Tech Gear Thread

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

I just ordered one of these today:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/wireless-router.shtml

For $10, it's not that bad of a price. Technically we're not allowed to have wireless routers in our dorms, so if they catch me and confiscate it, it was only $10, lol. It's so annoying not having wireless in our dorms.

[alpha]

^^wow, that's cheap..

[timot_one]

A new router?  Tell us more Mark.  My router has to be reset at least once every 2 or 3 days.

Jeff, that's fucking retarded.  Tell them to join the fucking 21st century.

I am fairly happy with the fact that I got a 1st gen 160 gb Apple TV for like $60.  It took forever to put all my movies and music on it, but it works great now.

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

It's fucking retarded. They opted to get security cameras installed in the hallways instead of getting wireless installed. What a bunch of idiots.

[cna]

well am into my dd-wrt router still works like a charm

[timot_one]

I'm not sure how that equates to you not being allowed to have wireless because they decided to spend their money on something else.

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

It's just a part of NOC's rules (the group/company/organization/whatever that handles the campus internet)

UCF's wireless network is installed, operated, and maintained by NOC for the entire campus. Only NOC is permitted to install or operate an Access Point (AP). Any AP not installed by NOC and using UCF's air space will be considered a rogue AP. Rogue APs will be confiscated and any UCF member caught running one will be officially disciplined. Please see NOC’s Wireless Standard 1-001 for more details.

My guess is that it's a way to prevent people from having crazy LAN parties in one room, sapping all of the bandwidth. I plan on hiding the SSID and using WPA2-AES encryption with MAC filtering to prevent any other people from connecting to my network. That's going to be the least suspecting route.

[cna]

Yea thats what i was about to say hide your connection and hide the router well you should be good

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

I won't even be hooking up the router straight to the wall. I'm going to have it plugged into my computer to keep it hidden. That way on UCF's side, all they see is my desktop. The only downside is that my desktop would have to be on for there to be internet to other devices, but that's fine with me, lol.

[alpha]

A new router?  Tell us more Mark.  My router has to be reset at least once every 2 or 3 days.

Jeff, that's fucking retarded.  Tell them to join the fucking 21st century.

I am fairly happy with the fact that I got a 1st gen 160 gb Apple TV for like $60.  It took forever to put all my movies and music on it, but it works great now.

Well, I picked up a D-Link DIR-825.  I wanted an N enabled router with gigabit ports and a usb port.  It also needed to have DD-WRT support, since the first thing I did after unboxing it was flash it with DD-WRT.

I'm pretty happy with DD-WRT as I've had it running for years on my Linksys WRT54GS.  I'll have to keep an eye on this new D-Link for the next few days or so and see how it performs.

I connected my usb printer to the D-Link and enabled the print server.  I'm planning to turn the Linksys into a client bridge so it doesn't just sit in a drawer collecting dust.

The Linksys has been performing great, haven't had to reset it in a while.  I just wanted something with a usb port and figured I might as well take advantage of wireless N and gigabit.

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

Damn Mark, you should've sold me your Linksys haha. I've never used DD-WRT before, but it looks awesome. We have a Netgear WGR614v7 which is like the only version of that model that can't be flashed. That router has been collecting dust for a couple years now though; at my house I'm using a Trendnet TEW-633GR router. It has gigabit ports, draft-N (bought it a looooong time ago), and overall performs very well.

Gigabit is awesome though. I can download large files from my server (which is connected via gigabit) over the wireless N at upward speeds of 10MB/s. I can't even imagine what it would be if it was a wired to wired transfer.

My parent's family business has a Linksys WRT54Gv2, which can be flashed. I've thought about replacing it with the Netgear we have (we don't actually own the Netgear, it was given to us by our ISP), but I didn't want to deal with the trouble of returning it should we change providers.

Wireless N is so much better than G too, even if the hardware I have is draft (what's the difference, anyways?). My 360 has the older G adapter, and it would blow when I played upstairs, which was a shitload of walls away from the router.

So if any of you guys need to set up a wireless network, wireless N all the way, haha.

[alpha]

I got the client bridge up and running.  I actually still have G devices, but the D-Link is dual band, so I have one wireless network set up on 5GHz N and the other on 2.4GHz G.

Jeff, I recommend DD-WRT.  It's pretty awesome, and really powerful.  It opens up a lot of features.

[timot_one]

Can you guys dumb it down for people like me?

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

Mark runs his N network on 5ghz because there's less interference probably. There are various household devices that use 2.4ghz that can interfere with the signal.

My wireless network runs on 2.4ghz, and my wireless 360 controllers use that too. Whenever I would download something large on my desktop, and if I walked over near it with my controller, the controller would lose its signal to the Xbox lol.

Other than that though I've never really had any problems with 2.4ghz because all of our household phones use 5ghz+.

DD-WRT is like putting Kpro in your car. It lets you control every aspect of the router, haha.

[cna]

Yes i have been runing dd-wrt mega over-clocked and sd card/usb enable with heat sinks with 12dBi  Antennas with the open networks in my area bridged so theres always internet around my house i have also hidden my network for security reasons i dont see why to upgrade yet but N wireless seems decent but i leave all the bandwidth for the ps3 and desktop anyways