Linksys WRT1900AC First User Reports

[speedingcheetah]

My wrt610n had a recovery mode and so did wndr3700, so did few other older routers, so its nothing new. Asus made it simpler through the use of software that you install on your PC.

One of the reasons I bought Asus routers is because of the long term firmware support as you have mentioned. But looking back, its not a good thing. They fix 2-3 things and in the process they brake 2-3 things, and dance continues on and on for 6 months now. Take Merlin out of the equation and 6 months would turn in to a year.

And don't get me started on DLink routers, had the worst experience ever. But their $40 switch work just fine.

Its too soon to say what kind of support and bug fixes Linksys will bring to the table, plus there is lack of user feedback at this time. But we should see a better picture with in next few weeks.

I have had nothing but bad experience with Netgear products. Never will buy them again. The models I had personally, did not have any recovery mode.

I have had very good experience with DLinks routers of the past, except for their newer model routers, those I have had nothing but issues with. Most of which were the same issue, no wifi transmitting even though it said it was.

As far as Asus goes, on my AC56U, I have only had a few issues with firmware updates breaking things, but there has always been a stable version to go back to that performed just as well. I am very happy and it was money well spent and my experience only keeps getting better with my Asus product.

Also, the more complex and feature paked firmware is, the greater the chance of bugs or random issues to pop up. You want basic firmware to make your router be just a router and perform that function best as possible...thats what Tomato or other firmware is for. (they also have builds that have extra features, or u can add them in yourself if you know how)

 

[KGB7]

the only problem im seeing with this thing could be the fan.

in a laptop or pc where it is easy to clean/change the fan it is one thing. but in a small little router that ideally should run for years.

while i wanna see higher performance products. i dont know if i agree with the fan for cooling. though im sure it will offer superior performance while it works. since some users were saying there fan hadnt kicked in.

In a PC or laptop the fan is always On, unless.you select passive cooling, but it will still kick in now and then. At the end of the day you clean it same way you clean laptop fans...compressed air. And as long as there are no stickers covering screws, then taking the router apart to clean the fan should be no issue. Because many companies place stickers over screws to prevent warranty voids.

 

[KGB7]

I have had nothing but bad experience with Netgear products. Never will buy them again. The models I had personally, did not have any recovery mode.

I have had very good experience with DLinks routers of the past, except for their newer model routers, those I have had nothing but issues with. Most of which were the same issue, no wifi transmitting even though it said it was.

As far as Asus goes, on my AC56U, I have only had a few issues with firmware updates breaking things, but there has always been a stable version to go back to that performed just as well. I am very happy and it was money well spent and my experience only keeps getting better with my Asus product.

Also, the more complex and feature paked firmware is, the greater the chance of bugs or random issues to pop up. You want basic firmware to make your router be just a router and perform that function best as possible...thats what Tomato or other firmware is for. (they also have builds that have extra features, or u can add them in yourself if you know how)

The only thing that I liked about DLink dir655 router, is that you could upgrade WiFi mini PCI card for a better one. And the best part, what ever card you used that was compatible with the router(I think there were 3 brands), they worked with stock firmware. I have yet to see this with any other brand router. But it had the worst firmware, boat load of issues.

 

[connorm]

In a PC or laptop the fan is always On, unless.you select passive cooling, but it will still kick in now and then. At the end of the day you clean it same way you clean laptop fans...compressed air. And as long as there are no stickers covering screws, then taking the router apart to clean the fan should be no issue. Because many companies place stickers over screws to prevent warranty voids.

no. i can not set the fan on my laptop to always on it is impossible. and i wouldnt say this if i hadnt personally talked to uncle webb about it and he original designed the software called throttlestop to stop trottling problems with dell xps 1640.

my laptop is a 1640 and it is impossible to set the fan to always on, but it will stay always on when it needs to.

wont kick on before it hits atleast 50C tho. my idle temp is about 43 but if the fan would turn on it would go alot lower.

right now i even got 50 + tabs open and im sittign at 48/49C and the fan is not on nor will it turn on untill i increase the load

pretty happy with my 4+ year old xps 1640 from OCT 09. i remember back then it was the only 15 inch laptop with a 1080p screen i could get. and it was definitely the first laptop i ever seen with an esata port at the time

and while compressed air will help dramatically. it will never fully bring the fan back to its max potential. replacing fans every once in a while is a good idea. i need to do it with my laptop soon.

i clean my laptop once a month and i use high quality arctic silver thermal paste. i cant find it but im 99% sure its arctic silver 5

 

[KGB7]

no. i can not set the fan on my laptop to always on it is impossible. and i wouldnt say this if i hadnt personally talked to uncle webb about it and he original designed the software called throttlestop to stop trottling problems with dell xps 1640.

my laptop is a 1640 and it is impossible to set the fan to always on, but it will stay always on when it needs to.

wont kick on before it hits atleast 50C tho. my idle temp is about 43 but if the fan would turn on it would go alot lower.

right now i even got 50 + tabs open and im sittign at 48/49C and the fan is not on nor will it turn on untill i increase the load

pretty happy with my 4+ year old xps 1640 from OCT 09. i remember back then it was the only 15 inch laptop with a 1080p screen i could get. and it was definitely the first laptop i ever seen with an esata port at the time

and while compressed air will help dramatically. it will never fully bring the fan back to its max potential. replacing fans every once in a while is a good idea. i need to do it with my laptop soon.

i clean my laptop once a month and i use high quality arctic silver thermal paste. i cant find it but im 99% sure its arctic silver 5

You can use 3rd party software such as FanSpeed to have your fan working at 100% speed at all times. There are few other softwares as well that can do that.

I have worked on over a thousand of laptops and I have rarely had to replace a fan unless it had complete failed. Compressed air at 90psi got.the job done 90% of the time.

I still remember a laptop that was covered in clay, because the owner was a gardener, she had her laptop siting in the dirt next to her flower garden. Alcohol pads, windex and compressed air made her laptop looked like new. And nothing had to be replaced.

One customer brought in a desktop PC that was covered with layers of thick dust, the 1inch thick dust was infused with nicotinate. And the reason he brought his PC in for repairs, is do to viruses....he was looking at porn with out proper AV software.

This was many years ago working as a lead tech at Microcenter with a 98% rate fixing the issues the first time around.

So replacing fans just "because" is a waste of time and money.

From my experience; 40%,of the issues do to viruses, 40% do to hardware failure on the motherboard, screens etc, and 20% do to cooling issues. Out of 20%, only 10% needed new fans, the rest just needed cleaning.

I'm the Rambo of laptop repairs.

 

[connorm]

ya i use realtemp and throttlestop on my dell. then i use speedfan on another hp laptop i have because realtemp doesnt work.

i tried speedfan again on my dell. nothing shows up for fan.

previously i played with fan speed settings in a gpu overclocking program (overclocking or undervolting, i was trying to undervolt the gpu) even without changing power settings to GPU. changing fan speed any more then like 10% (it was at %30 by default) it would cause stability problems. some fans are not meant to be played with, and tho everytime i clean my fan it works fine. i still know a new fan would be better, but if i needed on i would already have it

 

[jalyst]

TZO redirects to Dyn now. If you want TZO service, you have to sign up for Dyn plans. Based on what I see, they are the same now. Current TZO plans/users will eventually be migrated to dyn (if they havnt already)

Yeah, but what he was saying is Dyn != DynDNS

 

[jalyst]

i clean my laptop once a month and i use high quality arctic silver thermal paste. i cant find it but im 99% sure its arctic silver 5

AS5 used to be king dick years & years ago, but long ago it was smashed by far better TIM's.
See skineelabs, martincooling(?), & some of the other sites (forget their names OTTOMH) that were borne out of xtremesystems & similar communities.
There's been very in-depth comparos of all the latest TIM's, what their strengths/weaknesses are, & which once are the best "overall".
Anyway, this entire line of discussion is getting extremely OT...

 

[thiggins]

Guys,
The fan debate is interesting, but please keep this thread on topic with actual user EXPERIENCES with the product. Thanks.

 

[speedingcheetah]

Yeah, but what he was saying is Dyn != DynDNS

DynDNS is a service of Dyn.

TZO may have been different before, it isn't now, from what I see.

http://dyn.com/blog/dyn-acquires-longtime-dns-provider-tzo/

http://dyn.com/tzo/

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2339028/dyndns-irks-users-with-shutdown-of-free-service-model

I was abbreviating....when I typed Dyn, I meant DynDNS...but anyway...moving on.....I still will need to find some alternative to router based DDNS if I use this linksys router, so it would appear.

