Cisco-Linksys Wireless-G Range Expander WRE54G
by Linksys
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Our Price: $129.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $29.98 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys Wireless-G Range Expander WRE54G
Customer Review: A major source of frustration.
Summary: 1 Stars
When our Linksys ranger expander did work it was great. However, 9 times out of 10 it didn't work, and it became a major source of frustration and disappointment. I've had dozens of "discussions" with my wife about the poor, or lack of wireless coverage in our pre-war co-op. I think the most frustrating part of owning the Linksys range expander has been dealing with my son after he's been playing with his online Webkinz or Nick Jr. online and the expander simply stops working. The look in his eyes when "Daddy can't fix the internet" is truly heart breaking.
Our apartment is about 1300 sq. feet yet its almost impossible to get full wireless coverage from my Linksys wireless 54g router from end to end(forget about videos or large email files). As a result, I went out and got this range expander a couple of years ago and have been sorry I did ever since. Everything that the "1 star rating" reviewers said is true.
The in-box directions are terrible, and the support is horrible. I've spent hours on the phone with their customer service trying to get this thing to work, as well as countless hours on the linksys web site dealing with software updates (which are difficult to install) trying to figure out "what I was doing wrong." Turns out I was wrong for buying this piece-o-junk. I would have dumped this thing a long time ago, but after plunking down over one hundred dollars for it I was stuck, and determined to make it work.
I think the most frustrating part about the whole thing is that although the Linksys router worked fine most of the time, when the Linksys range expander was connected to it and failed, it blocked total access to the router even though the router was broadcasting ok. I can't tell you how many times I had to stop what I was doing to reset that range expander or even completely defer a family activity with our son because the coverage of the expander was so unreliable.
I hope the technology has improved since I purchased this so called range expander, and based on a previous review, I'm going out today to pick up a Netgear WGXB102 54Mbps Wall-Plugged Wireless Range Extender Kit or the latest and greatest, and hope it will work as advertised.
In conclusion, if you're looking to avoid a major source of frustration, DO NOT BUY THE LINKSYS WIRELESS G RANGE EXPANDER!
CK
Customer Review: Forever to hook up...Tech support horrible...Does not work!
Summary: 1 Stars
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT! IF YOU DO, DON'T PLAN ON GETTING GOOD TECH SUPPORT FROM LINKSYS.
I have some dead spots on my patio so I wanted to extend my network. The tech folks at Best buy told me that this Linksys extender would work with any 802.11g network including my Dlink. It didn't so I called Linksys and they said I had to buy a Linksys router. I bought the router they recommended and still could not get the extender to work.
The next tech I spoke to at Linksys was out of the Phillipines, spoke fast and had a strong accent. I asked him to slow down and he just ignored me. After about 30 minutes on the phone I gave up, took my case number down (CASE NUMBER 3591401) and hung up. I called back minutes later a got another tech in the Phillipines who stayed with me on the phone for 2 hours and was extremely helpful but felt it was a firmware issue and said he would send me firmware updates via email. I had to get off the phone but about an hour later got the firmware and was finally able to see the extender as an available network.
I called Linksys again and got a tech in India. This tech ran me through all the same steps I ran through before even when I told him I had already gone through this. After about 45 minutes he said he would transfer me to a "senior tech". He refused to discuss the fact that I was finally able to see the extender as an available network. He placed me on hold for about 15 minutes and then the line dropped. I called again and was again transferred to hold for a "senior tech".
After another hour I gave up and emailed linksys with instructions to call me. About 24 hours later they emailed saying I had to give them a time and including some walkthroughs that might as well have been in Japanese. I emailed back a call time and number. I never got the call back.
I called a local tech company the next day who came out and got the extender working in about an hour and a half. They downloaded a stumbler program and found that the extender did not add any strength to the system. In the spots where I had weak signal with the router the extender was intermittent at best.
At the end of this process I returned the Linksys router and extender, had spent nearly 10 weekend hours working on it and spent $90 on tech support with a local firm. WHAT A WASTE!
Customer Review: Do NOT buy it
Summary: 1 Stars
If you want to expand your wireless network DO NOT buy thisa product.
This product DOES NOT work out of the box. The "run first" CD is completely unusable. It is not as a normal hardware works. You install the hardware, plug the device and then update. No, here you have to guess what goes wrong and pry for a solution. You live outside the US? Forget it. Get ready to come up with a monstruous phone bill because that is the only way you can get help form the "professionals" at Linksys.
You plug it in and at once it doesn't recognize any network at all. It stops when searching for networks with the "site survey fail, try again" and doesn't do anything eles.
If you plan to contact Linksys in search of help, you'll get an email saying: "Thank you for contacting Linksys Technical Support. Linksys has discontinued the e-mail support channel for Technical Support Inquiries."
