another pre-n question

I know there’s been much discussion regarding pre-n technologies, but searching the forum didn’t seem to yield the specific answer I needed. I’m building a new home network and I plan to move potentially large files around different computers quite frequently. However, before I buy a pre-n router, I still have a few lingering questions:
(the pre-n router I’m talking about is: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2368015&CatId=372)

1) My current notebook, a Dell XPS1210, currently has a dell pre-n wireless card built-in already. Will this router be compatible with it? Also, will it achieve the best possible speeds?

2) I currently use a D-link wireless G router and what is actually the real-life improvement in speed and range of pre-n going to be?

3) Does this router justify the (>$200) cost? Are there any better one out there?

Thanks for the help

 

I just got my draft N router. I got a D-link router that claimed to be compatible with the intel (centrino) draft N, I have not tried this. I also got a usb draft N card from D-link for the time till I get my new laptop with build in N wifi. I paid about 160€ total.

I found the following. Draft N works when close by. I get pretty good speeds of about 27Mb/s when I am about 2m away from the router. But the wireless speed drops alot faster then G wifi. In the next door room I get the full 54mbit speed but the draft N is already cuts down a great deal, to 74mbit. Moving a bit furter the N (28mbit) drops under G (34mbit) level. This test is a bit unfair because I use my laptops build in G wifi and a USB stick. I think the laptop build in antenna are alot better. Hopefully the build in Intel draft N will be good.

The G wifi also has a longer range then the N. With G I can get a working signal all around the house. In the same spot with N I can still get a signal but the connection keeps breaking resulting in time outs. I think wireless N is only worth it if you have very good signal streanght, otherwise G is just as fast and what I noticed more stable.

I am not impressed with Draft N. I will keep the router anyway because i needed a new one and this one does have greater range then my old one (when using G wifi).

 

Remember the spec is only Draft, and mfg have had a hard time with the drivers. The 11n spec calls for it to play well with other, so if other networks are detected it will drop out of MIMO mode or channel bonding. If you are going to constantly move big files take the time and wire your place with cat5e or better. Wired works most all the time.

 

Extended range is the most important thing for me, so I guess I'll wait until the final version comes out.

I know LAN cables are the best, but some of the computers are in another room and it's just much easier to use wifi. Perhaps I'll just stay with G for the time being

 

11n promises better speed, and longer range than 11g.

11g has a huge variation on distance and speed. It all depends on what hardware you use. If you have a miss match with chips sets seam to contribute. Then there are some hardware that works better with their competors, go figure.

 

You mean 11n right?

 

What? Then what's the point! Everyone in a residential area has at least four or five networks nearby. I want my 11N network to DESTROY my neighbors network to bring me the fastest and most reliable speed possible.

 

hehe, yes to both 11g and 11n. There is some hardware that is not very good in 11g. And a lot of it comes to play with chip sets.

This is what the 11n spec is trying to eliminate. So you can by pieces from different sources and it works. There is limited bandwidth that the mfg must play in. And the airways are already crowded. If I recall there is an upper freq that the 11n can use, that is not available to 11g.

 

I have the Intel Nexgen Wireless-N card in my Dell and I have a Dlink DIR-625 draft N router.

For the first 2 months of me getting my laptop, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get my lappy to connect to the router at 'N' speeds. I contacted Dlink support team and they tried providing me with all kinds of changes to the router settings to help me out.

They finally (just this week) provided me a set of changes (not many) that enabled me to connect my Intel - N card to my Dlink - N router. I really think it wouldn't have worked as I was using 'G' speeds just fine on my Dell. I am now getting a theoretical 144Mbps (not as highly rated 300Mbps) but better than the 54Mbps that 'G' provided me. I do notice faster file transfer speeds now between my desktops and my laptop, and especially when I'm doing a Remote Desktop session to them on my intranet.

I have to commend the Dlink support team on their work to try and resolve my problem even though they could have just written it off as incompatible hardware. (Which they initially said, but then provided alternate solutions since I persisted).

 

Theoretically, it's trying to do that, but are they really? In your previous posts, it sound though if 11n is actually worse (at least right now) than 11g.

Actually, with my current 11g router, I already get 108mbps. What is your actual transfer speed? I tried transferring a 2GB file over my current 11g network and it took me about 6 minutes. That's about that's only about 7-8mbps of actual speed

 

7-8mbps is not bad depending on your ISP.

My 11g is 125mbps. I have a download speed of around 2-2.5MB/sec. This is ftp transfers to my Snap4500 NAS Server, Internal Network. It's kind of hard to get solid number off the web, since most host's restrict bandwidth. The best sites to get god number are MS and Apple Download sections. You have to watch which servers they come from, but in the most part are pretty good.

Yes I really expect 11n to be worst till the drivers get straighten out. But if operates in the newer freq it will not impact 11g. Only when it wants to do channel bonding.

 

How are you guys getting more than the max of the 11G's 54 mbps?

My 11N BTW work great & with a D-Link express card my max is 300 but usually settles in at 240 or so.

 

Our hardware supports large packets. Only works if you have matching router/AP and client card.