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: OK after call to tech support and firmware update
Summary: 3 Stars
Executive summary: after initial installation, intermittent network drops, slow speed. Call to tech support resolved it.
I order the Linksys WRT160N wireless router from Amazon and used the free shipping option. I received the router sooner than originally estimated which was nice. The router is version 3 connected to Comcast cable modem.
My Computers/Wireless Devices:
HP laptop with Windows 7 and built-in wireless, Dell desktop computer with Windows XP Home (has Netgear wireless adapter), Apple iPod Touch, Apple Airport Express for streaming music from iTunes to home audio equipment, Brother wireless laser printer, Apple MacBook.
Installation:
Performed installation from laptop running Windows 7. There really isn't much to the installation, very few user choices, just security mode, encryption, pass phrase and SSID name, . However, the first installation attempt, the install program could not find internet connection through cable modem. Restoring factory settings to WRT160N and repeating installation again was successful.
Post-Installation:
Internet connection kept dropping out and speed seemed slow. After hours of reading internet forums, resetting of cable modem and new wireless router I decided to call tech support.
Tech Support:
The wait time for tech support was under 5 minutes. The rep spoke English and asked pertinent questions (unlike some of those knuckle heads from India). She was aware of the problem and seemed to know just what to do. She said the firmware needed updated and she guided me through the installation, reset the router to factory setting, then reconfiguration of the router via browser settings. The firmware was updated to "v3.0.02 build 004 Nov 29, 2009", she also had me change the channel from 1 to 9. I also rebooted the PC and the internet connection has not dropped since then. I was then able to configure the printer, Airport Express, the iPod and the desktop PC to the network.
Speed/Signal Strength:
We live in a 2 story house, about 2000 sq feet. The wireless router is installed upstairs in the middle bedroom and speed and signal strength has been excellent throughout the house
Overall:
So, with less than 1 week using the unit, all is fine now after the unit was updated. Since I work in the computer/software industry, I understand that problems can occur after product shipment that require updating to work properly (and that non-updated inventory can sit on shelves for some time). However, I will not completely let them off the hook on this one. There is nothing special about my setup as Windows 7 has been released for some time now (and even before it was released, manufactures have access to work with Microsoft prelease software to ensure proper functioning of their products). I think the problem I experienced is a very common problem that should have been caught and corrected before now or at least Cisco could have alerted customers to problems prior to installation.
Customer Review: Details, Details, Details!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love and hate Amazon reviews of tech products! The Devil is in the details and no one ever explores them hence bad reviews for good products, just like this one!
The Linksys WRT160n (Ver 2) replaces my old Linksys WRT54G ( I wrote a review in 2004 when it was new) that I sold to a friend along with an old Motorola G wireless bridge.
This new router is a lot faster (120 MB) with a Linksys WGA600N Bridge (game adapter as its marketed) conected to my Xbox 360. And its wireless G performance with my dell laptop is also increased. Im 45 ft from the router on my G laptop (with a 12 inch thick concrete rebar wall in between) but the throughput on my new WRT160N is almost double that of my old WRT54G.
My ISP is Caviler DSL. There performance is spotty at peak times but I usually get connection rates from 6-10 Mbps (download). Off peak hours I can stream available HD movies over Nexflix on my Xbox 360, transfer a 5 GB file from my PC to laptop while watching a different movie on netflix, look at a movie on youtube on my Iphone connected by Wifi, and play a game of chess over the net on my PSP all without any major hiccups anywhere!. Thats impressive. I'd never had been able to do tht with my old wireless router.
I paid $17 for the router and $90 for the bridge and they were both a great investment. I have sev other routers in my apt complx on channels 11 and 6 and my router automatically set up my network on channel 1. Its both fast and secure with WPA2 and took me all of 40 mins to set up including the router, bridge and 360. My gateway computer is a dell Dimension 8300 1.3 GB RAM, Win XP home, My laptop a Dell 1535 W/3 gb ram on Vista Home.
I don't work in the IT dept at work by I'm familiar with Linksys web based setup utility. I tried setting up the router a second time using just that and found it pretty simple.
Details matter. If someone writes a review and wants to be helpful and maybe get some help from the nice community here. Throw some details in, it will be appricated by all.
******Update
Just to let you all know, this router that I loved, died a month ago! For what ever reason, it decided it would no longer accept IP addresses. I made 4 calls to Linksys customer service, lasting an hr per call, before they decided the unit was defective. I sent the bad unit back and got a refurbished one about a week ago. Its working fine but I'm leary. I no longer trust the router. the replacement unit worked on the first attempt. I didnt install lela this time (to save the cpu cycles as it always runs in the background. I will update in a few weeks to let you know how its going. Also posted a video on youtube. Good router but approach with caution.
Customer Review: Horrible little piece of junk!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I have been working with Linksys products for many years and have been a loyal fan - until now. This little unit, while easy to set up and great looking, does not hold a connection for more than a hour at a time without having to be rebooted. I am not just whining here, read on, please, and save yourself some grief. I received this unit at the beginning of December 2008 and set it up without a hitch, complete with wireless MAC filtering, a VPN to my office, full security - everything set up great. Then I started having intermittent problems connecting to the internet. So I downloaded the latest firmware and flashed the unit which worked great (the process), except it didn't change the intermittent connection problem. I spent hours researching what problems others were seeing that sounded like my own and found references to having to change the MTU setting, so I tried changing the MTU settings, easy enough to do, but still no change.
