c/o Clocked:

Anyone got any recommendations for something with excellent range and speed (range preferred tbh)

Every time I try wireless I become rather disenchanted by sh*te hardware, so if someone can recommend something that is actually decent and wont randomly disconnect Id be happy

Belkin have caused me nothing but problems recently.  In extreme cases damage the OS and certain services.  I find its the software & drivers that ruin the product more than anything with wifi cards/dongles.

I havent had any bad experiances with netgear or D-Link wifi products.

Recently Ive been thoroughly impressed with some D-Link access points in a factory I installed, I left my laptop running on site VPNd into work, when I got back after a few hours it was still connected.

Suggestion...

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=0&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=103208

Old Faithful
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/78905

I spent £100 on a Linksys 3 antenna wifi-N jobbie to see if tech had moved on well enough. It was a bit crap and went straight back

Im still unimpressed with wifi.

This Netgear DG834 is working sweet though, nice router, theyve come on considerably.

I think saying your unimpressed with wifi is a bit harsh. Some of the top end kit is superb. Some of the Cisco, Artem, Alverion and Breezecom solutions Ive worked on have been as impressive as hell working in all sorts of weather and temperatures and connecting through trees, and huge distances.

I can understand why people dont like home wifi kit (router and wifi card etc..) because yes to be fair its still nowhere near the level it should be at. I use a Westell Versalink which is the best Ive found in the SOHO market but its still not as good as it should be (although to be fair Ive noticed HP laptops tend to get far lower signal power than Dells and Acers grrrr..).

One of our engineers got hold of a 2wire box (google it) and you can flash it and increase the power rating. He had a connection to his home router from his laptop whilst sitting in the cafe by work which was a huge distance. Highly illegal but impressive nonetheless!

Its not really harsh, its simply my impression of the quality of home kit: unimpressive and expensive. Things like that signal boosting are impressive, but I find cabling far more reliable, less prone to problems and doesnt need encrypting.

Quote from: Clockd 0NeIts not really harsh, its simply my impression of the quality of home kit: unimpressive and expensive. Things like that signal boosting are impressive, but I find cabling far more reliable, less prone to problems and doesnt need encrypting.

I see your point although to an extent thats just highlighting the benefits of cabling - remember it has its own flaws too. I mean yeah ok in a straight data performance fight cabling wins all the way but the whole point in wifi is to eliminate the problems cabling has. Locations, flexibility, roaming, multiple connections - all great things with wifi. If your in a position where these things mean nothing to you then you dont need wifi in which case yes its unimpressive. But then shoes probably dont hold much appeal to a footless man either....  

Cabled performance is far superior and if I could get that on my home network it would be great - but its far more important for me to be able to use my laptops where I want, not have to have switches all over the place and horrible cable throughout the whole house so despite its imperfections wifi its still a fantastic and useful technology.

I think for most home users wifi is nicer and keeps the missus happy about having cables going around the house, maybe its just I dont get along with it.

For the new house i have :
306M of Cat5s
50 RJ45s Plugs
Watchguard SOHO 6tc
Cisco 2950/12
WRT-54GL to keep the girlfriend happy.

I personally loath using wireless for anything that is even remotely taxing. The data rate sucks and its not constant no matter what you do with it.  If i could afford some nice Aironet kit then I would possibly use it more, but there is little as annoying as _nearly_ finishing a download and the wireless dropping out.  

sorry, forgot to mention.

Linksys WUSB-54 series stuff is about the best in the home user category.  Ive used ones from most companies, and they are consistently the best of the breed.  If you can afford if then get a Cisco internal card with an external antenna.

For a router :
ADSL - Netgear DG834-G series, they are the most reliable ones ive used.  
Cable - Linksys WRT-54 series, the GL is the best because you can flash a decent firmware into it.  

I think lots of wi-fi is sh*t too but since I got this new laptop (Dell inspiron 9400) wireless has been flawless.

I have a belkin usb dongle, it worked but it was causing me nothing but grief until i found a recommendation on another forum saying to remove all belkin software and then install just using drivers.

Then use the default xp wireless network handling software

since i did this it has been 100% stable

seems it is yet another hardware company that just cant make decent software