Cisco-Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Pros: Great speed. Wireless is only less than 5% slower than ethernet connection. USB link port is very solid.
Cons: Not designed for people who want plug & play devices with no knowledge of networking.
I will agree with a lot of people regarding people that stated that this router is no good. Those people do not know what they're doing.
I bought a REFURBISHED version 1... and it works perfect. After reading so many bad reviews, I had the feeling that all refurbished WRT610Ns were probably from people who didn't know how to get it to work properly.****HOW TO PROPERLY SETUP A WRT610N ROUTER****
1) Download the latest firmware to your computer from Linksys' website. Do this even before you receive your WRT610N. Reading all the comments about the firmware, I didn't even bother trying the stock firmware.
2) Upon receiving the router, plug in the power cable and plug it into the AC outlet. No CAT5 cables yet.
Once it powers up, hold the reset button for a few seconds until the power light starts to blink. Release the reset button.
3) Once it powers up completely, plug your computer to the router with a CAT5 cable. Log into the router. Upload the new firmware.
4) After the upload is complete, unplug the power cable from the router, wait a few seconds, then plug it back it. This is to be assure the load was good.
5) Wireless configurations:
#1 Rule: Do not use auto on both G and N. Set 2.5Ghz band for B-G only and to a certain channel (6 or 11 works best). And set 5Ghz band for N only.
#2 Rule: Do not use the same encryption on both G and N. Set different encryption methods (example., WPA2 for N, WEP for G)
6) Disconnect the CAT5 cable, and try connecting to the N-wireless (do not connect to G. this is for testing purposes) Once your pc connects to the N network wirelessly, log into the router wirelessly.
7) 5Ghz in its nature is a sensitive frequency. The higher the frequency, the weaker the signal gets... but also gets faster. With that said, the 5Ghz N portion needs to be tweaked to what works best.
- On your computer, open up the Wireless Network Connection Status window. Leave this window open at all time so you can see the connection speed (If you have more than one pc with wireless N, do the same thing).
- Log into the router via wireless N. Go to Wireless Advanced section. Band: do not set AUTO on the band. Start off with 40Mhz. From there, pick the first channel (44 or something like that).
- Now check the speed(s) of the pc connection(s). Try out ever 40Mhz band until you find the best speed. If no band is solid, then result to 20Mhz. Once most solid and fastest speed is achieved, save the configs.
COMPLETE!
USB Link:
The USB link worked great. But there are some pointers. I tried two harddrives. 320GB 5400RPM SATA and 320GB 7200RPM SATA. Both were clones of each other; clean NTFS formatted with nothing but videos and music. I would recommend to edit SHARE and click on SHARE ENTIRE PARTITION. It seems much more fluid with that on. Ok, after I named my drive, shared the whole partition, and clicked on access rights, I mapped the drive to each computer to test the stability and speed. I did have a problem with my music folder that had 355 sub-folders (individual albums); it would randomly see all 355 folders. It would see 210, then 340, the 290, etc. It was a strange behavior. Since both harddrives were clones of each other, I formatted one harddrive using the Linksys Router function. It formatted the drive to NTFS FAT2. First time I've used FAT2. After I copied the contents back to the drive, I tested it again. It actually finds the files much faster than before. Don't know why. I haven't had a problem with missing folders either. Everything is found instantly. So I would highly recommend to format using the Linksys Router function. I did test out between 5400rpm and 7200rpm to see which would be better for a media storage. Attached to the linksys, neither one of them showed an real differences. I tried file transfer, playing lossless music, pictures, HD movies... all had the same performance. So I would recommend to just pick a 5400rpm since it runs on lower power consumption.
Stress Test:
I ran a very thorough performance test to see if this router could handle it.
Laptop #1 - wireless N 300Mbps connection
Laptop #2 - wireless N 280Mbps connection
Laptop #3 - wireless G 54Mbps
PS3 - wireless G 54Mbps
Wii - wireless G 54Mbps
NAS Harddrive on USB Link port
Laptop #1 to download multiple 3-5GB files from the internet.
Laptop #2 was streaming an HD movie 1080p from the NAS harddrive.
Laptop #3 was streaming lossless music from the NAS harddrive (54Mbps is too slow for HD movies)
PS3 was in an online game session (Marvel vs Capcom 2) as a spectator watching everyone play
Wii was set to stream a tv channel (Japanese Wii)
Laptop #1 was downloading at 35Mbps (which is about 2Mbps slower than when directly connected to the internet modem without Linksys). So that was still downloading at flying speeds even with all the traffic. Laptop #2 had no problem streaming an HD movie. There was some bit delay if I paused the movie or FF. But playing the movie, switching languages on the fly, etc... had no problems at all. It played smoothly. Laptop #3 was playing flac lossless audio files while browsing through the folders with no problems. PS3 never lost the connection to the online game. And the Wii never froze with the tv channel. I ran this test overnight with no problems at all.
Conclusion: This router works. It's very fast, stable, and had no problems. Just make sure you configure it properly. One piece of advise regarding wireless cards, stay away from the Intel N cards. They work poorly with the Linksys N routers. I tried three different Intel N cards and two Linksys N routers. I was never able to achieve a 300Mbps connection with any configuration.
I hope you will find this review helpful.

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Linksys Ultra RangePlus, Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless RouterThe Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router is really four devices in one box.First, there's the dual-band Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires.There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100/1000 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together at up to gigabit speeds.The Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection. We've also included a Storage Link that lets you easily add gigabytes of storage space onto your network using readily available USB 2.0 hard drives -- or plug in a USB flash disk for a convenient way to access your portable data files.The built-in Media Server streams music, video, and photos from the attached storage device to any UPnP compatible media adapter.And you can get to your files from anywhere in the world through the Internet.The Access Point built into the Router uses a dual-band version of the very latest wireless networking technology, Wireless-N (draft 802.11n).By overlaying the signals of multiple radios for each band, Wireless-N's "Multiple In, Multiple Out" (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate.Unlike ordinary wireless networking technologies that are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually uses these reflections to increase the range and reduce "dead spots" in the wireless coverage area.The robust signals travel farther, maintaining wireless connections much farther than standard Wireless-G.

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