Hi,

after having endured this awful TG585v8 router for so long I decided it was time to get rid of it, or at least its wireless functionality. The ethernet on it works fine, but the wireless must be malfunctioning or something because over wifi I get intermittent 3+ second pings to the router itself at any distance, even sitting right next to it; the wifi network also dies occasionally and will not revive, and the router needs to be rebooted constantly, the telnet interface is obscenely slow and the web interface often does not load at all, etc... It does not seem to be overheating, the router's system load during the latency spikes looks okay, it's not an interference or range problem, I've just eventually concluded that something inside the router is seriously borked. Inconveniently this stock ISP router has the modem integrated (ADSL2+).

Anyway I've finally had enough of this stupid piece of hardware making my life miserable and am looking for a new router. So far the most promising ones I found were:

* the Netgear AC1200 (D6200) modem + router, but people have reported issues with it and it also doesn't have external antennas; I don't know if it makes a huge difference to the range but I have only ever used routers with external antennas and my house has quite a few rather thick walls so I need powerful reception

* the Netgear DGN2200 modem + router, which is cheap but for some reason these Netgear modem/router combos have a lot of bad reviews from users

 * the D-Link DIR-880L, which is rather expensive and does not come with a modem (so I'd have to hook it up to my current router via ethernet until I can get a separate modem) but has good reviews and actually looks decent (not that appearance is hugely important)

But I don't really know if these are any good. Reading reviews off the net it seems every router ever made has every problem imaginable, can someone help me see through this mess and recommend me a good router that will actually function as advertised? I am a technical person software-wise and can do any and all setup needed but I will no longer tolerate bad connectivity. I also don't care much for any advanced features like parental control or whatever, basic functionality only will do fine. Shared drive capability would be a bonus but not required. Being able to install custom firmware on it would be a bonus but if the stock firmware actually works I'm probably not going to be flashing it for fun.

Thanks for any advice,
a frustrated user