802.11n Failure

My wireless home has now 36 ethernet devices scattered all over the place. The only consistent way to count them is to look at the DHCP status log of the DFL-800 router / firewall that is the heart of my network. And BTW I consider the DFL-800 to be one of my best tech / gadget investments. It is not cheap and learning curve is steep. But it can do a lot and has never failed.

Recently I have decided to upgrade the WiFi to the 802.11n standard, promising much better coverage and high throughput. Actually I have been in a need for both, as our newly finished veranda happens to be out of reach of the old and faithful Linksys WRT54GL. I knew the operation would be dangerous, so I started the whole process studying opinions of early 802.11.n adopters. They indicated I should stay away from Linksys, as their new boxes are nowhere near the classic WRT54GL. So I decided to pick the Asus WL-500W. And soon after plugging it in I found out my laptop (Lenovo X61s with Intel 4965AGN dual band network card) would not connect to the Asus in "n" mode. After browsing the Net for several days I decided to flash the Asus with the DD-WRT firmware. DD-WRT is a solid piece of software, looks, feels and works far better that whatever original you have in your router. But despite my hopes DD-WRT did not solve my problem. No connection in "n" mode again... Next try was the Belkin N1. Belkin has never disappointed me performance - wise. I had little trouble setting it up (it has a bug - when you set up an admin's password, it won't let you connect again), but finally was able to connect... with 1mbps speed... Shame...

Third time lucky I thought giving a try to the Airport Express 802.11n. It connected beautifully, showing full 300mbps rate. I was about to cheer Apple for their flawless superiority when I noticed the important difference in setup. Being dual - band, Airport was operating in the 5GHz band, while the previous two (Asus and Belkin) were "only" 2,4GHz devices. To try things out, I changed the Airport settings to run in the 2,4GHz band. Guess what? No connection.... So it really looks like the Intel 4965agn is the problem. It simply would not work in the 2,4GHz, 802.11n mode. I went through various forums and there is no clear confirmation the Intel WiFi card has "n" problems in 2,4GHz, but that is what my small experiment shows.

Unfortunately I cannot change the card in my laptop and really I would not know what alternative to pick, as the 4965 looks really good on paper. It simply looks the 802.11n is still immature technology, and myself, for the time being, I will be using the dual setup: the WRT54GL for 802.11b/g devices and the Airport Express just for my Lenovo laptop. Both Asus WL-500W and Belkin N1 are going to eBay :)