Router recommendation.

[Garlic]

I have just finished setting up a home office, only to discover that the room is right at the edge of my ISP provided routers maximum range, and all I get in there is an unstable 50 kbps of the 1 gbps that is my theoretical max. It is a tale as old as time I guess, but that means that there must be solutions out there.

 

I have already mounted the best antennas I could find to my office PCs, but that didn’t help. The next step is to replace my probably crappy router with something that has better range, and this is where I need recommendations. My priorities are range > compatibility with older devices > latency > speed.

The compatibility with older devices part is important. I build and collect retro PCs, and I would love to be able to continue to access my shares from PCs running Win98 natively.

 

What would you pick if you were in my shoes?

[jj9987]

Just to be clear - are we talking about WiFi or are you having issues with Ethernet cable? What router do you have right now?

The router does not affect Windows shares and their accessibility as long as all devices are in the same network.

[Action_Johnson]

I would consider a mesh system if latency is a low priority. I've put together a few of them in big houses I've lived in with tons of roommates, and it was surprisingly great for sustained transfer speeds. Latency sucked because it had so many places to go before it reached the modem. 

 

OTHERWISE, I personally would look into snaking some ethernet cable around the place. If you're not comfortable doing it, hiring a handyman to do it shouldn't be too expensive. 

 

In my current house, I routed an ethernet cable from one end of my house to the other so I could spike right in, and I'll likely never go back to wi-fi again for my main computer. 

[Applefreak]

Most ISP routers are crap. Price to performance either a Ubiquity setup or one of ASUS AC or AX routers. They have an option for compatibility on older devices on the 2.4 GHz range. 

Before buying something new, try placing the router closer to the center of the work area. 

If the router and the pc are on the some power circuit, power lan may by another solution for your, likely more stable than wifi. However you will need to adapters for the price of one decent router.

[theskaz]

one thing I did was use 2 engenius WAPs that are hardlined in. they are not in a mesh config, but they use the same SSIDs. I also have a pfsense router, but you can replace your ISP router with, well, anything.

[Action_Johnson]

4 hours ago, theskaz said:

one thing I did was use 2 engenius WAPs that are hardlined in. they are not in a mesh config, but they use the same SSIDs. I also have a pfsense router, but you can replace your ISP router with, well, anything.

Hardlined WAP's you say?