Any suggestions on this router?

I recently bought a ASUS RT N16 router. A co worker of mine recommended it. He said it is a great system. I bought it last week and it doesnt perform well. It tends to glitch and my connection is slow. I noticed that many sites say that if I use another parties firmware it will work great. Im not into networking and I didnt really want to tweak anything to make it work. I wanted the system to work perfectly out of the box once I set my user info etc. Seems I have to replace the firmware to have it work reliably. Can anyone recommend a better router to choose? I paid about $90 for this one. My budget is around $150.00. I am using it for gaming mostly and watching youtube or streaming movies. Using router makes watching youtube slow. Youtube now stalls or I have to wait while it loads often during a scene. Can anyone point me in the direction of a updated firmware should I keep it before replacing it with a new one? Thank you in advance. :)

I build my own using the Soekris platform and use either Monowall or Pfsense which allow me complete control.
Look for them on the popular auction site as they'll be a lot less expensive that way.

I've built quite a few to be used as QOS and Multi wan routers to cover both hosted *** and data locations.

The reason I don't recommend Asus soho routers is they are better suited to run "open source" firmware, which is an advanced procedure, IMO. It's recommended you update to TomatoUSB or DDWRT firmware if you want to keep the RTN16.

Difficult: TomatoUSB tutorial

More difficult :DDWRT tutorial

If you just want a router that works out of the box, then go for a Netgear N300 or N600 , you can find them at Bestbuy or Walmart.

I returned the ASUS N16 and replaced it with a ASUS N53. So far the N53 is ok. Dual band but not too many frills. But that is ok with me considering the N16 would shut off all the time. :eek: