Cisco-Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Broadband Router
by Linksys
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Our Price: $129.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $14.95 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Broadband Router
Customer Review: Simply terrible - really ZERO stars
Summary: 1 Stars
Update:
Over a year later, no firmware updates and nothing has changed from my initial review. And, as with all Cisco/Linksys routers, the integrated web interface is old, needs updating and can provide more flexibility. The WRT-DD firmware is an example of what a large company like Cisco could do. If they added half of WRT-DD's functionality, it'd have 2x more functionality. What have I been using this for? Since it was junk out of the box and I never got around to returning it, I picked up a WRT610N and installed WRT-DD's firmware on this. I don't do this with all my routers (I currently have 7, 3 with guest networks and dual band so a total of 13 routed wireless networks plus 2 wired networks) because I don't want to risk flakiness/have to adjust all the time on those I depend on being up all the time. However, WRT's fw has been 100% stable on this. The only time it has been restarted is power outages. I made this a bridge to provide more range (though 50% less performance) for my WRT610N, which, as far as I know, was the only true dual [simultaneous] band wireless router out at the time. Setup has been stable with the Linksys fw on the 610. The WRT fw on this 160 allows you to adjust power more granularly so range is great, but performance in this bridged mode is abysmal. I have added a couple Netgear WNDR dual bands with each band having a guest network providing up to 4 networks in one router. The Netgears have fewer settings than the Cisco (huh?!) and you cannot choose b, b/g, g, b/g/n, n-only (as you probably know, mixing drops performance considerably). You can only choose "Up to [nn[n]] speed" indicating some type of mixed mode when you get into the g and n ranges - very bad. However, firmware updates directly from the Internet is great, stability is awesome and range is MUCH better than both the 160 and 610 Linsyses (Linksi?). You can also easily setup multiple in a bridge mode (though can only use WEP or open in this mode, which is stupid so should never be used unless you have no security needs). Other nits, but much better than the 160 or 610 and I'm glad I came across them.
One last thing on these Linksyses: differences between V1 and V2 and V3 is the V1 is severely underpowered from a processor, RAM and ROM perspective - the V2 has a much more powerful processor, more RAM/ROM thus improving performance in the testing I've done. Netgears still win here, but it's Amazing that Cisco recognized a major issue and quickly started shipping a V2 w/out offering some type of incentive or trade-in for people stuck with the V1 (most likely those who would notice something like this would be power users like me so they wouldn't go broke). It's even obvious in running their web settings interface sometimes taking over 20 seconds just to navigate to the next screen whereas other brands are instant. This plus knowing they aren't likely to push out much, if any, new firmware to address issues they have, ruins their credibility with me and trust with buying additional hardware.
I'm not going to drag this out and list every feature. I am going to provide a few words of caution and recommend looking elsewhere. I am absolutely baffled by those who give this 5 stars or claim that it works great or has any range. If you choose to roll the dice, I hope you have much better luck than I.
I have used (and still own) many wireless routers over the years. This is easily the worst. I'm not your average hobbyist or someone who doesn't know much about these. I am a long-time technologist who understands this to the lowest protocol layer or give you an in depth lesson of TKIP vs. AES and various modes of AES operation if you feel like being bored.
I bought this to replace another Linksys with this and have been extremely disappointed. "RangePlus" and claims that one can use throughout a house, in the yard, etc. are simply ridiculous. I have a number of devices in the house. A Tivo about 25 feet away went from an excellent signal of 92-96% (as measured by its meter) to 38-56% with this unit. A downstairs bedroom about 75' away that provided my iPhone and Mac pro both with full bars have gone to ZERO. Upstairs master - same devices have Zero signal.
I have tried talking to the incompetents at Cisco, uh, Linksys - whoever with no luck. No settings to tweak really if you have B, G and N devices. Testing, I switched to B&G option only - no improvement. N only - nothing.
While testing signal with more advanced equipment, I have moved it, moved equipment away from it, reset it, verified firmware, etc. etc. No improvement.
Bottom line: terrible performance compared to anything I have used and in simple side-by-side testing (only one on at a time of course).
Old Linksys has been reinstalled, this one going back - thanks to Amazon for easy return.
Customer Review: Router is 4 stars, but LinkSys Support is the Pits
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased the WRT160N router and the LinkSys CM100 cable modem to replace my old B type LinkSys router and modem that died after 6 years of good service. I had no problem setting up the router and installing the software with 2 of the 3 computers and the wireless printer on my home network.
Unfortunately, I was never able to get my Gateway 9300 Solo to connect, even though it had no problems for 6 years on the B router. I called LinkSys support, and the first thing they had me do was uninstall the LELA Easy Link Advisor software and use Windows to setup the connection. I liked the LELA software, with its graphic network manager interface, but it consumed a lot of memory and system resources, so I was OK with using the Windows connection.
When that didn't work, LinkSys offered to charge me $9.95 to dial into my computer and fix the problem, a problem I never had until I bought this brand new router. First of all, how were they going to dial in to the laptop, if it couldn't connect to the Internet? Since the 9300 Solo didn't come with an Ethernet card, I would have to buy an Ethernet adapter so they could dial in and debug the problem.
Besides, I refused to pay $9.95 to debug a problem with a new product that should be under warranty. Their alternative was to walk me through the debugging steps over the phone. This probably cost LinkSys way more than the $9.95 I would have paid them if they were able to dial in and fix the problem, since we worked on it for over an hour and a half before they gave up.
I finally got to speak to a LinkSys supervisor, and he suggested that I buy the LinkSys N type adapter, since my Solo had an old LinkSys B type adapter. I figured that made sense and was worth a shot, so I purchased the LinkSys WPC300N adapter and had the same problem. After another hour and half session with LinkSys support, installing the latest drivers for the adapter and trying to debug the problem over the phone, they asked me to take the computer and adapter out and try to connect to another wireless network in my neighborhood. If that didn't work, they were willing to replace the adapter, since they thought it appeared to be defective.
I was unable to connect to any of the local hotspots in my neighborhood, so while I was at Best Buy, I decided to bite the bullet, buy an Ethernet adapter and hard wire the Solo to the router. This worked fine. At least my Solo could connect to the outside world once again, even if it was doomed to do it via the Ethernet umbilicle cord. I could always go back to my B type adapter if I had to take it on the road.
Before I returned the new WPC300N adapter to LinkSys for a replacement, I decided to test it in one of the computers that had successfully connected to the router via its internal wireless adapter. I disabled the internal adapter and installed the adapter that LinkSys support thought was defective and, lo and behold, the adapter had no problem connecting to the router in the other laptop. In fact, I left it in the other laptop because it ran faster than the G type internal adapter that I disabled.
LinkSys really needs to do something about their customer support. They should be paying me to help them debug their products, not the other way around. At this point, I am tired of dealing with them and have invested more time and money than it's worth to get my Solo connected wirelessly. I suspect there is a driver compatibility or memory issue with the new router and the 10-year-old Solo, but no one at LinkSys has been able to offer any explanation or resolve the issue.
On the other hand, I am happy to report that the WRT160N router and CM100 cable modem are working fine with the other two computers and the wireless printer. The performance is much faster than the old combo, and if you're not trying to connect a 10-year-old Solo to it, you should be able to avoid the nightmare I had with LinkSys support.
Customer Review: Limited by firmware, but full of potential.
Summary: 4 Stars
This device out of the box for me was a pain. I could hardly connect any of my devices easily and connections often dropped and froze. I was to the point where I was just going to return the product and give up. After a lot of pain and suffering, I decided to do a little research on the issues I was having with this product. I found out that the hardware in the device is not to blame but it was the firmware that has many issues and limited compatibility.
Just to clarify, THIS CAN EASILY BE FIXED. This can be done by flashing the DD-WRT firmware for this particular router on the DD-WRT website. By doing so, how the router operates is completely re-worked for the better and drastically increases this devices performance and usability. After flashing DD-WRT, I noticed faster speeds, better range, all devices connected accordingly, and no dropped or frozen connections.
For those needing help I will list steps that can be taken to upgrade this routers firmware.
1. Google "DD-WRT" and it will be the first link on the page.
2. On the DD-WRT homepage click "Router Database"
3. In the search bar type in the model number for this router which happens to be "WRT160N". A list will show up showing revisions of this router and BE SURE TO MATCH the revision you see on the page with the number underneath the router (E.g. WRT160N v1.0, v1.1, v2.0 or v3.0). NOTE: v2.0 is not supported.
4. Click whichever revision matches your router.
5. A list of files will appear that you will need to download. Download the file that contains "Nokaid" in the filename and the file that ends in "mini.bin".
6. Open your routers homepage which can be done my opening your internet browser(Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome) and typing 192.168.1.1 but this can differ. Alternatively, you can find your router in devices and right click the router icon and click and open homepage. You will need to enter the username and password for the router which by default is username "admin" and password "admin".
7. Once you do this you can access the routers settings and locate the tab/sub tab to update firmware.(Sorry I don't have access to the interface.)
8. Once you find the firmware update tab, there should be an empty box in which you can browse and select a file to update the router. Remember those files you downloaded earlier? Well now it's time to use them. FIRST browse and select the file containing "Nokaid" and hit update or whatever the button says in order to upgrade the firmware.
9. Let the router do its thing and it might restart a few times.
10. After the router is finished updating, access the routers homepage again by opening your browser and entering 192.168.1.1 in the address bar and entering the username and password. Once you login, you should notice that the interface looks different but don't let that distract you, look for the upgrade firmware tab again and this time upload the file containing "mini.bin". Let the router do its thing again and that should be it.
Those are 10 easy steps to avoid hassle and spending 100 dollars more on a router that doesn't do much more. If you have trouble, please comment and I will do my best to answer promptly. If you get everything to work, take the router for a test drive and let me know how it works for you. Don't let the 1 star reviews deter you away from this product, they are usually amateurs that don't like to troubleshoot problems and are willing to pay extra for convenience. This router is amazing once you follow my steps provided and hopefully it works for those of you who try this! These steps shouldn't take any more than 20-30 minutes if you follow the steps correctly. Please take time to read carefully because you stand the chance of bricking(breaking) the device if you flash the wrong files to your router.
Customer Review: Good but not enough - poor VPN support
Summary: 1 Stars
I have used wireless networking at work for quite a while but had put off installing it at home for security reasons. With a few new gadgets that could take advantage of new high speed capabilities, I decided to jump in and ordered a WRT160N to replace my existing Linksys wired router.
The wireless router showed up very quickly on my doorstep. I unpacked it and was very impressed with the small size and the good looks. I appreciate technology, but I like the style of this unit since it does not appear to be an alien space craft.
Loading the CD and following the instructions, I had it up and running in just a few minutes. My new laptop connected wirelessly very quickly and a few simple firewall updates had the system running the existing wired network, the laptop and even my Blackberry Curve using the WPA2 Personal security encoding with minimal hassle or delay. Connection speed was 130 Mbs and I was able to get a signal at the far end of the house. Subsequent connections had no problems either. I was impressed.
As I mentioned, I was connecting my laptop from work to the system. My employer is security conscious, so we use a VPN every time we connect from outside our building. The WRT160N connected using the VPN without a problem. However, part of the WPA security protocol is the concept of changing the encryption key on a regular basis. The sender and receiver are supposed to exchange the new key and then continue on seamlessly. Unfortunately, the router dropped the internet connection every time the key changed. This was a pain, especially when doing big file transfers when the connection was dropped. The dropped connection cannot be reconnected until I went through the whole VPN authentication routine again, which gave me another hour or less if I didn't manually re-connect right away.
I set to the key resynchronization interval to different times (very easy to do in the router control panel) and confirmed this was the cause. My family also noticed some weird browser lockups that had not occurred before installing the router (or after replacing it).
