How is the range of the Netgear WNR3500L?
I have several Netgear WNDR3300 routers, and I am interested in improving the wireless range with a new router.
Does anyone, who can compare, have both a Netgear WNR3500L and Netgear WNDR3300?
How is the range of the Netgear WNR3500L?
I recently purchased the Netgear WNR3500L and promptly installed the latest Toastman firmware for it. I love the features of Tomato and Toastman but have been disappointed with the range.
Just today I was researching ways to extend the range and think I may purchase another of the same model and extend the first through WDS.
I've played extensively with the power settings and am able to get better throughput with less power (7 mW seems to work fine for me) but have not had luck extending the range even when bumping up the power to 40 or 50 mW.
Adding insult to injury I am using an older MacBook Pro and the aluminum case really kills the signal.
Can anyone else share their experience and advice?
Thanks!
I looked at and compared the Netgear WNDR3300 and Netgear WNR3500L router charts on SmallNetBuilder. To answer my question, yes, the Netgear WNR3500L has somewhat better range than the Netgear WNDR3300, according to SmallNetBuilder's charts.
On the charts, according to SmallNetBuilder's six location method, I looked at these two locations, in particular, which are the furthest away from the wireless access point:
Location E: ~55 feet away on upper level
Location F: ~65 feet away on upper level
Better six location method description here:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-howto/30488-how-we-test...
The Netgear WNDR3300 mostly scored all 0 in the E and F location tests, while the Netgear WNR3500L scored a couple to several points higher.
Netgear WNDR3300:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/30502-cheap-but...
Netgear WNR3500L:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/31153-new-to-th...
Although the wireless range for the Netgear WNR3500L is slightly better than the Netgear WNDR3300, I don't think this is enough to consider the small improvement, if I am going to buy a new router.
You can see a list of other routers on the main chart here, and you can select which test location you want to see:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/bar/58-2_4-ghz-dn?se...
For good performance in locations E and F, several top routers are Netgear WNDR3700, Linksys E4200, Asus RT-N56U, and Trendnet TEW-691GR. The Linksys E4200 has good scores but is very expensive, so I may consider the Netgear WNDR3700.
According to the charts, the Trendnet TEW-691GR has great performance in locations E and F. Unfortunately, the Trendnet TEW-691GR is single band at 2.4 GHz, has no USB port, and currently has no DD-WRT support.
I have also tested the range of WNR3500L comparing with Linksys E1000-v1 and ASUS RT-N12 using TomatoUSB Build-54 on all routers. I have tested the routers on the same location and exactly same settings. I used a laptop with Broadcom Wireless-N card to transfer the same 600MB file to/from another computer that was connected to the router on the Ethernet switch. WNR3500L has exact same WiFi performance with RT-N12 and E1000 in a close range. But WNR3500L has consistently gave increasingly lower WiFi performance as I went farther away in the house. At the farthest point, RT-N12 and E1000 still had good signal (RT-N12 was better) but I was not able to connect to WNR3500L. I have noticed that as the WiFi performance of WNR3500L started to decrease at farther distances, the difference of WiFi performance between up and down directions started to increase. Upload speed was decreasing more than the download speed. At some point the upload speed was half of the download speed. My understanding is that the internal antennas of WNR3500L are the problem. And adjusting the TX power did not help with the upload speed at all since the problem is with the signal reception of the router.
Currently WNR3500L is the main router without WiFi and E1000 and RT-N12 are connected to it as access points. I am planning to do the external antenna mod. I will post if I see any changes after that.
in short, WNR3500L has weak WIFI range performance, no better than my old linksys wrt54g or asus 520gu, WIFI signal 10db less. for example, when I got -76 with asus 520gu, I can only get -86 with WNR3500L, which makes not connectable...