Help me decide: ASUS RT-N16 or Netgear WNDR3700?

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i got Airport extreme yesterday for 10,710 Delhi.

Hooked it, it worked great.

But........

just about 15 feet from the router, 2 concrete 6" walls away, i am getting less than full signal.. the same i used to get from my old not so costly router..

any comments?

on terrace, of my 2 floor house, where router is on staircase of first floor, i get no signal at all.. absolutely no signal with my ipad..

lets see what u guys think..
@pratikb Any suggestions?

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@rdst_1 Compared to tablets and phones, laptops will always be able to get higher streaming speeds. For a 14GB file, I think 54Mbps is not enough for a tablet. You should upgrade.

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!100khz If you plan to go for the 5ghz, you will get the lowest range so far. max is g, then 2.4n and then 5n.
 
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i'm in the same dilemma.. I need long range router (house about 1800sqft with 2 floors and lots of walls inbetween)... so which is the best router?

The asus 3/2 antenna one or the netgear? Please help!!
 
Thanks vk.
Here is what I have done.
I set all the devices in wifi n network and I do not use any other wifi router along with airport.
That reduces management overhead and did you reset it to factory settings.
 
i'm in the same dilemma.. I need long range router (house about 1800sqft with 2 floors and lots of walls inbetween)... so which is the best router?

The asus 3/2 antenna one or the netgear? Please help!!

I'm using the Asus router and it covers all my floors. 3 floors. Though at terrace the range goes down to 2-3 signal but its at par.
 
Is your media player not connecting to the current router?

My understanding, though maybe incorrect, is that operating router in repeater/AP mode loses the ability to use the built-in 'NAS' function.

i get poor-to-zero wifi signal in my laptop at the same distance from the router where the media player is placed.

inability to use the in-built NAS function in the router when set-up as a 'repeater' would do, as i have a separate NAS.

@blr_p - the media player is Himedia HD900B. so what would you suggest to stream HD movies, apart from the CAT5 solution (it does have a LAN port)?!
 
i get poor-to-zero wifi signal in my laptop at the same distance from the router where the media player is placed.
What wifi capability or wifi chip does the laptop have ?

Right now its connecting up with g to your beetel so 54 mbs link speed.

@blr_p - the media player is Himedia HD900B. so what would you suggest to stream HD movies, apart from the CAT5 solution (it does have a LAN port)?!
Himedia HD900b Specs

Network Gigabit EthernetWi-Fi(n)

Chipset Family Realtek 1xx6 (2011) ?
Chipset Model Realtek 1186 @ 750Mhz Single Core


Gigabit ethernet would require either cat5e or a cat6 cable.

How does the single core handle 1080p movies. Say from internal storage attached to the himedia.

Its not clear to me what the wifi capbilites of this device are other than to say its 2.4Ghz with a link speed of 65Mbs. Does the device display its link speed anywhere.

The question is does this unit have 300mbs wifi or not, the vendor page has this misleading graphic.

If it does have N300 wifi and you can reliably verify that it does then a router upgrade will improve things because your link speed will double. N300 means you will get a throughput of 20-30Mbs instead of 10-15Mbs which you currently get with the g. But this depends on how good a wifi signal your receiver gets to begin with, if its weak then even with N300 the link speed chosen will be lower.

If there is no N300 on the device a better router will only give you a marginal improvement if that.


It appears you cannot attach a third party wifi USB dongle to it either. So you cannot increase the link speed.

Now do you see why i recomended a cable :)



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The file i chose for this test is a 14GB mkv format rip of the Avengers Blu-ray. It was stored on an external HDD connected to my PC.

I had tested this file with the iPad before and it wasn't able to play it stutter free for even a second.

I used the MX Player on the Nexus 10. In Software decoder mode the result was the same. Playback with lots of stuttering. However it plays the file without any stuttering when I select the Hardware Decoder mode. It is however not perfect because it pauses every few seconds. There is no tearing or stuttering but it pauses every few seconds as if buffering the file and then it plays for a few seconds flawlessly.
Use BSplayer instead of MX on the N10, go to the bsplayer settings and enable wi-fi transfer and play about with the buffer, default is medium set it to high. Any difference ?