 

[njweb]

For myself, custom firmware allows a lot more configuration to be done and a lot more resource monitoring but it rarely has given my routers better performance than stock firmware. This is especially true for wireless performance. I hope Linksys keeps developing the stock firmware and doesn't rely on the open-source crowd.

Agreed.
My primary concern is wireless performance, now more than ever given that more and more devices around the house have wireless connectivity.

From personal experience, Linksys and Belkin have not had frequent firmware updates (I noted this a while ago in a prior post commending Asus on their frequent firmware updates).
It will be interesting to see how the new Belkin-owned Linksys does with respect to firmware updates.
I am optimistic, especially since this is their flagship consumer router right now.

At least the WRT-1900AC seems to work well out of the box based on initial user reports.


I plan to make some time to test, at least, one of my two WRT-1900AC routers tonight when I get home and post some test results here. Glad I picked them up before they sold out.

 

[jalyst]

...but anyway...moving on

Yes, lets.

 

[thiggins]

The test results are live in the Charts and Ranker now. Review will post later today.

 

[hewligun]

The test results are live in the Charts and Ranker now. Review will post later today.

Can you please link the review when its up. I am so excited! if its good i will be boxing up my r7000 today and returning it to bestbuy tomorrow.

Edit: Just checked out the charts and ranker. Looks like the linksys router is pretty hefty price for the mid tier numbers , I was hoping it would out perform the r7000. Bummer. I will wait for the full review though.

 

[KGB7]

The test results are live in the Charts and Ranker now. Review will post later today.

It's #3 on the chart!? Oookk..

 

[legitposter]

Can you please link the review when its up. I am so excited! if its good i will be boxing up my r7000 today and returning it to bestbuy tomorrow.

Edit: Just checked out the charts and ranker. Looks like the linksys router is pretty hefty price for the mid tier numbers , I was hoping it would out perform the r7000. Bummer. I will wait for the full review though.

There is more to the story than just numbers in speed tests. The WRT1900AC has been solid for me. No NAT issues with multiple gaming consoles, QOS seems to be working, and no disconnects or other strange behavior. I'm sure future firmware may improve the numbers but either way you need to look at the whole picture when choosing a router.

A good example of what I'm saying: The TPLink C7 continues to stay at the top of the charts but it can be a nightmare to actually deal with. Even at an average 60% less cost versus other AC routers, you still wouldn't want to touch it with a 10ft pole!

 

[hewligun]

There is more to the story than just numbers in speed tests. The WRT1900AC has been solid for me. No NAT issues with multiple gaming consoles, QOS seems to be working, and no disconnects or other strange behavior. I'm sure future firmware may improve the numbers but either way you need to look at the whole picture when choosing a router.

A good example of what I'm saying: The TPLink C7 continues to stay at the top of the charts but it can be a nightmare to actually deal with. Even at an average 60% less cost versus other AC routers, you still wouldn't want to touch it with a 10ft pole!

what gaming consoles are you using? We have 2 xbox ones here. seems good with the r7000. But only one would stay at open NAT when i had the wrt610n. i had to reboot that router for the other to get open.

 

[TC777]

It's #3 on the chart!? Oookk..

Actually most rankings its at number 4 (the first two routers being in a tie). And there are only 5 routers total in the list.

 

[jalyst]

Wow, sounds like a bit of a fail, given the hw I was expecting better...
They had to "hit it out of the park" from the outset, we can't be waiting for an ever elusive performance lead through some promised future update.
I am disappoint....

 

[njweb]

The test results are live in the Charts and Ranker now. Review will post later today.

Thanks Tim!

If wireless range is not good (SNB's router ranker shows the WRT-1900AC as 4th in range in the AC1900 class), I may return both of my WRT-1900AC (unopened) and stick with the two AC66U units (#1 for wireless range in the AC1750 class).

Perhaps firmware updates will help the WRT-1900AC, but I may just return them for now while I am within the return period.

I am disappointed to see those results after the limited feedback from users seemed very positive (so far), but will wait for the write-up (review) details before passing full judgment...
It is interesting that others (admittedly based on limited user feedback at this time) seem to be having slightly better results than the higher ranked routers (R7000 e.g.)