Advice on new router for eircom broadband connection

longshotmagoo

hey people,

i would like to know if anyone here could suggest some good routers to replace the standard eircom router as the house im in has quite a lot of different connections and it seems this eircom one dont have wat it takes to handle it all. there a ps3, xbox, wii, 2 laptops, 2 ipods and a phone that all connect wirelessly to the router and one pc that is connected via lan cable. were having the issue of people being disconnected from the router and i think it is because the router cant handle this many connections cus i hardly think eircom are nice enough to give away routers to handle all that on a daily basis.

so yea as the title says i would like to know what routers would be good to handle the connections mentioned above. its possible that an another pc will come into use so will deffo need room for expansion.

thnx in advance on any help you guys can give to me on this topic


p.s. is there a limit on how many connections an eircom router can handle?

Shane O' Malley

Which Eircom Router have you got.

What wireless setup are you using?

PogMoThoin

Have you tried changing wireless channel?

longshotmagoo

its the newer single large aerial black router (old one was the netopia silver double aerial which was tried and still have the same connection drop with that too) and tried swapping channels. when the connection drops the router restarts aswell.

the wireless setup would be the default settings on the eircom router. cant get exact details as im not in the girlfriends at the moment.

i know my way around some basic networking and stuff but dont wanna start messing with any of the settings incase it screws up things more. engineers have been out and checked the lines in the past and said they fixed them but to be honest i highly doubt that since this aint the first time the issue has happened.

Shane O' Malley

Well you can get a new Wireless access point quite easily. I like to stay away from the top speed ones as they only achieve those speeds in ideal conditions away from any other signals.

However you need to check a few things.

If you are using the default wireless settings you may have a security issue. You should ensure you are using WPA2 for your encryption.

While you do have alot of devices using the wireless they will not be all active at the same time and unlikely that they are causing the router to fail.

The Zyxel modem which is the one i think you have is pretty poor so would do no harm to spend €60 or €70 on a new access point. I would leave the router there and just disable the wireless.

longshotmagoo

usually most of them are active at same time. on a normal day the pc, 2 laptops and the xbox will be on as there is there is the parents of the house and the 4 kids (8 yrs to 21yr) and soon to be myself, all have tech added to the router lol.

i'll check the encryption 2morro when im there. the dad likes to tinker with things when they broken but in saying that he did do a reset on the router and i think there is a new one on the way out to the house soon (prob just the same one as the other). one thing ive been tempted to do is setup a small home network between things to help limit devices and/or adding another router in to the mix (one upstairs and one down if that makes sense, sleepy at the mo so brain aint the best)

Shane O' Malley

Well i would always vote for a wired network whenever possible.

My research says that most routers have a limit of 20 active clients. This is not because it can't handle more, it is just that more would slow the wireless network so much as to make it next to useless.

Should be able to handle 20 with no reboots or connection dropping.

Maybe see if there is a trend to the connection dropping. I know my home wireless has to be restarted every couple of days or the xbox stops connecting.