Advice needed - whats the best router for multiple devices ? (Home)

[UK Lee]

Hi Guys , i'm new to networking and im having a few problems. I've done a few searches and read the FAQ's but to be honest , I'm more than a little confused with all the jargon- i hope you can help me.

I'm on 20Mb Cable broadband (Virgin / Telewest) . I'm using their supplied modem thingy , but i replaced the supplied wireless router (a Netgear WNR2000) about a year ago with a Belkin Vision N.

This set up has been working fine , and every time i do a speedtest using speedtest.net i was invariably getting the full 20Mb download speed. However over the last few weeks / months more and more wired & wireless devices have been added to this network and now it seems to be really struggling.
The Belkin Vision router just sort of 'locks up' every so often and i have to unplug the power socket and then re attached it , it sort of 'boots up' and then everythings fine for a while.

The router has 4 'out' ports .
1 goes to my downstairs desktop PC
2 goes to my downstairs printer
3 goes to my downstairs PS3
4 goes to a TP-Link 200Mbps TL-PA201 power line adaptor

the powerline adaptor feeds 3 more powerline adaptors pluged into upstairs sockets to devices upstairs , these are

1) powerline adaptor to upstairs PC
2) powerline adaptor to upstairs PS3
3) powerline adaptor to upstairs Sony LCD TV

Then all these wireless devices are trying to connect to it too !
1 My Iphone
2 wife's Nokia phone
3 wife's laptop
4 daughters net book
5 daughters Nintendo DS

Not everything is connected to the internet at the same time , but quite often there are at least 5 or 6 that are . Am i expecting too much of this router ? is there a limit ? I'd expect the internet connection to 'slow down'
a bit , but not for it to die and need a reboot every few hours

reading through the posts it seems that my Belkin Vision isnt the most reliable - is there a better one for my useage that you guys could recommend please ?

i really look forward to your replies -thanks - Lee

[Rob]

It is not necessarily how many devices are connected, but what those devices are trying to do. I've had a network for LAN parties with computer gamers, where we've had some 15 computers and a couple of wireless things all connected and that has run for nearly 48 hours without a router crash, yet who knows how much data was moved between computers (we are talking of 100s of Gigs as hard drives were leeched), and the internet was hammered too.

What tends to kill a router is when a single device is multitasking over the internet, or the incoming attempts are overloading it. Torrents (P2P) are a prime example of this where to seek the torrent loads of co0nnections are made to other computers to say can you give me something, most are rejected and more are sought yet the router's memory gets overloaded as it can't track all of these at once.

Even though you might not want to do it, routers that can have third party firmware such as DD-WRT may be more robust. They tend to be more adaptable.

Personally I've always been a fan of the linksys series routers.