Building a super router out of old PC parts
I can't tell you how many hours—days—of my life I have spent messing with internet connectivity over the years. I must've power cycled a modem and a router a thousand times, hoping that unplugging and replugging things in the right order would restore a sluggish connection. Trying to set up Quality of Service settings to keep my connection stable when three college roommates were hogging the download. Installing custom firmware on an old black-and-purple Linksys router and boosting the antenna power to try to get a better wi-fi signal. There's always something that annoys me, and I feel like this is a near-universal experience: No matter how much you spend on a router, it will still, somehow, make your life miserable.
This is the awful truth. Routers suck. They're bad. Their interfaces are slow. Their problems are impossible for most people to diagnose. I've spent years trying to make my routers better, thinking, there has to be a better way. Maybe if I put it in the right place, maybe if I find the right settings, maybe if I spend more money.
It turns out there is a better way, a much better way, to make your internet connection vastly better and more stable. You build your own router.
