Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router Reviewed

[Q-BZ]

The advantage is fewer competing networks and more non-overlapping channels.

Disadvantage, at least until manufacturers stop cheaping out on power amps is poorer range.

Has anyone stopped cheaping out on power amps or are we well into high end expensive business solutions only, if even that?

I'm just about ready to make a move and I'm not sure whether to even bother buying dual band ready products given the above.

Ideally, an "optimized" 5Ghz wireless N situation sounds like the way to go but it looks/sounds like that just doesn't exist yet.

 

[thiggins]

I haven't seen a 5 GHz product yet that can reach all six of my open air test locations.

 

[Q-BZ]

I haven't seen a 5 GHz product yet that can reach all six of my open air test locations.

So don't bother and probably don't bother with dual band?

I suspect if I go 2.4Ghz N all the way I'll still be happy with it. I don't live in a big city and such where I'd have a ton of interference anyways.

 

[Scott]

performance advantage of dual band

I have a few computers connected at home, including a server.

I put the server (which is in the router's DMZ) on 5GHz and the rest on 2.4, which means the server doesn't have to compete with the others when handling Internet requests.

It also means that when I run a backup of the server from one my workstations, the workstation and the server each have their full wifi bandwidth to itself. If they were both on the same frequency, the backup speed is about 1/2, since they're both trying to send and receive via the same router and the same frequency.

I've been having occasional disconnects of the 5GHz radio. My router is wall mounted, and doesn't seem to be getting hot. Personally, I'm guessing it's interference with DECT phones, and so I've set the 5GHz to use channels wide/46 and standard/48, to keep it out of their range. We'll see how it goes...

I used to have odd disconnects with my Linksys WRTG45 router (2.4 GHz) until I discovered it was a neighbour's microwave, and the disconnects stopped when I changed the channel from 11 to 1.

 

[thiggins]

Personally, I'm guessing it's interference with DECT phones, and so I've set the 5GHz to use channels wide/46 and standard/48, to keep it out of their range. We'll see how it goes...

DECT 6.0 phones operate in the 1.9 GHz band, which won't interfere with either 2.4 or 5 GHz.

 

[Robin]

DECT 6.0 phones operate in the 1.9 GHz band, which won't interfere with either 2.4 or 5 GHz.

Still recommend the 610N if plenty airflow ?
or what model otherwise with similar specs?

(ie gbit and good in relaying 100mbit internet connection)

 

[Dawgneck]

Question re: 1TB drive attached to 610N

Hi, guys.

I just purchased the Linksys WRT610N and connected a Maxtor 1TB OneTouch 4 Plus hard drive to it.

I haven't experienced any problems yet, but my 610N only sees 666GB of my 1TB drive... to be specific, it shows a capacity of 976.762 GB and free space of 666.025 GB. It doesn't matter how many times I format the drive (NFTS or FAT32), either on my computer or the 610N.

Anyone else have a 1TB drive attached to the 610N? If so, how much of the drive does your 610N see?

Am I doing anything wrong or is the max the 610 can address is 666GB?

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Dawgneck.

 

[Dawgneck]

Never mind

I got it to see the full 1TB.

I deleted then added a partition, then formatted it in fat32 with Acronis Disk Director and the 610N saw the whole drive.

 

[Karlista]

Testing for the new firmware for WRT610N

Does anyone have any feedback on the new firmware for the 610N? Linksys said on their website they fixed the dropping issue and extended the range. How can firmware extend the range of a router????

 

[dao]

While I cannot specify a boost in range, so far, I have no drops. Mindful, that I have only 7 hours or so of testing.

 

[claykin]

Wow, it took Linksys 5 months to release firmware to "hopefully" fix the worst of the problems. Maybe its time for Tim to retest?????

 

[Dawgneck]

So far, it is working pretty good

It took a long time, but my router is working fine with the update.

No drops so far, my laptop and G1 phone are working great together now with this router and it seems a tad bit snappier.

Looks like I purchased the right wireless router.

 

[rpwoodman]

It took a long time, but my router is working fine with the update.

Could you try streaming large quantities of data - really hammering it for an hour or so? I think that's when the problem generally manifests itself.

thanks very much

 

[Unregistered]

Well, since my last post, I've finally gotten my WRT610N stable with both radios on.

Basically, I took apart the router, and installed slim-profile heat sinks on the metal shields that covered the hottest chips, using Arctic Silver Alumina Adhesive.

