Help choosing router for 3 story home

[johnjohn67]

Hi, I'm trying to find a good router for my 3 storey home. Our modem/router combo from our isp is starting to get unbearably slow. The router is on the 3rd floor in the corner room. I made a simple picture to show the location. The red box is the "dead zone" on the mainfloor and basement where wifi is never more than 1 bar and usually really slow. Speedtest shows maximum downloads of 1/2mb a second, LTE works fine so i figure its the router. Also all areas of the basment are slow. Our internet is rated at 50mb/s theortical and gigabit usually gives around 40 so it's not the internet causing issues. It will need to support 2 gaming desktops, a htpc in the deadzone, a few random laptops and cellphones aswell. Me and my brother are buying it together so I'd like it to be under $200.
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6472/plxf.png

 

[alyoshka]

Firstly, shift it to the middle of the building ...... meaning if you have a Basement, Ground floor, 1st floor , 2nd floor and then the 3rd floor... then you ought to have the main AP on the 1st floor.... avoid a corner ... if you have a hallway right through the house on every floor (center) then have the router mounted above the hallway window of the 1st floor....

Pick up a router that has a little more power than the usual Wifi routers that are available around..... choose the new kind 802.11AC types.... or N types.... Choose something with mimo antennas.... not just one but 3 to 6 would be advisable.....

Now you could also look into Wireless+Pwerline extenders... something like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127518

Or Cheaper still
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704149