From then on, you'er alone by yourself. You may browse for help on Linksys website and try to guess the solutions or follow procedures such as "upgrade the firmware of your router" and check your access points. As if that were not enough already, trying to upgrade a firmware for a router is compllicated and troublesome.
But your adventure won't finish there. After doing that procedure with the help of someone familiar with those things, you have to reset your router configuration and "insert the cd" again and configure it a second time.
After that, the Range Expander won't even blink one time on that and you will not be able to install it.
Now after sending the mail to the manufactuer and receiving that annoying mail answer, I'm one more time alone in the dark trying to guess what to do with a 75 $ alien.
Running up and down their website, it may be possible that I have to "update the firmware" of the Range expander, doing direct conections with a LAN cable between the computer and the antenna. But that's just the beginnning. You have to give your PC an IPO address (great, what I has wishing for!!!!!!) and introduce a series of values that someone at Linksys believes is of everyday use.
Search for another brand or manufacturer. DO NOT buy from Linksys if you are not a graduate in System Engineering.
Customer Review: Great product, but watch for this installation glitch
Summary: 4 Stars
I badly needed a way to extend my all-LinkSys wireless network, so I bought this item as soon as it became available from Amazon.com. I figured if it didn't work, I could send it back without a lot of hassle.
It works as advertised. A remote PC that once had "very weak" reception (1 bar) is now running at "Excellent" signal strength (4 or 5 bars). If you are happy with factory settings (very unsecure) you *should* be able to install it in about 5 minutes. I ran into two problems, maybe I can save you some time:
1) You have to run the set-up disk on the remote PC. It has to be configured to connect to the signal from the Expander, not the original wireless access point. I didn't understand this at first - I thought it would just 'boost' the existing signal. You need to think of it as a new wireless access point.
2) The set-up program changed the TCP/IP settings on the remote PC from DHCP to static IP, without filling in all the needed fields(in particular, the DNS server). It took me days to figure this out; I was ready to send the product back. When I realized what had happened, I reset everything to DHCP and everything began to work. And I mean *work*!
While trying to figure out the problem, I found a review on Amazon.com that said I needed to upgrade the firmware on my Wireless router. I did that, but I don't know if it was truly necessary. I suspect not.
I'm rating the product at 4 stars, instead of 5, for two reasons:
1) I didn't get one of the power adapters mentioned in the manual - this would have allowed me to 'mount' the device right to a wall-plate power outlet. I have sent LinkSys a message to find out what I need to do to get it. I get so pissed when stuff is missing from the original shipment.
2) I'm angry about the DHCP thing - I had no idea it was messing with these settings, and I'm not an expert in this stuff. It's a miracle I found the problem on my own.
I have yet to see how the device will work with a roving notebook PC. Since I had to specifically configure a desktop device to connect to it, I don't see how my notebook will just 'discover it'. If you need this capability, I cannot vouch that it works this way, yet.
Customer Review: 2009 - 8/14 Linksys WRE54G support staff is a laugh
Summary: 1 Stars
Like many of us I needed to expand my wireless signal to another building ... I tried to use another range extender, a well known and respected product. After some setup tine with their foreign techs via phone I was now ready as per their instructions to call linksys support and have them configure the devices wireless MAC address into my linksys WRT160NL wireless router ... the linksys tech had no idea what I was talking about. "Did I want to clone the routers MAC address?" the girl on the line asked. NO I said.... that would not solve the problem. I was told to wait and a linksys head tech boss would be on the line to discuss the problem.Another long wait time ensued.He came on the line and told me that linksys had recently changed their routers and they would not work with my product. He suggested that I get their WRE54G range extender which would work with their wireless routers.He touted the auto-configuration button and ease of install.On his advice I purchased the device.I tried the "famous button" as per instructions... NOTHING ...I reset it and unplugged it many times trying to get it to configure.The useless instructions said to place the device near your your linksys router, so I placed it ON TOP OF IT ... still nothing.After two hours I concluded that I had to contact their dreadful tech support.Since I had the product only a day I thought that the support would be no charge, but here is linksys support latest thing ... they offer to take over your computer and do the complete install for only $9.99 charged to your credit card.I declined the offer since I am a computer engineer, and most of the time I can solve the problem.After many hours on the phone, and a couple of hang-ups ...several changes up the line to senior techs, and still not solving the problem I said "NO MAS" I'll pay the ten bucks. A miracle happened ... after I gave them my credit card number ... she quickly took over my computer from probably India, and in less than five-minutes completed the configuration and the WRE54G was ready to use.The device does or at present works with encryption, but I assure myself that there must be better products and tech support than linksys provides. I have bought their products many times over the years but "NO MAS".
Thanks, Lee