On Mon, 2011-11-07 at 05:26 -0600, Jeff Bequette wrote: > This may be out of our bailiwick on this list, but here goes: > > DP 1.8 G5, running Leopard 10.5.8, 4 gigs ram, hardwired into the > Airport extreme (saucer, model A1034) > an iPad 1 > 2 or 3 iphones (if daughter is home) > 2 mac laptops (when both girls are home) > netflix via wireless (airport extreme) on the home entertainment system > Hp 5-in-1 printer, which must be hardwired into the computer for > scanning. > Cable modem > > She who must be obeyed has expressed displeasure with the Airport > Extremes performance, constant reboots and associated interruptions in > movies and playing on the iPad. > My routers lock up and need to be rebooted once in a blue moon. If yours do it frequently, replace them.
I thought Ayesha had perished at the end of She. I did not know she lived on to complain about something as trivial as video streaming. > Is there one that is better for a home system than others? > Anyone had good luck with refurbished units? > Limits: G5 does not have an airport card, so needs hardwire > (currently ethernet) entry. > $$ > Some routers do a better job than others. For cheap devices, a Linksys WRT54G, version 4 or less, reflashed to OpenWRT or DDWRT is about as good as it gets. I have a friend who used to really push a FIOS connection regularly. We had to go with a fancier router(about $200) to keep the router from being the bottleneck. So, I know the router makes a difference. If your cable modem is 6 MBPS or slower, a good home router should be enough. The best setup is to get a router that is separate from the access point. The access point plugs into one of the ports on the router and provides your your wireless connectivity. I say this is best, but how you use the network really affects how much difference you will notice. I do mostly wired ethernet at home. I typically have a dozen computers running and connecting to the internet doing various things. My access point is not stressed because only wireless traffic needs to be routed by it. I use a couple of different wireless N routers, each flashed to OpenWRT for performance,d security and features. If you are doing mostly wireless, then separating probably would not help you as much. It sounds like you may have just one wired computer and I don't know how busy it is relative to your total network. > WEP 128 bit security? Should I assume WEP 256 is better? Or is WPA > adequate? > As others have said WEP-256 does not exist. ANy WEP is insecure because the protocol is fundamentally broken. WEP is somewhat easier on the router computationally, but I always recommend WPA if you are going to secure the access point. > Will updating into the n-bands have a large increase of speed for > phones and laptops? > Wireless N can make a huge difference for streaming video. Of course, you need to have a wireless N setup on the router and the home entertainment system. It is not so much the speed of Wireless N as its ability to sustain throughput in the face of other traffic. If you have other devices at home also using wireless G networking while you are streaming video, then it is easy for home entertainment system to not keep enough sustained bandwidth for video to stay perfect. The more devices on your network you move to N, the better, but probably updating the home entertainment system and the access point is enough. Good luck, Ralph -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