I called Linksys support and went through a series of troubleshooting steps that matched everything that I had already tried but these too resulted in no change in behavior so the technician told me to get an RMA and send the unit back for exchange. I arranged for a cross-ship on which I specified that I needed to get a V2 (version2) unit just like the one I had purchased. Unfortunately Linksys could not read their own forms and shipped me a V1 unit in error. I called in to Linksys again and arranged to have them issue a call-tag and another RMA to take back the V1 and send a V2, (which they confirmed they had in stock). When the second replacement arrived, it too was a V1 AGAIN. So I again spent the time to contact customer support and after an hour and 43 minutes on the phone, I had yet another call tag and another RMA to send back the second incorrect V1 and the promise that they would send a V2. (I was up to over 8 hours of research, trying settings and time spent on the phone at this point).
Finally, the refurbished V2 arrives and I spend over an hour setting the unit up and guess what - within a half hour, it dropped the connection! Keep in mind that while I was playing "swap the wrong unit" with Linksys for 4 weeks, I had put my trusty WRT54GS back in place and it was working fine the entire time, which rules out any other source of trouble.
I am packing both the replacement V2 and the original V2 into the box that the replacement came in and will be sending them both back tomorrow. Linksys will be getting two units back, I will be out $68 and have nothing to show for it, which is nothing compared to the 9+ hours of time and frustration, and I will still be getting the better end of the bargain. Linksys - this product sucks and you should be ashamed to have your name on it.
Customer Review: We survived the install!!
Summary: 4 Stars
Wow, has this been an adventure! It all started a week ago with the decision to replace our beloved 5 year old 802.11b router with something more up to date. We purchased the Linksys WRT160N because it was on sale and carried the Linksys name. Reading online reviews was done after the fact and boy was it an eye opener. All of the "N" routers had countless good and bad reviews which made us consider abandoning the upgrade all together. We kept the box unopened pending a decision...
In the end we stuck with the Linksys WRT160N because ours was a version 3 and NOT one of the dreaded version 2's. Our serial number starts with CSE41. Frankly, GoodRead65's review went a long way in giving me the courage to proceed. Thanks.
We followed the initial install instructions to the letter and everything went wonderfully. The wired desktop connected without issue. Three of our four wireless devices (notebook, netbook, Sirius radio) were close at hand so I installed them and all three connected without issue. Wow, that was easy! It was getting late so I decided to leave the 4th wireless device (upstairs desktop) until morning.
In the morning I went to connect the 4th device and couldn't get it to connect. I turned on the other three wireless devices and NONE of them would connect either! The install process ends with a version of "Network Magic" getting installed. NM has a nifty network graphical display that showed my wireless devices as "connected" but the devices themselves were not. Then suddenly, a device would connect and a NM pop-up would show up to tell me about it. Just as suddenly the connection would go away. The software was also telling me to install NM on my wireless devices which I didn't want to do. I also didn't care for the messages suggesting I buy an upgrade to NM. I went into the router via the web and verified MAC addresses, the passkey, etc. Still fluky. GoodRead65's unit came with "Linksys EasyLink Advisor" which he ultimately uninstalled. I followed suit and uninstalled NM, reset the router, and restarted the devices. Everything worked fine the remainder of the day. I was wondering if NM's constant poling of the network might have been a cause for it's fluky behavior. Guess I'll never know...
Several reviewers (of earlier versions) mentioned how things took a turn for the worse when updating the firmware. Linksys has an update but we're going to stay away unless we encounter problems. Other reviewers spoke highly of third party firmware (DD-WRT) which is available for our version 3 unit so that's an option should we need it.
Customer Review: Not a single problem so far.
Summary: 4 Stars
I've read a lot of reviews for this product and was wondering if I would have any problems at all. So far, everything has worked fine. The setup was easy and fast, way better than my previous Linksys G-router. Just follow the easy steps including installing the program. My computer sees the network and connects to it automatically as it would with any home network configured. I bought this router cause I wanted to stream movies to my Blu-ray player using a Netflix app (I don't mean to advertise but in case you want to do the same thing) and it does the job. I needed a high speed network since I wanted to stream hd movies so I upgraded to N. I've watched several movies like this and I've had a really good experience. The movie will take a couple of seconds to start the streaming and play but after that there's absolutely no interruption. I haven't tried playing online games with a ps3 or Xbox but I assume it should work just fine since playing online games on my PC run the same as if I was connected via an ethernet cable. The specs should say the range of the router but this is where it's not so good if you live in a two story house or a large single story one. I live in an apartment that has two rooms, with the living room next to my room and the kitchen and a dining room on the other corner of my apartment. If I use my pc on the kitchen or further I notice my signal drops by half. I guess this is why it only costs around $50 vs $70 or more for other N-routers besides the network speed. As you can read, the range is not so good. If you have an apartment like mine or probably a little larger you won't have any problems. If you live in a larger house and you want to use your computer all around, get a higher range router. I'm a college undergrad, and considering all the stuff we use today in our apartments and the size of them I'd say this router is perfect for us. I still have to wait and see what happens later in the year since I usually encounter problems with routers after a year or maybe a little less. There was a period of time when my previous router was having some issues and almost no computer could connect to it even though they saw it. I managed to fix that but it was a real pain and I had to access it's default IP and a whole bunch of other procedures. I hope this doesn't happen this time.
I hope my review was helpful. The way I see it, there's a chance you might be lucky like me or not. You could get a broken one that doesn't work well. The risk is up to you.