This router is a piece of crap. Let me repeat: piece of crap. The dog doo that you tread through to get to your car is worth more from the bottom of your shoe than this router. It gave me nothing but problems while I had it. I've used linksys, dlink and currently my airport extreme. I can't begin to say how problematic this router is and how useless it becomes. As another user pointed out, I had to reset it at least 1-2 days. Half the time it wouldn't emit a signal and other times it would just kick my devices off. No matter what I did or what research I conducted to set it up better, this router just wouldn't function correctly. Compound this with the crappy software that they embedded on it and the useless explanation in some of the help areas (which are sparse), caused me to chuck it up against a wall with a flying fist of fury coming up against it before it had a chance to slide down from the impact. I ended up going out and buying a router (airport extreme) that, while cost more, hasn't given me a single problem since.

I saw this router's image when I was perusing woot and I felt compelled to make this my first post on woot. BUYER BEWARE: STAY AWAY!

mmachado95833 wrote:Can it work with an Xbox 360?

M_A_C wrote:So will this be good for the Xbox 360 and PS3? My Qwest router always losses it's UPnP for some reason.

NightGhost wrote:The first review at Amazon says yes to XBOX 360.

The router does not matter. Any router will work with the 360 and that's what the review at Amazon is saying. However, the 360 requires a Microsoft adapter and the adapter being sold probably will not be recognized.

pjrobar wrote:It is a common myth, perpetuated by wireless router manufacturers, that 802.11n has twice the range of 802.11g radios. What sites like smallnetbuilder.com have found in tests is that N radios have about the same range as G, but more usable signal up to the point where the connection is lost.

Is that in a single antenna or a MIMO configuration? I wouldn't expect tonight's router to have much more range than a G-router, but one of the high-end routers with four antennas should be able to stretch out quite a bit further.

sandandh2o wrote:OK - this is unrelated, but did you know if you google b. o. c. it comes up Woot.

Hey does this score me a quality post?

Apparently not.

BTW, for those who are new, here is a primer on how to unbox a Bagg ove kap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBW9z0FLBpw

dissatisfiedcustomer wrote:MAC address filtering is best.

No actually it isn't, you need to encrypt the traffic. MAC addresses can be spoofed pretty easily by good wireless cards. If you want to do both thats fine, but alwasy use encryption WPA, or WPA2.

ZandersZa wrote:OK, so here's my question: is there any wireless router out there that is consistently tolerable? I've ran into problems with just about every brand.

I've had no problems with my Linksys Wireless-G router, and plan to buy linksys again when i finally upgrade to N.

Charles.

bhcompy wrote:anyone know if this will work as a wireless ap serving an existing network(or more accurately, work as a wireless switch providing addressing from the existing network to devices directly connected/wired to this ap)

SinnFein wrote:Yes. It has bridge mode functionality. I was just looking at the manual.

http://www.smc.com/files/AX/UG_SMCWBR14S_N4.PDF

'Bridge mode' would change the wireless interface of the SMC to become a station, connecting to an existing access point and thereby extending your existing network and allowing devices connected to the 4-port switch to communicate with the rest of your network. Doing this would remove access point functionality, so asking if you could put this in 'bridge mode' and then use it as a 'wireless ap' is not possible. Based on what you asked in your 'more accurately' part, I think that is what you are getting at anyways.

However, it should also be noted that you can use this and almost any wireless router as just an access point for an existing wireless network by doing the following:

1.) Assign the LAN IP of the wireless router something other than the LAN IP of the existing wired router, but on the same subnet, and outside of the DHCP scope. Essentially, if your existing router is 192.168.1.1, and your DHCP server assigns IP addresses 192.168.1.100-199, set the wireless router's LAN IP to 192.168.1.2.

2.) Disable the wireless router's DHCP server.

3.) Connect one of the wireless router's LAN ports to one of the wired router's LAN ports via a network patch cable. Do not connect anything to the WAN/Internet port of the wireless router.

That's it, and you can plug anything in to the wireless router's other LAN ports to be on the network as well. This is useful if you have to keep your wired router if it has more features than this one, such as an IPSEC VPN endpoint.

stevesds wrote:Wireless-N 150Mbps, but only 100Mbps for wired ports??
What a crock!!

I think 100 is about plenty for most home networks

ZandersZa wrote:OK, so here's my question: is there any wireless router out there that is consistently tolerable? I've ran into problems with just about every brand. I'm convinced that while all technology moves forward, wireless routers are still an absolute crapshoot when it comes to whether or not they'll last, whether they'll arbitrarily boot users off the network, whether you'll have to unplug it every day to reset it, etc...

