Recently bought Linksys router WRT610N together with 2 USB adapters WUSB600N at Sitex. I would say it's a huge disappointment and totally not worth the cash invested in it.

I'll start with the Linksys router. The 5.0 Ghz connection, which is supposed to provide faster connection in a less congested network, has a pathetic range for decent home usage. The signal degradation is so strong that after 5 meters and a wall, my connection to the network becomes intermittent. Sometimes it would connect, sometimes it drops the connection. The transfer speed to the router in that wireless range itself is pathetic too. After tweaking the settings, my files transfer speed to the router still hovers at around 1 MBps, even though the theoretical maximum is much higher. The 2.4 Ghz (the one most people are still using) works even better than my old one in terms of speed and range but that wasn't what I paid the money for.



I would've thought the USB adapters will be easier to configure than a new router but man, I was totally wrong. Since I recently installed a Windows 7, I decided to use one of these sticks for that computer. I spent about an hour troubleshooting the whole thing because it wouldn't connect to the internet and because I couldn't find an official update to the drivers. I thought there's a problem with my settings but it turned out linksys is the one that screwed up. After visiting its community forum, I found a lot of users with the same problems and a few workarounds. I tried one of them, which is using the vista updates for another adapter version and somehow it worked. Pretty much wasted a lot of my time there with the inefficiencies.

And while searching for driver update for that stick, I stumbled upon an official update to the XP driver. So I went ahead and updated the drivers for my XP computer's USB stick. Guess what? This time the stick couldn't talk properly to the router and the router refuses to issue the machine an IP address. In the end, I reinstalled the old driver in order to use the internet. Good job on an official driver that creates more problems, linksys.

With that being said, I'll end this 15 minutes entry. I'll probably jump over to D-link the next time I do an upgrade and I advise anyone reading not to buy either of those products I've mentioned.

Labels: Computer, linksys, Singapore, Sitex