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- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 91 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
0.5 stars
"Terrible - stay far away from this router!!!"
Pros: Slick design that's it
Cons: 5Ghz N range is horrible. Frequesnt dropouts if more than one client is connected (there is a known issue with VISTA that causes this and neither Linksys or Microsoft has really addressed it)!!!
Summary: Linksys advertises greatness on the 5ghz range, but that's a hoax. It is true that 5Ghz is hardly being used so you'll have virtually no one to compete with, but the 5Ghz range has terrible range. At approximately 20 feet away using my linksys dma2200 and laptop connected via a WUSB600N Dual-Band Wireless-N USB stick i barely get 1 bar and it disconnects all the time - that is a problem all in itself which i'll further explain.
So i have all linksys equipment and they don't even play well together - Linksys 610n router, dma2200 media center extender, and a WUSB600N Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Network Adapter for my laptop ? all of which are currently using the most up-to-date firmware.
#1) The LELA software doesn't even recognize that my dma2200 is a media center extender so i can't use the GUI to allocate bandwidth for streaming media. I suppose you can do this manually, but considering these are all Linksys products, that is absolutely ridiculous. The options in LELA aren?t even possible as it just greys them out. You can manually change the device to a media extender, but the option remains greyed out
#2) If you are only using one system on the router, it will probably work If you have 2 or more (PS3, Wii, laptop, pc, etc) , you?re probably screwed (doesn?t matter if they?re connected wired or wireless) and you will experience frequent dropouts, especially if just one those clients is a VISTA machine. Check the linksys forums and you will find that this is a problem with all of the new linksyss routers (610N, 310N, and 110). Also check out this microsoft article which explains the problem, but does not really fix it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us
#3) Spanning from problem #2, since my DMA2200 is a Vista Media Center Extender, it is essentially a VISTA PC to some extent. However, there is no registry that can be modified on this extender. As such, I can never apply a registry fix to this system and therefore my router will always drop out as long as the extender is connected. Really terrible since the DMA2200 is specifically created for use with the wrt610n router and dualband use which is the only real wire to enjoy streaming WIRELESS HDTV - you really need 5Ghz wireless N to do this!!!
#4) As mentioned already, when 5ghz is working, the range sucks. You can try to make it better by strictly using N products, disabling the 2.4ghz band, and using the wider 40mhz frequency, but it doesn?t really help. The higher band is more concentrated and therefore simply does not reach as far as 2.4ghz (read up on this at smartnetbuilder.com if you?d like)
So in all, this router does nothing that it claims too, and has a known problem with VISTA and the way it handles DHCP requests. This has not been addressed by any Linksys firmware updates or VISTA updates so for the time being there is no point trying to use this router if you have a VISTA machine on your network.
Althought, I?ve always sworn by Linksys in the past, the amount of wasted time, frustration, and horrible support has really changed my view about them. I?ve reverted back to my old trustworthy WRT54g router and had to run cable through my house so that my DMA2200 purchase woudn?t be for nothing. Very disappointed in all of these products and their wireless capabilities and would not suggest any of them.
- 3 replies to this review
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bryanprince, I have the very same d-link router you bought, the xtreme n gigabit router. I just love it, I have connected ALL devices, even those REQUIRING WEP!! you see, I have the main network with a 256 bit encrypted password using WPA, and a 128 encrypted pass using WPE for the guest zone, which is a second network within the same router, which I use for older devices which lack WPA support (like my DS lite). I do recommend the DLink router... and contrary to you I love the white color :P
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I totally feel your pain... this is the worst thing I've ever purchased. If I'm not in the same room forget about connecting. I had to move my wireless printer into my AV set because the friggin router won't reach my home office 30 feet away. I've spent HOURS on the phone with tech support to no avail. They finally replaced it after 6 months and 15 hours pf phone support. The replacement is no better, After two hours today trying to set it up they asked me to pay for remote support!! HAHA
I'm puttting the replacement I got today in the trash and I'm buying the D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router. I've heard nothing but good things about this router.... (just wish it was black) -
Well Done and well said. I too have recently went through the gauntlet with this WRT610N router and at a client site to boot. Makes me look bad. Thanks for backing up your commetns with reachable sources. This info allows the reader to double check the sources if they are not 100% sold on the comment. I am since I have expereienced all these problems. I have been in the business over 20 years and did not do the research on this router as I should have. O got burned for my mistake. Thanks again. LA-AL
Where to buy
Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router:
$152.99 - $199.99
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$179.00 | Yes |
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