I find it extremely frustrating, and I'm in the market for a router. This is so cheap that I almost think it's worth the chance. Anyone have some advice? I'm getting a little sick of this 50 foot blue ethernet cable wrapping around my apartment. Thanks in advance.

I've had good luck with a Buffalo WHR-G300N I got for cheap. It's missing some features I would like to have, like port triggering, but it has been solid as a rock. Others I have had, from Netgear, linksys, and belkin, all either buttafuocoed or lost their connection from time to time or had to be reset a few times a month. This one has just worked. My desktop, laptop, and phone just connect to it, and it keeps working. It has never locked up or mysteriously gotten new IP addresses from the DSL modem.

It just works.

capcityphoenix wrote: I can use the USB adapter in place of the XBOX dongle and connect through that, correct?

Not likely. XBox does not support most dongles, they want you to get their specific stuff. I just went through testing a bunch of dongles for my Live play and nothing worked, ended up hitting up eBay for a XBox wireless adapter.

whackly wrote:Every router I have ever owned needed occasional care and feeding, in the form of reboots and updates, to continue working properly. There are only 2 exceptions. Routers that I have loaded with DD-WRT were much less difficult to maintain once I set dd-wrt to automatically reboot the device at 4AM every few nights. The 2-wire box from U-Verse has never required a reboot to restore function. You might get lucky if you can get uverse or you can be sure your crap with work with dd-wrt (or similar).

DD-WRT on a good router should be rock solid. My Linksys WRT54-GL and Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 running DD-WRT both had uptimes over 100 days before the last power outage with no issues.

I do know that DD-WRT tends to have issues with Atheros-based routers, they refuse to use the open source driver Atheros provides because the license would make it harder for them to sell the higher end version of DD-WRT. The driver they're using in its place seems to be rather buggy, on the older Broadcom hardware it's a rock solid firmware though.

This may be a SPOOKTACULAR! question, but if my old laptop's wireless card is too old and crappy to be compatible with "N" signals, will I still be able to use the wireless network, even if not at N speeds?

shlamele24 wrote:This may be a SPOOKTACULAR! question, but if my old laptop's wireless card is too old and crappy to be compatible with "N" signals, will I still be able to use the wireless network, even if not at N speeds?

You bet, although it's unlikely this is a dual channel thing, so, while your b or g laptop is connected, everything else connected will have to run at that speed, too.

You can always plug the provided adapter into your laptop.

Carp...just bought a wireless N router and USB N thingy last week. Curses.
I spent twice this, although the router I bought is 300Mbps. I've seen 150Mbps N routers for $20-$25 on sale, so (without knowing how good SMC is) this doesn't look like a bad deal.

mmachado95833 wrote:Can it work with an Xbox 360?

It will work with an XBOX 360 but the USB dongle won't. The 360 only works with XBOX specific wireless adapters. You can use ethernet cable from the 360 to the router, or use a 360 wireless adapter (802.11g or 802.11n) to connect wirelessly.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Wireless-Network-Adapter-Networks/dp/B002RS7NB2

shlamele24 wrote:This may be a SPOOKTACULAR! question, but if my old laptop's wireless card is too old and crappy to be compatible with "N" signals, will I still be able to use the wireless network, even if not at N speeds?

Couldn't you use the adapter that comes with it if your card couldn't handle it?

dissatisfiedcustomer wrote:MAC address filtering is best.

And if you filter mac addresses, you don't need a password! Somebody would need to have stolen the actual hardware you own to connect to the router.

And even past that, they would still need the router password to edit any settings.

stevesds wrote:Wireless-N 150Mbps, but only 100Mbps for wired ports??
What a crock!!

This may not apply to 802.11n, but I have read that other wireless versions (b/g) add up their bandwidth rating. So 150Mbps is actually 75Mbps download and 75Mbps upload. It's not simultaneous. E.g. 802.11g claims a speed of 54Mbps but that's 27 down, 27 up.

Meanwhile, a 100Mbps wired port is actually 100Mbps up and down, because it can handle both simultaneously.

Just an FYI, this router does not support VPN connections or QOS.

This router is awesome!! I bought one and it granted me 3 wishes! My first wish was for a Linksys.....

philippz wrote:It only has one antenna. Wireless N needs two antennas in order to achieve its full potential.

Actually 4.

1 antenna means 150Mbps max.
2 antennas means 300Mbps max.
3 antennas means 450Mbps max.
4 antennas means 600Mbps max.