BSplayer is a SMB aware player so you do not need ES file explorer. Just setup your share in bsplayer, brwose and click. Does not get simpler.

I used the Media Player Classic on my laptop to play the same file. The playback was flawless for the most part. In high intensity quick action scenes as in the scene in Avengers when Ironman jump starts one of the engines, there was same stuttering as experienced on the iPad and the N10 in S/W decoder mode.
Incease buffer on the media player classic, if it does not have that option find a player that offers a buffer and is optimised for wifi playback. As you've realised fast action scenes means larger data flow. The data flow isn't constant but variable depending on how fast moving the scenes are. There can be huge spikes here in data flow compared to slower scenes.

So is the router really the culprit here, or is it just too much to ask off present day Wi-Fi technology or it's implementation on my PC or the Nexus when I say i want to stream 1080p content without any stuttering.
Sort out the playback ie software side first. Reduce the variables before tackling the hardware.

BTW, I get constant 2.5 MBps data transfer speed when I am transferring any files over the network from my PC to my laptop. Haven't checked with the N10 as ES File Explorer doesn;t show the data transfer speeds when copying data, but I have found the speeds to be more or less the same.
What wifi capability does your laptop have ?

If it helps, I am attaching a screenshot of the Network Signal Info app on my Nexus 10. BTW, the N10 is capable of connecting via the 5 GHz channel, so if that can help increase the throughput, I can invest in a 5 GHz capable router as well. I usually sit 1 ft away from the router.
Initially my experiement with 5Ghz and the note tab did not go as well as i would have liked. I then realised that i was sitting in between the tab + two walls and the router. The link speed at 5ghz was just 27Mbs. I then sat on the opposite couch now the tablet only faces two walls and the router. The link speed at 5ghz jumped to 81Mbs. Max link speed at 2.4 ghz is 65Mbs.

I notice playback starts up faster as well on 5ghz so there is an improvement. And this is with a 2 bar 5ghz signal with RSSI ~80dbm. I would have thought i was at the limit of the tablets wifi sensitivity for 5ghz but i got good playback with bsplayer.
 
Used BSPlayer as advised and now I am getting the same performance as with my laptop. Increased the buffer size to large and the stuttering is now only restricted to the 'fast action sequences'.:D
 
Used BSPlayer as advised and now I am getting the same performance as with my laptop. Increased the buffer size to large and the stuttering is now only restricted to the 'fast action sequences'.:D
I think your laptop should be doing better than the N10, did you try using a better player ?

What wifi capability does your laptop have ?

I'm wondering whether your N10 is a MIMO.

If the model numer is GT-P8110
then the N10 is a MIMO or a 2x2 send receive.

And that is very good news. First tab i see with Broadcom's MIMO :)

I doubt FM is enabled though.

Your link speed at 2.4 Ghz with a N300 router will be 130Mbs (2x20Mhz) and at 5 Ghz with a N600 router will be 300Mbs (2x40Mhz). Now, you will never get those 3 digit speeds but rather 2x or 4x what you get presently.

With a N300, i think your action scene pauses will be sorted since everything else was ok at half the speed which you have currently. N600 will give you the option of 5Ghz at twice as fast. Since you're in the same room or even in the next room it will work.

Depends on what the max file size of your media files are, a N300 might just work with 14GB, but if they are larger than 14GB then a N600 is required. Back of the envelope figures say you can transfer a 20GB+ file in a couple of hours with N600 but only a 10GB+ file with N300. If you watch a lot of action movies then a N600 is a safer bet than a N300.

Your call whether to go with a N300 or N600 wifi router.

I'm really surprised at the inconsistency in specs of the Nexus 7 & Nexus 10, first is quad-core and only 2.4Ghz wifi and the other is only dual core but with dual band wifi + MIMO. The N10 has effectively 4x faster wifi if paired with an appropriate router than the N7 (!)


