George Allen Miller One Geek's take on all things SciFi

Not often do I feel the need to post about a product. But recently, yesterday, I decided to update my old Belkin router with something new. I checked the CNET articles and settled on a Linksys wrt160n wireless N router. I went to the local Best Buy, purchased it, brought it home and plugged it in. Now, I’m a software engineer. I’ve been in IT for a long time and, like most in this industry, have worn many hats. I have done the sys admin roles, programmers, PM’s, developers, even some business analsys. I know how to setup a router. So, what did I find when I plugged in my brand new Linksys? If you guessed the Internet, you’d be dead wrong.

Here is how I spent my Friday night. Fun times! I got home, plugged it in, turned on the wireless, setup WPA2 with AES, 16 character password (anti-hacking techniques recommend 20+), and nothing. It said i was connected but I could not browse any pages. I reset it to factory defaults and tried again. Still nothing. I even couldn’t connect to the built in web browser 192.168.1.1. Absolutely nothing. At least the hard line connected.

So what did I do next? Well, I figured if I am going to suffer, so is someone at their 24 hour help desk. I called in. They offered to connect to my PC for 10 dollars to fix it. WHAT?!? They will charged me 10 extra dollars to fix their router that doesn’t work?? Are you kidding? Nice scam! We’ll sell you something that doesn’t work and then charge you 10 dollars to fix it. I said no. They talked me through connecting, nothing I haven’t tried, they downgraded me to WPA TKIP and it connected. The Internet crawled. I felt like I was on 56k. Not even, 14.4! Ah those were the days.

Anyway, the first help desk rep said “thanks, it’s working, bye”. Ten minutes later i’m back on the phone. The second guy was at least a little bit more honest, he said take the router back. Ha! When the tech on the phone says take it back, you know you have a lemon.

The next day I was shocked to see it connected. I didnt’ change anything, all of a sudden it was working. I toured the Internet and all was well. I changed the security back to wpa2 AES and still it worked. I was happy. Life was good. And I could view flash files again without lag, the Belkin was apparently the cause of all my flash woes. But, unfortunately, the story is not done.

Tonight, dropped connections on wireless, inabiliy to connect to 192.168.1.1, dropped connections on WIRED connects. Yes, that’s right, CAT 6 cable connects were dropping connections. Unheard of! What is this piece of shit?! How can you sell something that so terribly does not work? This is the V3 version of this device. Even the 2nd tech rep commented that “this shouldn’t be doing this”.

So, bottom line, I’m rather pissed. CNET got it totally wrong. Cisco needs to introduce some quality control. And this router is a total piece of crap. If you find this post, do not buy it. It simply doesn’t work. I’ve seem some posts on the net where people have loaded a linux firmware to replace the worthless firmware that comes with the product. Nice.

As for me, i’m taking this shit back to Best Buy tomorrow and buying the competition. D-link, Belkin, Netgear, something has to be better than this. Sorry for the rant, but when you buy a wireless router you expect it to work. Cisco folks, make good products for personal use! Your enterprise stuff is the shit, your home stuff is just shit. See the difference?