[ALUG] Wireless router recommendations + graphics card.

[Wayne Stallwood]

On Tue, 2007-01-16 at 12:53 +0000, Luke Dodd wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Firstly I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good wireless ADSL
> router. The problem with my current router (dlink 604+) is that it
> cant seem to handle more than one person using a substantial amount of
> bandwidth constantly, even though over all there is bandwidth to
> spare. For example only one person in the house can listen to Internet
> radio or stream video at once, with a 2MBit link two Internet radios
> at 128k should be possible! So are there any routers that would share
> out the bandwidth more effectively to 2-5 computers at once (cheap
> ones :D)? 

I recently ditched my 604+ because it seemed to be struggling somewhat
with MaxDSL. Basically I could crash it on demand. If for example I did
a random search on Google and then middle clicked each link on the page
to open in a new tab the Router would die and require power off/power on
before it would work again. Before my MaxDSL upgrade it was fine.
Whether this is faulty or just rubbish by design I am not sure.

My personal favourites are Draytek, ZyXEL and Netgear DG834's (in that
order) the first two are pretty expensive but rock solid in my opinion.
The netgear's are mostly ok although they do crash from time to time and
we have had a few returns (which netgear are notoriously crap at)

You can buy a factory refurb 834G for £40 from digidave.co.uk..Also your
local PC World is usually peddling out something with a respectable name
for about the same money.

Reference the GFX card, it does sound very much like a hardware problem,
perhaps an issue with the video ram. I'd try and substitute a similar
card borrowed from somewhere to confirm. I have also seen some GFX cards
upset by a failing or poor quality PSU.