And just because it has 2, 3, or 4 doesn't mean that you'll actually get those speeds. The device must use all 2, 3, or 4 simultaneously, and there aren't a lot of devices that do that just yet.

dissatisfiedcustomer wrote:MAC address filtering is best.

Ack, no!!

MAC address filtering is the WORST security. It is so unbelievably easy to spoof a MAC address.

The best is something like WPA2-EAP-TTLS. But standard WPA is enough in most settings (unless you're dealing with government secrets).

I'm having trouble opening the manual for some reason (keeps saying the file is corrupt). It has Bridge mode, but does it have an option to set it up as an extendor?

Also, for everyone talking about Computability with the 360, it's compatible through the ethernet port on the 360. You set the router as a bridge, identify the network you want to use, run through the setup, and then plug an ethernet cord into the router and the router. I use the same setup for my 360. Mine is with a DD-WRT router, but if it has a bridge option it can be setup.

ZandersZa wrote:OK, so here's my question: is there any wireless router out there that is consistently tolerable? I've ran into problems with just about every brand. I'm convinced that while all technology moves forward, wireless routers are still an absolute crapshoot when it comes to whether or not they'll last, whether they'll arbitrarily boot users off the network, whether you'll have to unplug it every day to reset it, etc.

Your mileage may vary, but...

Sometimes problems with WiFi are not with the router, but with other devices on the network. I've got seven, sometimes eight people living in my house, and as a result there are five computers, a couple of WiFi-capable smart phones, a Wii and an IPTV streaming video box. All running wireless. My Netgear wireless router died after a few years of faithful service (there was actually a popping noise and a small whiff of smoke) so I got a Linksys WRT54GL and put DD-WRT on it. At certain times of the day, it ran great. Other times, it kept dropping the signal. Sometimes it would kick some people off the network, but not others. Occasionally it would freeze. I couldn't find a clear pattern, and was getting tremendously frustrated until I sat down and really tried to sort it out.

Through a friend, I happened to have a second WRT54GL on hand. So I started isolating clients, moving them one at a time from one router to the other. Found a few things:

a. the IPTV box claimed to have 802.11g capability, but would always connect at 802.11b. There was no way to force it to 802.11g. That immediately affected all the 802.11g clients on the network, as they all dumbed down to the 802.11b speed.

b. the IPTV box and the Wii, when connected simultaneously, seemed to overwhelm the router and either slow it down or crash it.

c. if I forced one router to 802.11b-only and put the IPTV/Wii on it, then forced the other router to 802.11g-only and put all the other devices on it, everything ran *much* more smoothly. So I kept it this way.

d. it helps if you choose a channel as far from the other channels as possible. Everyone else in my neighborhood is using channel 6 (the usual default) so I put one router at 1 and the other at 11.

Of course, it took me several hours of testing (and that spare router) to figure this out. Not everybody can do this. But my point is the same: it is not always the router's fault.

OK - I'm not totally Tech illiterate - but I need HELP on this: Doesn't the USB Dongle/adapter require some ISP or phone signal to work? I've used 3G, Beeline, O2 dongles (abroad) and all had an associated service provider. Hope someone can help me on this.

djrmsn wrote:OK - I'm not totally Tech illiterate - but I need HELP on this: Doesn't the USB Dongle/adapter require some ISP or phone signal to work? I've used 3G, Beeline, O2 dongles (abroad) and all had an associated service provider. Hope someone can help me on this.

It's a dongle to connect to a Wireless-N network, not a cellular network.

gwbaker wrote:I had an older SMC Barricade router that would quite frequently disconnect then reconnect with all wirelessly connected computers. While you might not think this is a problem, consider downloading a large file that cannot be resumed....

I, in anger, damaged a lapatop because I thougt it to be a unit of crap. But, later I realized, that the culprit was the crappy router made by SMC and labled Barricade.

A crashed hard drive, due to my anger, and a lot of hair pulled out, finally led me to the defective SMC Barricade router.

Since then, I have not recommended their stuff even to my WORST enemys.

Tread lightly!!!!!

anyone who trashes a computer in anger ain't thinking straight to begin with!

So this is to say that if purchased, this product will make me into a man? What *other* super powers does this thing have?

So if hook up this router, plug my desktop into it, wirelessly connect to it with my laptop and Wii and plug the adapter into my Tivo, it should be an upgrade over a 4-year-old Linksys setup?

dissatisfiedcustomer wrote:MAC address filtering is best.

It's pretty easy to spoof a MAC address as opposed to cracking WPA

brianshea wrote:So if hook up this router, plug my desktop into it, wirelessly connect to it with my laptop and Wii and plug the adapter into my Tivo, it should be an upgrade over a 4-year-old Linksys setup?

