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Do NOT buy this router. It continually looses it's connection to the internet. If you take the time to peruse the chat rooms at Linksys you will find that this is a know issue with this unit and there is no solution.
Dropped internet connection every one to five hours. This is my second Linksys product that has been flakey right out of the box, the other being a Linksys SRX-200 wireless router. Had one that lasted six years before dying. Went to local electronics store, got a Netgear ProSafe VPN Firewall Model FVS318 for $89.95. No more Cisco/Linksys stuff for me. Tried everything I knew to get it working consistently, no sucess. Returned this flakey Linksys piece of junk.
So I ended up eating the piece of junk. Got another despite the reviews here. Wasn't able to return it to BestBuy caused I spent too much time thinking it was something I was doing wrong and trying to live with it. SurfBoard cable modem is working fine. Installed it, no fuss, no special settings and it has worked flawlessly for a month now. Got a ZyXEL wireless router and it has been solid since. They need to get their engineering and QC teams together and figure things out before damage the Linksys line of products beomes irrepairable.
This is the third time I have dealt with a Linksys product failure in which there are no diagnostics, no support, no replacement. probably a hardware failure." On top of everything, the Webex hosted chat session with Linksys support kept freezing.
Probable hardware failure. About 24 months old.
My second BEFSR81 just crapped out. The only guess from Linksys support "all 8 port LED's blinking is not a good sign.
Typical of Linksys - no diagnostics. Just several weeks of gradually worsening network drops, freezes, resets, reboots and resulting hairpulling, frustration, disappointment.
After 15 years of loyalty to the Linksys brand, I am throwing in the towel. The user is left to their own wits dealing with the gradual peformance degradation and random network drops and freezes before the product's premature death.
I returned because I thougth it has the option to hang in the wall like the NETGEAR products.
Doesn't have much competition in the router world except for it's big brothers, the RV082 and RV016 (which I highly recommend, btw). The one place I use these is an office building where 5 non-profits all share office space and a tiny communications closet stuffed with wires. Well, the RV-series from Linksys has spoiled me, and given me higher expectations that I should have for their standard-issue products. Anyway, any other router that allows me to put in my own custom port value has worked fine, but changing the RA port on this one makes it not work, has to be reset to defaults and then reprogrammed. If you need performance/reliability and can afford it, get the RV082 instead. Anyway, it seems to work wonderfully until I try to change the port for remote administration. At 1/3 the price, it certainly is more affordable than the RV082.
Also, it's easy on their budgets. This is a quirky little device. This cuts the number of devices in half by combining the router and a big-enough switch into one unit. I use one in the high range (above 50000), which some TCP/IP guru would probably say is wrong. Still, if you just leave that alone the rest of the features seem to work fine. The new models come with the nice small power brick that seems to use less power and generate less heat. If you're trying to fit a one-piece solution into a home structured-wiring cabinet, then this is a better choice because of less heat output and smaller footprint.
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