Cisco/Linksys Fail

Ever since Linksys marked their 1 & 4 port routers for home use way back when a cable modem was cutting edge technology I quickly became a fan. It was the coolest thing to put in between the 1Mbps modem, the "wild, wild, west" and my Pentium computer. Most recently I purchased a now Cisco-Linksys WRT54G2 router to replace a Netgear that bit the dust. The reviews didn't seem so good on these devices ever since Cisco took over and revised the product line but I thought, hey, "it's still a Linksys," so I took the plunge.

Although this new router looked like a spaceship I was disappointed to find it worked more like a Fiero... moments of ZOOM followed by periods of crash & burn. I admit that after some tweaking, I was able to get it to work fairly well for almost a year. The wired portion was almost always solid and the wireless, albeit low in signal no matter which channel I chose, seemed acceptable with the occasional drop-out. As the 1yr warranty expired, almost like clockwork, I started having problems with it. About twice a week I'd be able to access the router but it wouldn't pass any internet traffic. A quick power cycle would fix that. Also, the drop-outs got more frequent. It was nothing to have the signal just cut out on all our wireless devices for about 3 seconds only to magically return after all the windows timed out and file transfers died a horrible Microsoft death.

Finally, 1year, 2months and 5days after I first connected it I got home to find no internet traffic. Long story short it would only pull 127.0.0.1 (loopback, or "home") on the WAN side. No amount of power cycling, soft reset, hard reset, firmware reflashing or Cisco tech support (from "Frank" who spoke with a strong foreign accent) could fix this POS. Oh, and to add insult to injury after Cisco diagnoses a dead router they give you "a power hour" during which you can decide to purchase a "factory refreshed" device at 50% off the list price. The cost for this router new $43 from Best Buy after a price match. Their offer price for a refurbished device.... $40. What a load of crap. The agent was speechless when I said I could buy a refurb one online for the same price and since this one died so quickly it would be dumb to buy another piece of junk that had already failed and needed repair..... well, maybe it just didn't translate well.

In summary, there don't seem to be any more router manufacturers that get high ratings from any retailer. They all come up average. I guess I'll be headed back to Netgear. Maybe that overpriced extended warranty would be worth it after all.... nah.