Can you post the FCC ID# for the N10 ? should be either on the back of the tab or the box it came in .

would be interesting to see the tests FCC has done with this unit.


 
I think your laptop should be doing better than the N10, did you try using a better player ?

What wifi capability does your laptop have ?

I'm wondering whether your N10 is a MIMO.

If the model numer is GT-P8110
then the N10 is a MIMO or a 2x2 send receive.

And that is very good news. First tab i see with Broadcom's MIMO :)

I doubt FM is enabled though.

Your link speed at 2.4 Ghz with a N300 router will be 130Mbs (2x20Mhz) and at 5 Ghz with a N600 router will be 300Mbs (2x40Mhz). Now, you will never get those 3 digit speeds but rather 2x or 4x what you get presently.

With a N300, i think your action scene pauses will be sorted since everything else was ok at half the speed which you have currently. N600 will give you the option of 5Ghz at twice as fast. Since you're in the same room or even in the next room it will work.

Depends on what the max file size of your media files are, a N300 might just work with 14GB, but if they are larger than 14GB then a N600 is required. Back of the envelope figures say you can transfer a 20GB+ file in a couple of hours with N600 but only a 10GB+ file with N300. If you watch a lot of action movies then a N600 is a safer bet than a N300.

Your call whether to go with a N300 or N600 wifi router.

I'm really surprised at the inconsistency in specs of the Nexus 7 & Nexus 10, first is quad-core and only 2.4Ghz wifi and the other is only dual core but with dual band wifi + MIMO. The N10 has effectively 4x faster wifi if paired with an appropriate router than the N7 (!)


Can you post the FCC ID# for the N10 ? should be either on the back of the tab or the box it came in .

would be interesting to see the tests FCC has done with this unit.



First of all thanks for going to the lengths to help me out. I think in today's wireless world, details like this make a big impact and instead of churning out bigger and faster processors, more effort should be made to put in better hardware overall. The Nexus 10 has only a dual core processor but i am yet to see it lag or reboot randomly, no matter what I throw at it.

I don't have the laptop on me right now, but I was able to get the info by putting in my service tag at Dell's website. The wireless card in my laptop is Intel(R) 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini-Card

As for the tablet, yes it is the GT-P8110 and it's FCC ID is A3LGTP8110.

From the looks of it both of my wireless devices are 5GHz MIMO devices. So keeping this in mind and that nearly 99% of the usage will be in the same room or sometime sin the adjacent room, which router would be best for me. I don't mind buying a N600 router if that gives me piece of mind. Just don''t wanna spend obscene amount of money if I don't have to.
All I would like it to have is a USB port. Preferably USB 3.0 but that is not a necessity.

So please suggest which router should I buy.

Also I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but can a router be used to transmit the signal it receives wirelessly rather than the signal it recieves from LAN. I wanna create a Wi-Fi hotspot using my Android phone and then use the router to transmit that signal so that I can use it on my laptop and N10. Reason is I wanna use my 3G data plan and access the stuff from my hard disk at the same time.
 
No, TP Link really wears out some continous run i.e starts to drop signal if you keep it on for 3-4 days

Hmm I'm using a basic TP link router continuously on from 6 months, and it isn't showing signs as you mentioned.
 
I don't know what problem are you facing, but I, along with many users (as per feedback) haven't faced any kind of problem.

pathetic coverage, not able to cover more than 2 rooms and yes i know about the raving reviews by noobs on flipkart, the basic asus router i used earlier had better coverage.
 
pathetic coverage, not able to cover more than 2 rooms and yes i know about the raving reviews by noobs on flipkart, the basic asus router i used earlier had better coverage.

Well, even I don't trust fk reviews, and never mentioned them.

In my case, my router covers more than 3 floors, leave alone rooms. Even My Asus N13U B1 provided 25% less signal than it.
 
Well, even I don't trust fk reviews, and never mentioned them.

In my case, my router covers more than 3 floors, leave alone rooms. Even My Asus N13U B1 provided 25% less signal than it.

3 floors is astonishing, it is not able to cover even one floor here.
 
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