wrt1900acs or rt-ac68R

[lardo5150]

I recently went with a rt-ac66u. It was find but then after two weeks was dropping connections and lose connection to the ISP.
Returned it (Amazon for $140). Found a new rt-ac68R for $99 at Walmart, and have that running now with Merlin.

I want better coverage. Coverage is not bad, but I would like something that stretches out a little further. My neighbor across the street has the WRT1900ACS that I can pick up in my kitchen.
Did some reading on this one and it seems it has great coverage.

I do not do anything other than firewall, nothing else.
My concerns are coverage, and just overall performance.

Should I fork out the extra money for the Linksys? How is it stability wize, does it need reboots? What about custom firmware? Amazon right now it is $199.

My router is in a closet, middle of the house, and of course everything else is away from it, with walls in between.

 

[L&LD]

It may not matter which hardware you use; get the router out of the closet to increase performance.

 

[sfx2000]

Work with what you have first before throwing money at things...

 

[lardo5150]

Moving it out of the closet, the only place to put it is at the one end of the house where I have two cat 5 cables ran (spec house).
I did this, it made the signal to the other side of the house worse.
Maybe instead of the Linksys, go with an AP? The other side of the house, upstairs, has CAT 5 ran so I could put the AP there?

 

[lardo5150]

or should I go all out and get the RT-AC88U

 

[pete y testing]

or should I go all out and get the RT-AC88U

the 88u is certainly going to give you the best wifi coverage but depending on what those ethernet runs are going to and from you are far better to spread the wifi by multiple access points rather than just one

as an example

see my floor plan

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=7D5C...1a0742!812&parId=7d5cb240be1a0742!144&o=OneUp

my main router ( at this point in time ) is an asus rt-ac88u and its at location A

at location D and E being at the other end of the house i lose about 1/2 the 2.4 gig signal and about 2/3 of the 5 gig signal due to walls etc

now even with those losses the signal is still very usable albeit with lower throughput and lower sync

because i want max throughput and sync no matter where i am in the house i have had ethernet run from location A to location D

at location D i run a second wireless router in ap mode ( at this time its the asus rt-ac68u ) which then provides max signal to that end of the house while the 88u provides max signal to its end of the house

i have balanced the power levels so that the mid point see's about 60db rssi wise so that as i move from one area to the other my client adapters roam with ease

use the same ssid but different channels for each transmission

all works pretty well

lesson - if you have ethernet run use it for a far better solution

 

[sfx2000]

see my floor plan

Think you have enough WiFi going on here?

 

[pete y testing]

Think you have enough WiFi going on here?

lol i do have just a few routers and thats just the current stuff

see there is such a thing as too much wifi \

should have seen the inssider graph