known good routers for dual SL homes?

As I am soon to be shacking up with another SL deviant, I am in the market for a router/NAT/firewall box that is known to be kind to dual SL use. I am already aware of the issues discussed in Problems with multiple computers on one connection and although my Linksys BEFW11S4 is working fine, it is beginning to show its age, requires the rare power-cycle kick-in-the-head and the last firmware update is from 2002. I've also contacted my ISP for an OC-48 drop so there should be bandwidth aplenty.

So who has one that is known to work? Here are the things I need:

1. minimum 4 port 10/100 wired ethers
   
2. 802.11b (or b/g) WiFi
   
3. prefer quality and reliability over price
   
4. should be a pretty color
   

Any suggestions?

I connect without any problems using my D-Link DI-524, which you can get for $21.50 after rebate at Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833127143

I've bought several in the past for myself and clients and with every one I've had to do a firmware upgrade when it arrived. After the firmware upgrade (see D-Link's website), they are great wireless and wired routers. A+

Linksys routers are *crap* for gaming use. Over the years I had way too many problems with timeout issues and my various games.

I switched to a very inexpensive DLink DI-604 and have never looked back. Great little router, totally friendly to all the games I've played including SL. No fuss, no muss, and has a good solid rep among gamers.

You can find this at practically any CompUSA or internet vendor.

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=62

(edit) Sorry just noticed you were really looking for a wireless access point (WAP) router, not a plain router. So the DI-604 won't work for you. But I would bet than any D-LINK product that's a WAP/Router will do you just fine.

Seriously, stay away from Linksys for gaming applications. They have no clue what they're doing WRT game ports, UDP timeouts, and the like.

I agree with above, link-sys is for crap. For a good wireless d-link is the way to go. For wired ya can't beat a cisco.

D-link DI-514 worked right out of the box. Supports both wired and wireless, too.

Thanks for the unanimous recommendation, folks. I know it is rude to look a gift horse in the mouth but since no one said "yes I use this successfully for two concurrent SL sessions", I'll ask:Thanks.

I have on my D-Link wireless before and I've done it no problem with my cisco wired. No problem with either actually.

Yes. My partner and I are on many hours of the day on the same DI-604

Oh - to be clear, then:

With no mods to the settings, my D-Link DI-514 supported three connections to SL from three machines.

I have a netgear dg-834-g, and can support as many sl connections as i want, i usually run two simultaneously one on the lan ports and one via wireless to the laptop, although all 4 could be done via lan and more via wireless, router uses nat and upnp to assign ports on need and i've not configured it for sl.

My Netgear WGT624 failed with two SL users and I had to return a D-Link DI-524 because it failed intermittently. But I had a spare PC and ethernet card lying around, so I tried SmoothWall. Worked perfectly.

to my mind this is kind of a "Pepsi or Coke" question.

I use a LinkSys Wireless router and run (usually two but sometimes four) SL sessions with no slowdown or problems I have ever noticed.

Any router that uses good switching technology will do the same job though, and the specs are virtually identical at any given time between the latest LinkSys and the latest D-Link router. They are so much the same technology they could almost be the same company.

The only thing that will slow you down is using a hub instead of a good router.

Thank's again, folks. This post is coming to you live across a d-link DI-524. Now I expect SL will run at hyper-speed, just like the new sneakers that made you run faster than a speeding bullet!

An OC-48 drop eh?? Thats 2.488Gbps, fiber only, and will run over $5000/mo + local loop. A tad overkill for you and a shack-mate to play SL dont ya think?

Also, anyone housing an OC-48, wont be needing a cheesy linksys or D-Link router, you'd be running Cisco gear for sure.

I wasnt going to comment about line speed lol, as sl is bandwidth capped at 1Mbps, or more accurately the client is, in network prefs.

Isn't a Cisco router and a Linksys router the same? I mean Cisco owns Linksys?

I have a Linksys WRT54G5 Wireless G Router that works suberbly with 6 instances of SL opened and running at the same time. It has 4 ports plus wireless and worked great right out of the box.

Avoid Motorola routers like the plauge, mine had constant drop outs and a look through the Motorola support forums indicates so does everyone else.

Bought a Netgear that had the very same problem, I worked for weeks trying to get it to work right but it would just drop out and reset constantly. Took it back and got the Linksys and it has been trouble free since Feburary.