Ask Slashdot: Best Flash-Friendly Router To Replace Aging WRT54GS?

New submitter Juggler00 writes "I have been running DD-WRT (v24-sp2) on my Linksys WRT54GS for a couple of years now. I'm now finding that the box cannot keep up with the requests/requirements I have for it--it simply does not have the MIPS/horsepower. I am turning to the collective wisdom of the Slashdot community for 2 things: what alternative firmware should I be using (DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT, or something else?) and based on the answer to this question, what is the suggested router to purchase to flash? My software requirements include DynDNS client, DHCP server providing option 66, static IP assignment based on MAC, port forwarding, and basic QoS (bittorrent lowest priority). For hardware, I'm looking for GigE ports and 802.11N (5.8GHz not a requirement)."

Comments

How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

This is at least the second, if not the third Ask Slashdot on this subject in the last few months.

I'll make the same recommendation as before: Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

Also, on firmware: OpenWRT if you want to do something really fancy or unusual, DD-WRT if you just want a feature/reliability improvement.

Re:How many threads like this?

[JBMcB]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo //off-topic, but relevant

Re:How many threads like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll make the same recommendation as before: Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.

I would no longer make that recommendation. Buffalo has silently started shipping WZR-HP-G300NH2 (version 2) models in the old WZR-HP-G300NH boxes. The G300NH2 models have a different Atheros wireless chip which does not work fine under DD-WRT, and hence with its own custom Buffalo firmware. The end result is constant wireless drop outs (BSSID is broadcasting, client shows as connected, but packets go into la-la land). I have tried two different G300NH2 routers and both have the same issue. Buffalo forum is filled with posts about this issue, and what makes it worse, is that Buffalo U.S.A Tech support has no knowledge of this router (version 2) existing, and say that product is only supported in ASIA. DD-WRT firmwares also can't be flashed into this router as it will brick them.

Disclaimer: I too have a WRT54G(L) router that needs replacement and have already began researching. Going to try Cisco Small Business WRVS4400N-RF due to the number of features it seems to have.

Re:How many threads like this?

[GameboyRMH]

The N variant has swappable antennas (which the NH doesn't) but no gigabit LAN (which the NH does).

Re:How many threads like this?

[drainbramage]

Well, I wasn't buffaloed.
Forgot about that.
Nice breakdown here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13120

Re:How many threads like this?

[VGPowerlord]

I'm glad I bought mine a year ago, then... even if it did take me some time to figure out why my wireless network would randomly shut off.

Apparently the router will shut off its wireless antennas if it determines another router on a different network is broadcasting on the same channel... and the neighbors were *just* close enough and conditions would be *just* right for that to happen every few days.

Re:How many threads like this?

[Martin Blank]

DD-WRT if you just want a feature/reliability improvement.

I don't know about that. At least from the view of official builds, DD-WRT has stagnated. The last official release was more than three years ago and the last pre-SP2 release was more than two years ago.

Even the unofficial builds aren't much of an improvement to me. I was using a couple of different builds to get IPv6 functionality and while it worked, I had problems with odd setting resets or services just stopping for no clear reason. Ultimately, I decided to just go with a new DLink router because it provided the functionality that I wanted and pretty much Just Worked. No messing with scripts, no tinkering with poorly-documented settings. It just worked like it was supposed to. (Well, mostly. There's an issue where .11n connectivity breaks, but .11g still works, but that's far less irritating as there's an effective fallback that works.)

I understand the desire to have control over the firmware, as I ran OpenWRT or DD-WRT for several years. I'm also not averse to installing things of questionable stability, as I use Fedora for most of my Linux stations. I enjoyed what I was doing for a while and I learned some things on how the services worked, but it became more of a distraction where I was spending time fixing issues instead of learning other things.

Deja Vu

[dmesg0]

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/09/19/0315258/ask-slashdot-good-gigabit-80211n-home-router

Buffalo

[zbobet2012]

The buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH meets all of these requirements and ships with DD-WRT. However, as the last, very recent thread mentioned DD-WRT is not well maintained anymore. Your best bets are either TomatoUSB or straightforward OpenWRT. I prefer openwrt because it allows simple configuration of hardware taged vlans.

Netgear WNDR-3700

[Microlith]

Or its newer variants. Loaded with OpenWRT, there's nothing you can't do with them. Newer variants have even more flash and RAM.

Look at TomatoUSB

[PhrostyMcByte]

I've been a long-time DD-WRT user, but its development seemed to stagnate. I recently put TomatoUSB on my Linksys WRT160N v1, and it is working wonderfully. The interface is much nicer, and exposes more QoS and bandwidth management features which I've found useful. Check out the TomatoUSB website for a list of routers it supports.

ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[jipis]

I recently put an RT-16N in service in my office running DD-WRT. As the the Internet sez, the stock firmwire is crap, but this thing flies while running DD-WRT.

Re:ASUS RT-16N / DD-WRT

[blackC0pter]

3rd for this router. I'm using this as a router + qos + asterisk box for the in-laws. I set them up to have all IP phones connecting to this router and then the router registering with vitelity for phone service. Great setup and saves them a lot of money compared to the bells. The router has 128MB of ram and 32MB of flash so it is one of the most powerful and has the most space for adding stuff than most other routers. I also setup a vpn connection to my house and some custom routing so I can directly access their internal subnet from my computers and diagnose if necessary.

Router is flashed with tomato and then loaded with Optware in order to install asterisk and other addons. Here are some steps to get this done. One side item, the guide for optware has you install it on an external USB drive. But I installed it directly on the /jffs partition so you don't need to add a usb drive. The router has plenty of space to add data to it so I just used this. Also, if you want to do any custom linux commands in tomato, the root os doesn't preserve state after reboot. So be sure to put all the commands you want run in the web gui under administration->scripts. Custom routing commands will need to go there since tomato is limited in the custom routing you can do with the gui (no interface routing? bah)
--Install tomato: http://tomatousb.org/tut:installing-on-asus-rt-n16
--Install optware: http://tomatousb.org/tut:optware-installation

Asus makes a good one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I have become a fan of the Asus RT-N16. VERY fast, TONS of RAM, USB ports for expansion, runs TomatoUSB and DD-WRT. These have been dead on reliable so far (I have one personally, and we use 4 for remote offices at work). The only negative I can say is that the LED's are extremely bright. You won't need a night-light in your living room with one of these, that's for sure.

This subject has been beaten to death

[funkboy]

1: go read smallnetbuilder and decide for yourself.

2: Mikrotik probably has something you'd be happy with for not a lot of money.

netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[Oo.et.oO]

is still top of the charts in most regards at smallnetbuilder at reasonable price point and open-firmware compatible

n750 is a bit faster but way more $$. now someone find me one with good external antenna connectors!

Re:netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[loxosceles]

wndr3700 or 3800.

They are atheros based, so there's the issue of occasional wireless drop-outs that may be fixed in openwrt snapshots (check svn changelog for late November '11), but that's a lot better than the wndr4500 and other broadcom SOC devices that are proprietary and difficult to reverse engineer.

Also, the wndr3700 is hard to brick, and easy to tftp to. There are similar atheros-based devices like the buffalo wzr-hp-g300nh (2.4GHz-only) and ag300nh (2.4 + 5 GHz), but they're harder to flash and maybe have quality control problems on transmit power (some people complain).

Re:netgear n600 (wndr3800)

[loxosceles]

Oops, the dual band buffalo is wzr-hp-ag300h, not -nh.

Atheros:
Netgear wndr3700v1: 8MB flash, 64MB ram
Netgear wndr3700v2: 16MB flash, 64MB ram
Netgear wndr3800: 16MB flash, 128MB ram
Buffalo wzr-hp-g300nh: 32MB flash, 64MB ram (more chance of a lemon than the netgear wndr series)
Buffalo wzr-hp-ag300h: 32MB flash, 128MB ram

Broadcom
Netgear wndr4000: 8MB flash 64MB ram (BCM4718 ?)
Netgear wndr4500: 128MB flash 128MB ram (BCM4706 ?)
Linksys/Cisco e3000: 8MB flash 64MB ram (BCM4718 ?)
Linksys/Cisco e4200: 16MB flash 64MB ram (BCM4718 ?)

The ciscos from what I've read are very picky about nvram size.

Tp-link Wr1043nd

[s4nt]

Meets all requirements from the OP.
runs openwrt and dd-wrt
4x gigE
wireless N (no 5GHZ tough)
USB port
CPU Atheros AR9132@400MHz
RAM 32MB
FLASH 8MB

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WR1043ND

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr1043nd

Apple Airport Extreme

[Wingsy]

I've used several routers in the recent past, and every single one of them would bog down to around 100-300kbps when I had a couple hundred peers connected in a torrent. Then I got an Apple Airport Extreme and now I get my full bandwidth of 15mbps with the same load. That sold me.

Re:Jedi?

[Baloroth]

If this has anything to do with those stupid prequels, then this is a bad joke

Why? You can make jokes based on bad movies, especially the Star Wars prequels. Just about all they're good for.

Re:Jedi?

[thisnamestoolong]

What Star Wars prequels?

Flash

[Dan East]

What did the Jedi ever do to your DHCP server? That seems a bit harsh.

Furthermore, everyone knows Flash is on the way out. I'd skip the Flash-Friendly routers and go straight to an HTML5-Friendly router.