Which router for a confused noob

Hi,

Just signed up as I’m new to openWRT, not used it before in any capacity.

I have a Virgin media hub 3. And their 200mb connection. Hopefully will upgrade to the 350mb soon.

I have no idea what router would be suitable, I’ve used the hub 3 for years and it’s been mostly okay. But I would like something better.

I want to be able to block ads network wide. Have reliable wifi (not a large house, just 2 bedroom). Needs to have 3 lan ports and a usb port so I can connect a hard drive. And something that is easy to instal openWRT on.

I’ve looked at SO many routers I’m just confusing myself. I’ve searched the forum and read countless posts etc. checked Reddit etc.

I was considering the Gl.inet flint, or the archer C7 v5, or the belkin RT3200. Would any of those be okay? Or should I be looking elsewhere?

Budget is £100.

Thanks.

The Archer C7 would be to weak if you want to route that 350 Mbps AFAIK (old MIPS Soc). The Belkin RT3200 is a bit beefier (ARM SoC).

I don't see any OpenWrt support for the GL.inet Flint anywhere? It has a similar outdated SoC like the Archer C7 though. Skip it, even if it had a PR pending.

OpenWrt cannot use proprietary offloading techniques OEM firmwares rely on, so routing performance will be worse with faster plans like yours.

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CR25ing / CR25Wing on UK ebay, prices start at 30£.

Will happily route 1gibt, add separate wifi, of your choice, unless you get the W model.

There are two USB (2.0) ports, you can also install a 2.5" SATA drive inside.
It's a x86 device, you write the openwrt image to the SSD/HDD, or the CF card.

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agree with the C7 for starters. Quite failsafe from my own experience :+1:

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Thanks. Is there a router you’d recommend?

Only reason I was looking at the GL.inet was because it came with openWRT natively. But I realise now it’s not actually openWRT.

If the archer won’t be able to handle the speed then it’s a bit pointless buying one.

Thanks. Is that just a standard router? As in put the hub in modem mode, plug in and go to its setting page?

It seems to be a bit more complicated than that, and if so I’m not sure if it would be too complicated for me.

Thanks!

I was leaning towards that, but if it won’t be able to handle the 350mb speed then I’d just have to replace it in a few months anyway.

it's not a home router, no plastic, fancy LEDs and stuff, looks like a network switch, but otherwise, yeah.
You also get endless storage (not really, but at least 2TB via SATA, I guess), 2GB of RAM, and a (lot) beefier CPU.

UI is exactly the same, the flashing differs, but it's pretty unkillable, since you can't wipe the bios (boot loader, in the router world) by accident.

Add a TP-Link RE650 or Asrock G10, as AP for the wifi, both are currently cheap on ebay.

if you want a single device solution, consider the G10.

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That’s likely. Good thing is that they’re about 15-20 EUR/USD each second hand. Worth the money for an experiment

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RT3200 would be a safe bet I'm pretty sure. Now it's officially supported in 22.03 and is the darling of this forum at the moment.

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Except it's currently almost 90£, still within OPs budget, but not worth it, imho.

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Yes pity the Ebuyer UK stock ran out - was £50 for quite a while.

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Yeah, it was a good deal at 50, at 90, not so much.

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Thank you.

So I’d need to add something so it has wifi?

I’m hoping for an all in one solution.

The W model has wifi, what kind, is however unknown, but with three antennas, it could be AC.

So go for the G10.

Get one of them, if you're unhappy with with the CR25's wifi, add an AP (old router),
or get the G10, if it's too slow (shouldn't be), add the CR25, and make the G10 an AP.

Whichever way you go, it's not money wasted.

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Okay. Sorry I got a bit confused there though the G10 was an add on.

I’ll have a look at it.

The C7 is stable and failsafe, but it's completely out of its leagues with 350 MBit/s wan speeds

(the hard limit is around 175-200 MBit/s).

Not with the OPs speed requirements in mind. Might still be nice to play around with, to get familiar with OpenWrt, maybe as addon wireless AP - but it's totally unsuitable to route 350 MBit/s.

The price of the rt3200 fluctuates quite drastically, with a little patience you may get it for 50-70 GBP though - and it's more than worth that much for a wifi6 wireless router.

Personally I'd lean towards the CR25ing as well, as it sorts out the routing speed problem quite reliably and should be a good match, combined with a decent AP, but with the OPs requriements in mind, the rt3200 might be an easier entry into OpenWrt. Do not count on the wireless option of the CR25Wing, only a single mini-PCIe slot and afaik 802.11n (ath9k), this needs to be outsourced to a proper concurrent dual-band 802.11ac/ ax AP.

The ASRock g10 is a nice device, much faster than the c7 and often available for rather little money, but 350 MBit/s is not far away from its maximum routing performance and recovery is not very user friendly (serial console required). For the right price still a great option, even if 'just' as AP.

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The CR35ing might be another option, for wired router.
6 ethernet ports instead of 4.

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but keep in mind, were you place it. As far as I remember, the cr25(w)ing has 2 permanently running fans, it is not really a device suitable for use in living room or office.

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One, not very loud.

And you could replace it with a Noctua.