Then I got a 120mm fan and mounted it to a base that the router sits upon. The fan effectively forces fresh air through the holes in the bottom of the router and out of the top vents.

The router doesn't even feel warm to the touch anymore, even when I'm fully utilizing both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios. In fact, I ran a test last night, where I transferred 100GB on the 5GHz radio, 50GB on the 2.4GHz, and 180GB on the GigE switch, all simultaneously. I woke up this morning, and all transfers had been completed without any drops after multiple hours.

So I've effectively "fixed" my router's connection drops... At the expense of getting my hands dirty and voiding the warranty on an expensive piece of hardware .

what settings are u using?

 

[tdream]

It took a long time, but my router is working fine with the update.

No drops so far, my laptop and G1 phone are working great together now with this router and it seems a tad bit snappier.

Looks like I purchased the right wireless router.

Hardly a conclusive test.

 

[jdabbs]

Hardly a conclusive test.

To be fair, it's already been established that the 610N is a decent performer, but marred by stability problems. You don't need benchmarks to determine if the router is frequently locking up.

 

[Dawgneck]

To be fair, it's already been established that the 610N is a decent performer, but marred by stability problems. You don't need benchmarks to determine if the router is frequently locking up.

And all I'm referring to is its stability.

Man, I have to say my problems were resolved with the new firmware!

It appears my problems were not heat related. I no longer have to place the unit on blocks to keep it stable and cool(er). The unit has been on constantly since the 24th of Feb without a single lock up!

I've transferred a large number of HD movies and other large files from my desktop to laptop wirelessly and via cat5 over the 610 with no lock ups. I also transferred 1 tb of data from one drive to another without any problems. I could not complete this before.

Before, I couldn't complete a 800 meg transfer without the 610 locking up.

Sorry, I can't give speed numbers. I'll leave that up to SNB.

I really doubted my purchase just weeks ago, now I'm a happy camper.

Again, I'm only reporting on my experience with stability. In comparison to the daily resets I experienced before, the new firmware is a god send....

 

[Zarn]

Still having problems with the 5Ghz Band

I am not sure the new firmware has fixed the problem. Although I have had no experience of the older firmware I still get connection drops on the 5Ghz band.

Windows does not register that the connection has dropped and if I switch to the 2.4Ghz band and switch back it starts working again for a short duration.

Mostly the dropouts occur when I am pulling large files over the wireless.

I have the latest drivers for the Intel 5300 card in the laptop.

 

[Dawgneck]

Update:

Still not a single problem, here.

I'm definitely interested in having this unit retested again to see how it stacks up with the new firmware.

 

[staticfree]

Linksys WRT610N, WRT320N and Intel wireless adapters

I have owned and been operating these Linksys routers for a few weeks continuously now as AP's in my home network. To keep it brief here, I have noticed that these Linksys routers do not interoperate 100% well with my laptops that use Intel 4965agn and 5300agn wireless cards. Every so often when I view a scan of the SSID signals in my network area, these Linksys SSID signals mysteriously disappear and are not seen! Yet all other neighboring AP's SSID's are seen including my Dlink and Netgear routers. At the times that the Linksys routers SSID's disappear you cannot connect to them even forced manually setting to try and connect to their SSID's. They are simply not recognized during these ghost disappearance times, yet the routers are up and running still fine! How do I know they are up and running fine? I use my other laptops that do not use Intel based wi-fi cards and lo and behold, my Linksys SSID signals show up on Atheros based wireless card.

When I use the Atheros chipset based card laptop PC to connect to the Linksys router(s), at that point after I connect, something must get reset or cleared in the Linksys router, because then all of a sudden the Linksys SSID signals start showing up in the Intel chipset based laptop PC's again.

They will run fine for a while like this (being able to show up and be detected and connected to on the Intel machiones) but then randomly (it seems random) mysteriously disappear from existence again only on the Intel based wireless PC's.

Any ideas? I've chated with a Linksys Tech Support guy this morning and reported this issue but I don't know how far up the line it will be reported to really get them to apply a new firmware fix release.

With this specific relationship (Intel wifi cards/drivers with Linksys routers) identified as a possible root cause of all the connection problems reported, does anyone else notice this or can test theirs and verify if you observe same symptoms/quirls? If so, report it.

I should add that I also observed this disappearing SSID signals symptom using a Netgear WNDA3100 dual-band USB adapter, so it may not only be an issue with just Intel adapters. This makes me suspect the problem issue lies with Linksys signal processing algorithm(s) and not the adapter manufacturers.