When did the quality of Linksys products go down?
Wow.
What was supposed to be a 1/2 hour update turned into a 12 hour excursion into HELL.
Simply put – I had to update 8-port Cable/DSL router since the firmware hadn’t been updated in 2 years and the VPN packets wouldn’t work with it. So, the logical choice would be to get the Cable/DSL VPN Router. The problem is, it wouldn’t get an IP address from my cable modem. What’s worse is that it would give the computers their DHCP IP addresses (192.168.1.10x), but wouldn’t allow me to see past the router – including the web support server on the cable modem (192.168.100.1). Updated the firmware, still no good. Brought it back and got a new one. Same problem. Updated the firmware again. Didn’t work. Called Linksys and got one of those cheaply-paid support people from Bangalore or somewhere who was helpful, but put me on hold and then disconnected me. Great. Brought it back and got the Wireless G VPN. Damn fine looking unit.
That got the IP address just fine so I thought I was in the clear. However, the setup utiility couldn’t find the thing on the network. Why, I don’t know. The same thing happened with my PC and the Linksys wireless bridge (that finally did work). Then other odd things happened: setting the DMZ machine locked up the router after a self-reboot, VPN packets wouldn’t pass through properly, you can’t set the port of the remote admin web server – you’re forced to use 80 or 8080, and other things that caused the unit to lock up badly.
I took it back and stuck with the wireless G I had all along (WRT54G). Oddly enough, updating the firmware on that allowed my VPN to work. I didn’t want to use that orignially since I had to move it from the center of the house to my computer room which will now cause my wireless access on the deck to be much lower. Maybe I’ll get a signal booster.
Either way, I’m hideously disappointed in Linksys. It’s a shame since I praised them for many years.
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