upgrade a home office router

[Triple-X]

Hello,
I have small network at my work place. We are using small office router.It has potential to be as powerful as an enterprise device.My question is getting the power out of it. how i can boost my router's signal? or how i can upgrade my router? can you help me out ? Any suggestion?

[Spyrus]

Replace your router's firmware with the free version, DD-WRT open source firmware. You will have all sorts of new capabilities, including strengthening the signal from your router, improving network performance and much more.
A word of warning, however: There is a chance you could do serious damage to your router, if things go wrong during the upgrade firmware. You can even "brick" your router - break it so badly, it will not work. The chances are great that it will not happen, of course, keep reading if you want to get started.The first step is to ensure that your router can be upgraded, or buy one that does. Not all routers can have their firmware updated to DD-WRT. Many, indeed, can not.

[Steve123]

Some routers from the manufacturer can be upgraded, and some of them can not. sometim even the same models of routers from some manufacturers can be upgraded while others can not, as the firmware and hardware version and operating system underlying.
For example, certain versions of Linksys WRT54G can use DD-WRT, while others can not because of changes to the source of the firmware and underlying hardware.The best information on everything to do with DD-WRT is very useful and detailed DD-WRT Wiki. Head to the top Supported Devices to see if it will work with your router. Be sure to click on the link on your model number for more details. This will be the only way you make sure your model really is supported, the page you are through you explain how you can find the hardware version of your model, firmware and capabilities, and he will explain that the device will work with SD - WR.

[Milton.J]

Install the firmware before that check that your model can handle DD-WRT, it's time to install the firmware. The instructions for installing firmware vary from router to router, and even from firmware version to firmware version for the same router.again use the DD-WRT Wiki site. For this article, I'll use the Linksys WRT54GL router, hardware Version 1.1.
Set up your router, connect it to the Internet, and connect your PC to the router. Make sure that you connect your PC to it via an Ethernet port, not wirelessly. If you try to upgrade the firmware wirelessly, you could brick your router.Download the latest edition of the DD-WRT firmware from the DD-WRT site. In some instances, you'll have to download two versions of DD-WRT - a "mini" firmware version and then the standard firmware version. In that case, you'd first install the mini firmware, and once that is installed, install the standard version over it.
After you download the firmware and install the firmware, reset your router to its factory defaults. First, log into the administrator screen at 192.168.1.1. Then go to Administration -->
Next, do a hard reset of your router by holding down its reset button, which you can find on the back of the router. Hold it down for 30 seconds.
Now you're ready to flash the firmware. Before you do it, though, turn off any anti-virus software. If anti-virus software interrupts the firmware flash for any reason, you could damage your router.
Log into the administrator screen and select Administration --> Firmware Upgrade. Click the Browse button, and select the firmware you downloaded. The firmware will end with a .bin extension. For my router, I selected the generic version of the firmware, dd-wrt.v23_generic.bin, because that's what is required by this router and hardware version.