Linksys WRT55AG

I had this router for over two months. I found it to be quite run of the mill and average. Even though most of the feature set was nice; it wasn't so nice in the fact that it dropped continual packets. It also lost its DHCP capabilities and would cause 3 different PC's out of the blue to just "lose" internet capabilities or its IP address.

I had updated its firmware to several different versions. All with the same results.

A power cycle was the only thing that fixed the issue. After doing this 2X times a day, I decided to trade it for something different as it was still under store warranty. I picked up a US Robotics USR5471-BP MaxG. I'll review it after a few months.

~Captain_Red

Seems like this model needs continual reboots to stay heathly. If I let it go more than a few hours, I start getting a lot of dropped packets to the Internet. A few days and it will be off the air entirely. I've heard that some people put this on an electrical timer to reboot it every night. I've tried every firmware I can get my hands on with the same results. Went back to an older BEFW11S4 and have no problems. This one's a dog.

This router is a piece of *rap. I had the following problems:

Gateway relay functions for DNS did not work -- I had to setup DNS hosts in DHCP clients for it to work. Called Linksys and got a firmware change and then I found that wireless functions did not work.

Also, I found that whenever I tried to use the filter or other security features they did not work.

Generally, I think that this router has had a MUCH smaller market share that the WRT54G that seems to have several forums and even third party firmware available.

Never buy this product. If you want a commercial grade appliance for the home, buy a Cisco PIX 501. After never being satisfied with the Linksys WRT55AG, I finally tossed all my Linksys in favour of other products. Not too threatening for Linksys since Cisco owns them. Shame on you Cisco for still selling the WRT55AG!!

I have mixed feelings about this wireless router. When I first bought it it functioned really well but some of the security features were not fully implemented and occasionally, when my dynamic IP changed, the unit would not release the old IP and update to the new IP. Not a big problem though.

A few months later though, I changed cable providers, and suddenly I was dropping DHCP every few days and the wireless connection would drop if the main hard wired PC was running any app that used a large number of connections such as a P2P app or FTP Server.

It was a major headache. I tried a firmware upgrade to v1.30 and didn't see much improvement especially in the wireless drop out. The DHCP was better but not completely fixed. I was about to RMA the unit or get rid of it when a tech emailed me a beta of fw v1.67.

After installing v1.67 beta I no longer had continual wireless drop out and the feature set was greatly expanded. I was still getting a few issues with DHCP but after talking with my ISP and turning off the MAC cloning feature I no longer had any DHCP issues.

I have since flashed to the release v1.67 fw and have had no more troubles with this device. I have also changed providers and have found that with my current provider the MAC Clone does work without issue so I believe that is a provider issue.

If I had rated this unit after I first purchased it I probably would have rated it as excellent. It was extremely easy to setup, had excellent coverage, and was at that time very dependable. Had I rated it 6 months later I would have rated it as poor due to all the drop issues I was experiencing. Now, with several months of issue free use, I would rate it as excellent again but I am still grumpy from all the headaches I had prior to this new firmware so I am only going to rate it as good.

I believe most of the problems were related to differences in providers but it should be able to function with any provider that meets the minimum specs for DHCP so the early firmware was unacceptable. I am pleased with the unit now though.