Can someone explain Dual-Band to me? Also explain to me why I need it?

vipermjb wrote:Can someone explain Dual-Band to me? Also explain to me why I need it?

Dual-band simultaneously broadcasts your wireless signal over two different frequencies. You need this if you already have a lot of wireless electronics in your house that cause interference OR if you live in an area saturated with wireless routers/modems.

For you computer geeks out there, this router has DD-WRT installed. I have this router and it gives pretty good coverage.

Keep the reviews coming. I'm ready to buy if it's as good or better than other routers (specifically with signal strength...)

Keep in mind that this is DUAL Band...

That means you get both Rubber & Elastic.

I have this exact router and had nothing but problems with it. You can plop dd-wrt or openwrt ( http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wzr-hp-ag300h ) on it, but that doesn't change the fact that the thing has the ability to transmit about 20 feet before it gets flaky. In my house it was through one wall and you could only get the 5GHz signal in a few spots even at 25 feet.

The stock firmware was awful when I last tried it (about a year ago). The thing has a friggin' 680MHz processor but it was still chugging with the stock firmware. A million options, most of them not possible to disable, and full of memory leaks.

So if you need a router? This may do it but it won't do it well, and especially not without custom firmware. This router is not for the casual user because you pretty much have to install custom firmware, and isn't good enough for the enthusiast. I wouldn't recommend it!

Edit: This review on amazon reflects my issues as well: http://www.amazon.com/review/R8LB3FLBXK1LF

I've had this router for about a year. It's pretty great.

I've got OpenWRT installed on it, which is great for tinkerers (much better package management, etc than DD-WRT). The DD-WRT firmware ain't bad though, as long as you don't use the shell too much.

This router has a relatively large amount of flash storage and RAM (32MB and 128MB respectively). If you hook up a USB hard drive to it and install OpenWRT, and configure the USB drive as an overlay drive, it actually makes for a pretty convenient Linux box to have around the house.

Note that if you do install OpenWRT, you'll need to install the Attitude Adjustment beta version. (The Backfire stable version does not support this router's chipset.)

Here it is on Amazon. Fair to middlin' reviews...price is $133

ILGal wrote: Here it is on Amazon. Fair to middlin' reviews...price is $133

The price is $133 but also bear in mind that's a third-party seller and not Amazon themselves. The independent sellers frequently have inflated prices, especially on discontinued models such as this router.

I am in the market for a gigabit router but I don't think this is it. There seem to be a lot of informed one-star reviews panning the performance.

I'm going to take a risk on one, because even if it doesn't perform any better than my current Cisco Ashtray, I can use it for tinkering purposes.

I have this router with the latest DD-WRT, paid a lot more for it a year ago, works well, for this price it's a steal. The original DD-WRT software that was made for this router had some serious issues, just upgrade the firmware to the latest DD-WRT from the DD-WRT community site and you'll be good to go.

I guess I'll try it out....

Hmmm, I've been watching this one on Newegg for a while. It's $107.99 over there.

Buffalo tech support is excellent. I called them for help with my current router and it was the best vendor support I have ever received. They are based in the US and were extremely well-versed on their products and troubleshooting methods. I'm in for one.

Wow, I have a feeling this bad boy is going to sell out!

DO NOT BUY. These are terrible routers at any price.

I purchased two of these shortly after they were released, and they were nothing but a headache. They are buggy and require frequent reboots. They do not run a stock build of DD-WRT. Furthermore, Buffalo customer support is terrible. Despite having numerous bugs and issues, firmware updates from Buffalo were few, far between, and never addressed the issues that plague this router.

Fair warning.

my current router is also my modem. is this router a modem as well?

rywillis7 wrote:my current router is also my modem. is this router a modem as well?

No, that it doesn't do. Just a straight-up Wireless Router.

I couldn't even find any modems on their site.

Would this eliminate my microwave deadspot? Every time I reheat my McDonalds fries in my microwave it knocks out my Roku, laptops, kids laptops, tablets, streaming movies on my BD players etc.

i have this router & have not have had any problems with latest firmware installed. paid $100 for it around the beginning of 2012.

iissurf wrote:Dual-band simultaneously broadcasts your wireless signal over two different frequencies. You need this if you already have a lot of wireless electronics in your house that cause interference OR if you live in an area saturated with wireless routers/modems.

