[TriLUG] Linksys long in the tooth?

Jeremy Portzer jeremyp at pobox.com
Sun Jan 13 20:25:05 EST 2008


James Brigman wrote:
> I'm starting to suspect that the Linksys products' only, fading
> advantage is running OpenWRT....I tried a Belkin 4 port/wireless node,
> setting it up for a family member, and was stunned at how refined the
> setup was and how quickly I was able not only to get it set up, but to
> secure it above it's out-of-the-box config. Range on only the single
> tiny little rubber duck antenna was better than the Linksys WRT54...
> 
> I've never been a big fan of Belkin - always saw their stuff as "second
> tier". But I needed something quickly, and it had to be cheap: it went
> in to replace a failed WRT54 which simply died and went dark. Basic
> troubleshooting showed the power supply still good but the unit itself
> had failed. 
> 
> What's surprising is that the Belkin is a $35 product from Wal-Mart.
> It's been running super for about a month - highly recommended if you
> have to give a relative a home switch/wireless node and need to make
> sure you aren't going back over and over to help with it. Very nice web
> interface, refined and easy to use.

I have a Belkin four-port wireless router/switch that I bought here in 
Australia.  The wireless cuts in and out about every 1-2 hours.  You 
have to power cycle the device to get it to work about 50% of the time 
when this happens.  It's a royal pain - I tried to call their technical 
support to get a new one, but gave up when I couldn't get to someone who 
could talk intelligently about the problem (once I "admitted" that power 
cycling "fixed" it, they didn't want to talk to me any further).

I've never had any problems of this sort with Netgear or Linksys products.

--Jeremy





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