Router upgrade: Linksys WRT54G alternative

[Lalitmohan]

I have a small wireless network which is connected through WRT54G v5.1 router. I, now a days, notice some problems in this; it responds too slowly. Since a lot of devices are connected to it, I could not afford this at all. I have recently upgraded my router firmware to DD-WRT. It was initially running the original firmware. My problems is that it goes slow, unable to get into the web interface, make out and in with the power to enter.

Is it because of the devices that are connected to the router or the router itself is having the problem? Does my router needs a lot of cooling for this? Is there any other router (may be a better one) to handle things in a better way?

[Spyrus]

If you do not need gigabit networks, I recommend you to go for Linksys WRT160NL. It works really well with DD-WRT; you have four LAN ports (five if you enable the WAN port to LAN use) and 802.11n wireless networks. The USB port on the router can be used to connect an external USB hard drive or flash disk.

Features of WRT160NL:

1. Built-in media server lets you share multimedia with any connected UPnP-enabled clients.
2. MIMO technology uses multiple radios to create a strong signal that travels farther and reduces dead spots.
3. Fast wireless speeds for high bandwidth applications such as video streaming or file sharing.
4. Supports up to 128-bit encryption.
5. Supported file systems (read-and-write) for USB storage device: FAT16, FAT32, NTFS.

[Steve123]

The NETGEAR WNDR3700 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router provides you with the best performance and features for home and business networking. With twice the available bandwidth with simultaneous Dual Band N, Gigabit ports, ReadyShare USB, guest SSID, broadband usage meter and more, the router has the power you need and the flexibility you want for your network. Enter dd-wrt and you have a great router at a cheap price!

[Lemog]

WNDR3700 is a dual band router and should work fine for your use. Alternatively, I would recommend ASUS RT-N16 which I myself have. These have far more memory and better CPU usage than most routers. The RT-N16 stand as 300,000 connections to the network. My router never locked and CPU idle normally around 0-2% during use. Indeed I am using DD-WRT.

[Amie]

Have you applied automatically restart each day? I have on my WRT54GL and it helps very much. Remember that there is little memory on a router and it easily gets filled up with many users on it So it becomes very important that the router gets rebooted every once in a day, usually while sleeping for example.

[Lalitmohan]

Thanks for your input guys. OK I have set it to reset every day at 05:00. But this doesn't help either. I still have this problem. Changing the router will be the last option for me but I would like to know if there is any other way to improve the performance of the router? Is it possible with DD-WRT or something else?

[Amie]

Of course there is. The problem is that your router is having only 8 MB of memory right now. However, you can double it with the following command in your router:

nvram set sdram_init = 0x0A
nvram set sdram_ncdl = 0
nvram commit
reboot