Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router

List Price: $199.99 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Internet-sharing Router and 4-port Gigabit Switch, with a built-in, dual-band, speed and range enhanced Wireless Access Point
• Two simultaneous, separate, radio bands double your available bandwidth
• MIMO technology uses multiple radios per band to create robust signals for maximum range and speed, with reduced dead spots
• Connect a hard drive or flash-based USB storage device to allow access to your music, video, or data files from within your network, or through the Internet

Customer Reviews:

Solid performance and way better looking than my wrt54gs it replaced [Posted on 2008-09-15]
Setup was typical Linksys, not too difficult at all. Had initial problem getting to internet, could not browse but setup said I was connected. Called my ISP and confirmed I was authenticating they advised perhaps my antivirus was at fault. Sure enough, the software firewall in my AV client saw the new connection as a threat. Reset the rules and was up and running, so I wonder how many people may be blaming the router on their connection problems in error. Many reviews mention this router gets hot but new (to me anyway) in this stock configuration manager I found a radio power setting. Set both radios to low power and still have excellent signal on both bands everywhere in my house which is good in two ways, 1 it limits the range at which my wireless is detectable and 2 it seems to be keeping the unit fairly cool. And file transfers between my workstation and server simply fly now on the built in gigabit switch which was my main reason for getting this to replace my still serviceable wrt54gs. My only complaint is Amazon's tracking notification, the number they provided me to track the shipment does not appear to be valid with any of the major carriers and on the website, despite the fact it arrived early today, it still says it is being picked up and estimated delivery date is still a week away! Whats up with your shipping AMAZON? (NOT that I am complaining about getting here so fast but I would still like to know about when to start actually looking for the package on my doorstep!) Also, being familiar with the product I opted to not install the LELA software that ships with it so I cannot comment on that. If you have ever configured any of the other linksys products you should have no trouble at all manually configuring this one, don't bother with LELA.

Heat issues causing wirless disconects  [Posted on 2008-09-15]
If you have a look on Linksys's forums you'll see that I'm not alone in this problem. The Linksys WRT610N suffers from frequent wireless disconnects. So every 5-15 min you lose your wireless connection, then the WRT610N resets its wireless connection and you get it back after about 1 min of lost connection. This is very annoying for even simple web surfing and it makes streaming and downloading impossible
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As of the writing of this review Linksys has made no official statement on it's plans how to fix this and ignores their own forums on this issue. The firmware upgrades have made no difference for myself and many others.

The user community suspects this is a heat issue (the bottom of the WRT610N runs extremely hot and has come up with several fixes that include opening up the router and adding heatsinks. I know that this is not what I expect to have to do when I buy a new product.

The wired part works fine and the body of the router is more compact and better looking then old Linksys routers.

Another Winner (Updated) [Posted on 2008-09-15]
Linksys did a great job with this product. It is sleek and stylish, while still providing high levels of connectivity within my three story home. I have it installed near the ceiling of my basement.

I am using the 5ghZ "N" band for my PS3 only at this time. The PS3 is connected via ethernet to the Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gaming Adapter. The rest of my computers (PCs, iPhone, and Macs) use the 2.4 ghZ "B-G Mixed" band.

Both networks share the same DHCP pool, but have different SSIDs and passphrases (a Linksys recommendation).

The first thing I did was update the firmware. I have not experienced any dropouts or heat issues.

UPDATE: After a few weeks of use and after adding more wireless devices to my network, I have more to say...and its not so rosy. Both my Lenovo T61 and Apple Macbook Pro have issues when I tried setting the 2.4ghz network to "Mixed" (B, G, and N). When one computer is working fine, the other seems to have issues connecting to the network, usually the T61. I had security set to WPA 2 Tkip or AES (since this router allows this "either or" setting). I have since changed WPA TKIP based ona recommendation I found on the Linksys forums. It has only marginally improved things.

The bizarre part about this is the T61. It works fine over the 5GHz N setup, giving me 130Mbps. On 2.4 ghz I had to switch to "B-G Mixed and enable SSID broadcasting to get a connection initially. After that I could re-disable SSID broadcasting.

So, for my house I have the following: PS3 on 5Ghz N. No connectivity issues with the Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gaming Adapter. 100% uptime.

I also have an iPhone ("B/G" speeds), Appletv (Supports B/G/N), Macbook Pro (Airport "G" card), Buffalo Wireless Extender ("G"), and PowerMac (Airport "B" card). Since my iTunes library is on the Macbook Pro, I had to run the appletv over my 2.4 ghz network for the Appletv to see it. I was hoping that since both networks share the same address pool, that devices on the 2.4ghz network could see those on the 5Ghz N network. I expected bridging between the two wireless bands because they are in the same device. Maybe I am doing something wrong. If so, please comment on your setup.

Not an all day turn on item! [Posted on 2008-09-30]
Linksys says it is one the best product they have and indeed it is in many ways but one thing they are missing it is the fact that this kind of device is supposed mean to stay turn on all the time and in the aspect linksys failed!!!! After few hours of being turned on the device overheat and starts loosing signal!! I have to return this item and get a new from motorola which works great!!

Performs well, but only after I learned the magic encryption settings [Posted on 2008-09-30]
I bought mine at a local retailer to replace a WRT54G. I wanted dual channel to support streaming N to a Media Center Extender. It kept dropping wireless connections every few minutes. Tech support gave suggestions, but they didn't help. Finally I did three things to stable it out. 1) Updated to the latest firmware (B18), 2) Reset to factory defaults to wipe out all the (non-successful) changes recommended by tech support, and 3) (the one that really fixed it), switched to WPA2 / AES for my encryption type. That caused other problems, because some of my older laptops with XP didn't support this. There is a Microsoft update to add this (web search for WPA2 & KB893357)- or you can install XP Service Pack 3 to get it. After that, this thing works reliably, fast, and is totally worth the price. I switched back to WEP to connect an older machine to update it - and the instability immediately returned.

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