Wrt610n v2 wireless security

[leslie]

My router has run for well over 2 years without any interruption other than power outtages. None.

I recently switched from dsl to cable and started having minor issues, so I figured a firmware update may deal with it, I was also hoping for a bit better wireless throughput. This was a few weeks ago, everything seemed fine even if I lost throughput (a small fraction). Today I was messing around with Linux on my laptop and noticed I connected to the 5ghz band without needing a password. Come to find out it has been sitting wide open. Not sure how I missed it, but here we are.

On the 5ghz side I set it as wireless N only, channel width to auto (I tried each separate as well) and wide and standard channel set to auto. The 2.4 was set to mixed, 20mhz only, with a set channel, otherwise all are on auto and all the same.

I had been using WPA2-Personal with WPA-TKIP or WPA2-AES which was working fine. On the 2.4 side, it still works just as it did. However, on the 5ghz side, if I enable those, it claims it was successful but will not save the setting. I found that it will hold if I use WPA2-Personal with just AES, that works fine, though in Linux it still seems to think it is using TKIP.

At this point I went in search of newer firmware, thinking maybe they fixed it. There was an update, so I flashed that. No luck. Again, 2.4 still works. So I copied down my settings and reset the router (through software). After setting everything up again (just some port forwarding) I again setup the wireless and got the exact same results.


This is annoying, at this point I am kicking myself for messing with it. Would a hard reset maybe kick things into gear? Anyone else have this problem?

 

[thiggins]

If you want higher 802.11n speeds, i.e. above 54 Mbps link rates, you need to use WPA2-AES anyway.

 

[leslie]

The setting I was using was mixed Tkip and AES.
I was just trying to figure out what happened.


Doing some more digging it seems they have made TKIP no longer work on the 5k N only setting (even if it wasn't being used it allowed for it to be set). If I enable mixed or wireless A, it allows me to enable Tkip again.

Now I'm angry that it disabled all security without a warning and then made me fumble through settings in order figure out why.

 

[thiggins]

I have seen some routers starting to hide the WEP option when 802.11n mode is used. You need to set 802.11b/g to see WEP. Maybe something similar is being done in this case with WPA/TKIP.

 

[leslie]

I tried doing that first thing.
Starting fresh did nothing, the only fix is to revert to the old bios.

They removed the dual option, and when chosen it reverts to disabled. They really need to change the confirmation screen that says "settings saved successfully". A lot of times I set it and keep moving to the next item.

Them changing it isn't a big deal, but I would have preferred it revert to wireless being locked out or something, rather than disabling all security. At least then I would have known something had gone wrong. As it is, Windows will still connect and not inform you that the security has changed.