Sorry iisurf, I am going to have to correct you on this one. Dual-Band does not mean Simultaneous Dual-Band, however this router is Simultaneous Dual-Band.

Dual-Band strictly means the router is capable of transmitting a 2.4ghz or a 5ghz signal. Simultaneous (or concurrent as Woot calls it) means the router is capable of transmitting 2.4ghz and 5ghz at the SAME TIME.

Big Difference especially when trying to compare apples to apples in router world.

Most routers are 2.4ghz but a fair amount of newer routers can also run in the 5ghz spectrum. As iis pointed out the 5ghz spectrum is much less susceptible to interference from other devices but it also has the added benefit of higher throughput.

Its drawbacks include not being as universally supported as 2.4ghz (your device has to support 5ghz to be able to use it) and is not as capable in transmitting signal over longer distances.

dalton349 wrote:Would this eliminate my microwave deadspot? Every time I reheat my McDonalds fries in my microwave it knocks out my Roku, laptops, kids laptops, tablets, streaming movies on my BD players etc.

Possible. The 2.4ghz spectrum is pretty noisy all around. Moving some of your devices to 5ghz would likely help but of course that means your Roku would need to support the 5ghz band. I believe only a few higher end models of the Roku 1 sported support for the 5ghz band. None of the Roku 2's support it to my knowledge.

Of course it its really annoying and running a wire simply isnt an option, at this price why not buy two routers and run one of the routers in bridge mode or bridge/repeater mode. Note you will need to do ALLOT of reading over at DD-WRT to understand how to do this.

I was all set to get one of these but then I read the reviews on it. So many bad reviews! (sigh) What a shame.

I am using this router as I type this. From my experience it's a great router but it's worthless unless you know how to properly configure one. Forget the rubbish official firmware it's awful and gave me endless problems. Instead use dd-wrt which is open source and compatible with the router. I went from regretting my purchase to exclaiming this is the best router I have ever owned.

So if your knowledgeable or not afraid to learn this router is great at this price. If I had a need for another I would have snatched one before typing this.

Oh why not! For $50, that's a really good price! I've been using DD-WRT on my old Linksys G routers for years and what a difference their firmware makes compared to the Linksys firmware. I haven't really messed with dual band routers/5GHz, but for what this router offers, especially the USB port to hook up something like an external backup drive and the ability to flash it with DD-WRT, price wise compared to other sites, it's a $50 gamble that seems to be worth it!

Only have experience with older models of Buffalo Routers, and both the online documentation and phone support were excellent.

In fact, the best phone support I've ever experienced for any technical product.

I was a strong advocate of buffalo routers until I purchased the previous version of this router. It had all the features you wanted. Loved the dlna features and the fast connection speeds. Unfortunately I could not do anything to get it to stay connected for more than a day.

Reboots, firmware updates, g or n or b only, wrt or the stock firmware. Nothing ever made it work right for very long. Oh, and actually put a load on it like three wireless connections and some dlna streaming and it would just throw up and die. Finally gave up on it and went with a Cisco router and have only had to reboot it once in 6 months.
Buffalo used to be my brand of choice but something has changed. Passing on this one.

I had one of these for awhile. Only awhile because it was THE worst wireless router I have ever had. It would frequently, like every day, drop devices off the network and inexplicably block them. The range was spotty. It was just a mess. I checked all settings, reset the router, called tech support, etc, etc. Nothing worked. I replaced it with a $20 dollar refurb Cisco and haven't looked back.

The router is very good, I have one without any issue working 24x7.
The price seems to be good also (I will buy one more), BUT I am thinking twice when I saw the list price at $179, That is a BIG lie. Please be sure you put the right information, you can getting it surfing in Google in 5min. The real price of that router is between $80-120. You can find it at amazon at $79.- with free shipping. Woot price is very good, but don't lie to avoid lost credibility.
Thanks

mangledmess wrote:I have this router with the latest DD-WRT, paid a lot more for it a year ago, works well, for this price it's a steal. The original DD-WRT software that was made for this router had some serious issues, just upgrade the firmware to the latest DD-WRT from the DD-WRT community site and you'll be good to go.

