There's nothing wrong with my router, but it's about 5 years old or so. When do you replace these? I'll give a litle more info about my situation. Got a two year old laptop, a two week old laptop, Kindle Fire, Xbox 360, PS3, 3DS, Galaxy SII, and Wii all using WiFi. My speed is probably being dragged down by my router, right? I'm guessing it's like anything, you're only as strong as your weakest link, or Dlink in my case. (see what I did there?) And if I do upgrade, what do I look for and point me to a good deal, yes? Thanks.

Guessing it's a Wireless G router? Most of those devices have Wireless N in them as well which would give you a little bit of a range boost and local speed boost. I went ahead and upgraded mine for the same reason. My Linksys router was nearing 6 years since I bought it and it did sometimes randomly drop connection and other things. Replaced it with a Wireless N router and everything was good with the world again. You may or may not notice an increase in speed. You will def notice a different in transferring things wirelessly but thats only for local connection not actual internet.

I upgraded my old Linksys router after it went out to lunch last year. It was hanging and causing problems for a few months before that and I would have to reset it almost daily. I ended up going with a Apple AirPort Extreme router that I found on eBay for $99. The place I bought it from had a bunch of them they got as returns that were still in the retail packaging.

The normal price on AirPort Extreme router is $179, so for $99 I thought it was a good deal. You may be able to find the same thing on eBay now or you can look at http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/spec...mac_accessories and get it refurbished for either $129 or $149. I am not sure if there is anything different between the 2008 and 2011 model they have there. All Apple refurbished products come with a 1-year warranty just like the retail products.

I have been happy with my AirPort Extreme and I get a little further wireless range now. You set it up via the AirPort Utility for the Mac or Windows instead of using a web browser to administer it. At first I didn't know if I liked using software instead of a web pages for administration coming from the Linksys router, but now it is nice to have a easy to use interface.

I actually just bought an Apple AirPort Express a week or two ago refurbished from Apple to extend my wireless network and be able to have a wired network jack up in our dining room where I am building my new computer. I also work on other desktop computers without wireless cards in the dining room from time-to-time for people, since I don't have room by my computer desk in the family room to work on them.

You can use the AirPort Express as a wireless router and it is only $69 refurbished or $99 new. If you use it as router it can only be used for 10 wireless connections, since it limits you to 10 and only has one ethernet port on it where the cable modem connects to it. I am still using my AirPort Extreme for my main router that my cable modem connects to and my desktop computer, then I am using this to extend my wireless network and give me a better signal out on the patio for when it gets warm again and the snow goes away here in Cleveland.

When I got the AirPort Express last week it was working, but I didn't like how I configured it at first to connect to my 5GHz network and I couldn't connect to it with my laptop. I tried resetting it to factory defaults by pressing in the reset button while plugging it in and then it died. I kept getting a solid amber light and then it would flash green for a second and go back to the solid amber light. I took it to our local Apple Store to the Genius Bar and they couldn't get it working either. The guy went in the back to find a replacement, but he couldn't find one, so he gave me a new retail one instead. This meant that I paid $69 for the retail version that normally cost $99. SWEET! It is working now and I am actually typing this on my new Hackintosh desktop computer using the AirPort Extreme to connect to my wireless network and the Internet.

The one other thing that the AirPort Extreme has to offer that some routers don't have is the dual band antennas. This allows me to have two separate networks running. I can have a standard wireless network and a 5GHz network running at the same time. Some of the new routers also offer the option to have a guest network that your friends and family can use when they stop over if you don't want them on your main network.

I am happy with my AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express set up. I don't know if the Internet is any faster, but at least it is more reliable now. The Airport Utility for managing the routers is also nice and keeps things somewhat simple. I think you would be happy with any newer Wireless-N router and if you get one with dual band antennas that will give you more options too. I was happy for a long time with my Linksys router and I can't say anything bad about them, but I decided to go with the Apple router, since $99 was a good deal for what it had to offer at the time. My brother would call me a sell out for buying an Apple product, but I am happy with it and don't have any complaints.

I currently run a Linksys E2000 I got refurbished for $30, with the Tomato replacement firmware. It has 4 port gigabit switch, and single band N wireless. Deals pop up from time to time on them.

The upgrade to N wireless is one benefit you would get, but I don't know if that is worth replacing something that is not broken. I still run the E2000 at G-Only and have no issues with low bandwidth, even with Netflix.

The big change I saw from an old Linksys WRT54G was throughput. I have Road Runner Turbo, and the old router just couldn't keep up with the speed. Also, even though it is gigabit now, my 100mb devices are transferring files faster between local machines.

Any router that is capable of running alternate firmware like Tomato or DD-Wrt add a lot of very useful features. I bought a Netgear WNR 3500L because there is a very large community around it here. Hardware is superior to the Linksys E2000 but the wireless range was lower. Now it's my hacker toy so I don't have to mess up the E2000 and have my wife yell at me

For what it is worth, I also have an Apple Time Capsule which has the router built in. I did not like having to use a 3rd party tool to make changes, and being locked into the very few options Apple provides (there was no easy way to get my VoiP working for example). I disabled all the network features and keep it as a dedicated Time Machine NAS.

If you want a good dual band router I would keep an eye out for the Linksys E3000. I have seen referbs as low as $50. It can run the same Toastman Tomato firmware as my E2000 but you get dual band and USB support.

The one thing I ran into with my AirPort Extreme when originally setting it up to support WEP 128-bit so my Nintendo DS Lite could connect was that WEP 1280bit wasn't available in the drop-down menu in the AirPort Utility. I believe I had to hold the "ALT" (Windows) or "Options" (Mac) key on my keyboard while clicking the wireless network security options for more choices to appear.

I had to press the "ALT" key in other places also to see more features. This was a little confusing at first and I could actually see why they would have a lot of returns if someone bought it to do WEP 128-bit and didn't think it had it. By default they only show you the latest security options for wireless networks. I am guessing this is Apple trying to make things simple???

When I got the AirPort Express last week I decided to switch everything over to WPA2 Personal and everything has been working fine once I reconnected my laptops, Wii, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, etc. The only thing that won't work anymore is my original Nintendo DS and my wife's Nintendo DS Lite, which we don't use online anyways.