I contacted Linksys technical support about this issue. First, I will say that I was very impressed with the support person I spoke with. They responded very quickly, were knowledgeable about their product and very helpful. They seemed very friendly too. Unfortunately, they told me that dropping the internet connection when changing keys was a known problem with the WRT160N. I suppose these things happen (don't the developers try this with their Cisco/Linksys laptop at night?), so I inquired about a firmware patch. Unfortunately, there is no patch scheduled at this point. They suggested using WEP, but I noted that their own manual stated that WEP encryption was easily broken, not secure and not recommended. There was no push-back on this.
I discussed the situation with the support person, and they recommended that I return the unit. So I did...I took it to the post office this morning.
In honesty, the support provided was about the best I have ever. The symptoms were quickly understood, problem was identified, a possible solution was proposed and an honest recommendation was made in a matter of minutes. They even sent me a complete transcript of the exchange. I was very impressed with the support team, especially compared to some other high-tech products.
I wanted to like this unit and never have to think about it again (because it was just doing its job). Installation was fast and easy, it looked good, and it connected well. Support was top notch. However, dropping the connection all the time is not acceptable. I consider this very normal usage (certainly not an exotic application) that should not happen. I am back to the wired router. It is working, but I am disappointed with the WRT160N.
Customer Review: Really disappointed in Linksys
Summary: 1 Stars
Well well. Never thought I'd actually say this about Linksys but I have to admit this router is absolute trash out of the box. I don't know what happened. Linksys used to be a very good company with quality products but, as everyone else has already pointed out, they can't program their new routers for the life of them. So here's what happened:
I recently went on a vacation to visit my dad for a few weeks. Knowing he didn't have wireless, I took my old router with me. After I returned home I realized I left my old router at my dad's place. No big deal I thought, I had been thinking about investing in a new router for quite some time and had been aching to see what kind of speeds I'd get with a Wireless-N connection. After much research I decided to get this. Even after reading all the reviews on Amazon I decided to trust Linksys since they'd never let me down before.
Got the router. Plugged it in. Was very surprised that it required no setup! It detected my internet connection right away and my LAN started working even before I was half-way done through the Linksys setup CD. I was liking it already. That's when the problems started. When I got to Step 4, the Linksys setup could NOT find their own router attached to my computer! I would always get the same message: "Please check all cables are connected correctly and try again." Since I was connected to the Internet I didn't pay it any more mind and cancelled the Linksys setup.
I decided to setup Wireless next and went into the Router config page. Linksys has a nifty button on the router itself to guide you through Wi-Fi Protected setup and I decided to give it a whiz just for the heck of it. Followed instructions and waited 5+ minutes and the Wi-Fi protected setup tells me it cannot find the Router! When I accessed it from the router CONFIG page that I went to after going through the ROUTER itself even though I can access the Internet fine...
Well, that aside, I setup the Wireless manually and sure enough it connects immediately. I get blazing fast speeds as though I'm connected directly through the ethernet.....for about 2 minutes. Then its all over. I check the connection: Sure enough, connected through Wireless-N at 130 Mbps and the speed test says I'm getting a measly 350 kbps downloads on a 6 Mbit connection. I try everything possible and finally give up after a week after consistently getting a fluctuating wireless connection jumping between 0.5 - 1 mbps with having to reset the router at least twice a day because of connection drops.
I decided to return the router. That's when I find DD-WRT thanks to a written review on Amazon. I am ecstatic now. Ever since I have installed DD-WRT this Router has been performing so brilliantly it's absolute bliss. I am now connected through Wireless-N and am consistently connected at 5.5 Mbps and have yet to do a Reset because of a connection drop.
I have decided to keep the router since it's given me the faster wireless Internet I could possibly want, after putting custom firmware on it of-course....
It just could be that I had a defective product but the number of bad reviews on Amazon leads me to believe otherwise. It's a shame that the hardware on this excellent product is so phenomenal yet the consistent bad programming at Linksys renders it absolutely useless...
I'm giving this product a One Star, because you shouldn't need to essentially "hack" a product to get it to perform what it is supposed to be doing "out of the box." You may have better luck with it, I didn't. I had to be frustrated out of my mind for a week and think "Linksys...this is a Linksys product!"
Closing Remarks: This Router has by far the greatest piece of hardware I have ever had. If it works that is. My advice is, buy it and then just put DD-WRT on it right away.