Which firmware are you referring to, when I searched on the router database for WZR-HP-AG300H; nothing comes up as being compatible, and the closest model is WZR-HP-G300NH. I've never worked with a device that's specifically designed to work with DD-WRT, so maybe I'm missing something as far as downloading firmware updates from DD-WRT? Just making sure that this device will support OpenVPN. Thanks!

I've had this for about a year and got it from Amazon. Using the firmware that came with it.

Much better coverage in my house than the D-Link that was also a dual band.

Easy to install and configure.

No problems here! The price is about half what I paid for it.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

nkoconno wrote:Which firmware are you referring to, when I searched on the router database for WZR-HP-AG300H; nothing comes up as being compatible, and the closest model is WZR-HP-G300NH.

DD-WRT's router data-base is useless. Yeah, they really should purge it, but if you check on their forums, you can find out their problems. None of that matters to us, the solution is that:

You want to go to their wiki pages or to their FTP site directly.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Buffalo_WZR-HP-AG300H

It seems frightening at first, but it's really not that difficult.

I guess I'll take a chance. Lots of features for the money, and not rebuilt.

nkoconno wrote:Which firmware are you referring to, when I searched on the router database for WZR-HP-AG300H; nothing comes up as being compatible, and the closest model is WZR-HP-G300NH. I've never worked with a device that's specifically designed to work with DD-WRT, so maybe I'm missing something as far as downloading firmware updates from DD-WRT? Just making sure that this device will support OpenVPN. Thanks!

Just go to the manufacturers site:
http://www.buffalotech.com/support-and-downloads/downloads

you'll see DD-WRT Professional Firmware 19154

I'm a software developer, so I know my way around computers... but I know MAYBE 2 things about wireless networking. At home, I am a pretty heavy wireless user. A laptop, a tablet, two cell phones, a thermostat, and Google TV. My biggest problem is streaming on my TV. If the network isn't being used much, I have no problem streaming HD movies via DLNA to my tv. However, if the network is being used by other devices, I occasionally have issues. On top of that, I cannot stream ANY internet content in HD, YouTube videos almost immediately downgrade themselves to standard definition.

I have been toying around with two solutions and haven't pulled the trigger on either. Buy a better router or hardwire the TV. Running a wire is the cheaper of the two, but will require a considerable amount of labor. I'd buy a router, but like I said, I don't know much about wireless networking, so I'm not confident that spending the money will fix anything.

Does anyone have any input on whether or not buying this router would be a good idea? Or will I simply be out of $50 and in the same position?

FYI, I'd sooner trust Newegg reviews than Amazon reviews.

It appears that a firmware update in July fixed most of the problems people are complaining about.

In for 1.

I just bought the N300 WZR-300HP a few months back for more than this. Haven't had to restart it once and I have about 15 things connected to it without any problems.

This is a good router, but you need to apply the DD-WRT Professional Firmware 19154 that is on the support page http://www.buffalotech.com/support-and-downloads/downloads
If you don't understand ww-drt then download the Buffalo user friendly firmware on that same page.

Woot did a nice job pricing this, I can't even complain (which is rare). The hardware is pretty decent, the range is good if you install the DD-WRT firmware above and know how to tweak it. Newegg has reviews that avg 3 out of 5 stars. After perusing the reviews you will find that most people that know what they're doing(based on the wording of the reviews and not the self ratings) rate it higher than people than people that are not quite so familiar with DD-wrt. The people who put on the "user friendly" firmware from Buffalo also have good reviews. Basically the only people that rate it poorly are those who are trying to use the DD-WRT firmware and think they know how to configure it,instead of just using the simpler firmware. I'm really trying to justify buying it, even though I have 2 other gigabit lan wireless routers just sitting on my shelf.

In for one, Linux savvy so hoping to leverage some of the advance capabilities of the unit. If anything, I'll spend countless hours messing around with it.