My home network is built around a Netgear DGND3300 (all-in-one simultaneous dual-band router/NAT box/firewall/ADSL modem). It seems to do the job reliably, but due to wiring constraints it must be in an upstairs closet in a far corner of the house. Since it's range is dubious for reaching the opposite corner, I have a D-Link DAP-1522, rigged into my entertainment center, and wired through the wall to the upstairs Netgear box. The D-Link serves as a wired switch for the boxes in the entertainment center and as a 802.11g/n AP for the room around it.

DHCP and whatnot runs on the Netgear, while the D-Link is configured to be a dumb switch plus AP.

For the past few months, things have been flakey, like my computer would sometimes fail to associate with the AP and would ask me what the passphrase might be. (I'm using WPA2-Personal, AES-Only, for what it's worth.) Today, I started dorking around, and the culprit seems to be the D-Link. If I turn off its wireless, forcing everything wireless in the house to speak to the Netgear upstairs, then things seem to work, modulo the range issue.

So... my suspicion is that the D-Link has failed in some fashion, maybe it's got heat damage to the wireless section. Unknown. I could buy another one, but then I still don't solve my desire to have simultaneous dual band. The D-Link is "switchable", but in practice it works fine at 2.4GHz and is a total useless junker at 5GHz. I'd like something better.

The question is what a good replacement part might be. Ideally, I'd want a single box that was a four port switch plus simultaneous dual band AP. Gigabit is optional since nothing plugged into the switch can run that fast, and the Netgear is also only 100Mbit (see parenthetical note, below).

Another alternative would be to buy separate boxes (switch + AP), but a single-box solution would fit better in the tight quarters. Also, multiple boxes would complicate the power strip, which is fully populated.

Hypothetically, any four-port simultaneous dual-band router has the necessary hardware to do what I want, but previous ones that I've played with generally insist on running in router mode, with no way to dumb them down to being "just" a switch and AP. I suppose I could go the dd-wrt / tomato route but that seems like overkill just to get a "dumb" switch plus AP in a box.

So... great wizards of the empeg board... any suggestions on what I might do?

(Netgear has recently announced their newest DGND3700, which is essentially the same as my current Netgear but with GigE. If/when I decide to do whole-house GigE, that would be the logical thing to drop in. The only reason I might want GigE is if I were to do a proper file server, but right now I have all my disks direct-attached to my Mac tower.)