That's pretty iffy. The 4-year-old Linksys is probably 802.11g, so this 802.11n router will be somewhat faster; probably not earth-shattering. The question is whether or not the USB adapter will work with the TiVo. While the description says there's drivers for Linux (which is what the TiVo runs), there's no guarantee that the TiVo folks included the driver for this adapter in their builds. I can't find any reference to this being TiVo compatible, which likely means that it's not. (edit: some of the older 802.11b SMC USB adapters apparently do work on a TiVo, so while it's still a crap shoot, it may actually work.)

I'd say that if what you're using is working, don't mess with it.

ZandersZa wrote:OK, so here's my question: is there any wireless router out there that is consistently tolerable? I've ran into problems with just about every brand. I'm convinced that while all technology moves forward, wireless routers are still an absolute crapshoot when it comes to whether or not they'll last, whether they'll arbitrarily boot users off the network, whether you'll have to unplug it every day to reset it, etc...

I have felt your pain... But I no longer do. I upgraded an ancient (probably 5 year old) NetGear wireless-G router to use DD-WRT. Used to be that the router would hang every day or two; more frequently under some circumstances. Since installing the micro version of DD-WRT, I've no problems at all. I set the router to automatically reboot weekly, just as a precaution, but it's been flawless. So, my new criterion for router shopping is - will it run DD-WRT? If so, you're golden. For many routers, the install process is basically as simple as installing a manufacturer-provided firmware update. It's a thing of beauty.

SinnFein wrote:I use this site to generate my WPA keys:

http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/WPA_key/generator.php

Thanks for the site,put in my favorites.

stevesds wrote:Wireless-N 150Mbps, but only 100Mbps for wired ports??
What a crock!!

Considering your internet modem/router probably feeds across a 10/100 ethernet port, and the internet access is probably limited to much less than that it's probably a non-issue.

dissatisfiedcustomer wrote:MAC address filtering is best.

Doing both is even better.

wharvey18 wrote:How much faster will this be than a wireless G router? Will the difference be noticeable?

It depends on what you are doing with your network. If you are only using it to allow other devices to connect to the internet, you may not notice much difference. It is possible you will find that connections are somewhat more stable, but routers are quirky, so that's no guarantee.

However, if you are sending large files from one device on your network to another, you should see a big increase in speed.

Finally, you may get better range with an N-router, but again, that's not a guarantee. Some users have reported that a device in one room of a house or office will not connect with a G-router, but will work with an N. Others see no difference.

Wireless Protocols Explained - Key Differences Between Wireless N and G Protocols

Wireless Standards - 802.11b 802.11a 802.11g and 802.11n

Wireless N Vs G

So has anyone had a positive personal experience with this router? Maybe I've skipped over them but I've only read the negative ones so far

i24u wrote:What kind of speeds should you get with a "N" router. I have d-link downstairs with d-link usb adapter on the next floor up. I get 60mbps sometimes not to often I get 120mbps. So what is going on?

Wireless N can theoretically achieve speeds up to about 600mbps, but this will of course depend on multiple things including the speed of your wired ISP coming into the router, wireless NICs of the machines connecting, noise, etc. etc.

So I'd say the speeds you're getting are pretty good considering you can only get up to 54mbps max with a G router.

iltopop wrote:We just did WEP cracking as part of my security fundamentals class to demonstrate how easy it is to crack. Took 15 minutes, someone with experience could do it in less than 10.

Oh and well I'm on the topic, MAC filtering and non-broadcasting SSID's are even easier than WEP to break.

Use WPA/WP2, and change the default SSID (The SSID is used when cracking WPA, so without getting too technical, if you use default there are things out there already to get a cracker started). If you're really serious don't broadcast the SSID either, but for a home user WPA is enough to keep your neighbours out.

The above is all accurate - I just wanted to add a couple of things:

Note that some devices won't work unless you broadcast the SSID.

If you are a home user, you may ask "why do I need security?" Even if you are the only one who uses your devices, be aware that the range of your wireless signal will extend beyond your house or apartment. That means someone in another apartment, house, or even someone in a car can attempt to hack your network (it's called "wardriving"). There are people who amuse themselves by driving through neighborhoods and hacking wireless networks. Some of them are looking for more than amusement.

Once someone has hacked your network, they have access to any information you send over it, which may include passwords and other sensitive data.

War Driving

How to catch hackers on your wireless network

Wireless Network Security For The Home

vsavage wrote:It was a joke, and a damn funny one.

It gave me a chuckle this morning