One was the main router and the other was an access point connected to the first via Ethernet
Where was the issue?
I have had a pair of Linksys WRT54G wireless routers since around 2005 or so and they were rock solid for years. One was the main router and the other was an access point connected to the first via Ethernet cable. In the past few months, one of them started acting up and I decided this was a good time to upgrade. After reading lots of reviews, this was the router I chose and I bought two of them.The entire experience couldn't have gone smoother. After turning off my old routers, I opened one of these and set it up to be the main router. The order of turning things on in the manual didn't work out for me, so I just unplugged everything and started them in order from the cable: cable modem, router, then computer. Doing that, everything talked fine. I ran the quick setup, then went back to change the settings to the choices I wanted. I upgraded the firmware, set an SSID for each band, turned on WPA-Personal and set keys, played with a few other settings (setting IP and hard-coded DNS servers) and restarted everything again with all of my wired Ethernet devices plugged in. I left choices that I used to make manually, like channels, to auto. It worked perfectly right off the bat.Then I set up the second router as an access point. This router has a particularly nice feature in that you can just tell it that you want it to be an access point, rather than a full router, and it makes all the changes to the settings for you. If that's not enough, when in the access point mode, the WAN port becomes a LAN port so you don't have to waste one of your four wired ports on connecting the two routers together. Very nice! I turned off all the various server functions, gave it an IP, set it up with the same SSIDs and keys, took it upstairs, plugged in the wired peripherals and turned it on. Like the first one, it just worked.It's just been one day, so I can't speak to things like longevity, but the set up was easy and the routers seem really solid. As expected, the 2.4GHz band gives me greater range, but that range is greater than what I used to get with my old Linksys. The 5.0GHz band has about the same range as my old Linksys... perhaps a tad smaller. As it turns out, while I did have some speed problems on the old setup, both bands here give me fast, reliable connections, so I really don't see much effective difference between connecting to the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz bands in practice. Since I run my streaming video via wired Ethernet, I guess that makes sense. I probably didn't need a dual-band router, in hindsight, but I'm happy with this.Also, the combination of this change, and a new cable modem, have resulted in about a 20% increase in my Internet speed. I can't say which component(s) are responsible, but I'm happy with the result. In the end, I can't imagine anyone asking for more in terms of ease of setup or short-term performance than this router. I recommend it.**UPDATE**January 2 2012I bought these back in August and by mid-December, I started having problems with connectivity to the Internet. Some things would work (like web browsing) and others wouldn't (like checking email). If I left it alone, eventually, it wouldn't pass along any traffic at all. Whenever it happened, a quick unplug and re-plug would solve the problem. I won't go into all the details of the troubleshooting, but it turns out that both units I bought have gone bad. I have shipped one back to ASUS for replacement and am limping along with just the one (and having to restart it all the time). When that one is replaced, then I'll send the second one back. I really like the features on these routers, but I can no longer recommend them. When two out of two have failed, then it's hard to think that it's just one of those things. I have lowered by rating from 5-stars to 3.January 23 2012The stars just keep falling on this for me. I still haven't received the one back that I sent for replacement/repair even though their web site status says it was repaired weeks ago. (They received it Jan 5.) They just won't bother shipping it back to me. In the meantime, the other one finally became unusable, so my investment in two of these relatively expensive routers has ended up for nothing. I just ordered an RMA number for the second one. Since it's not working, I may as well see if they'll actually fix it and return it. We'll see. To ASUS's credit, their tech support people are friendly and helpful and one guy did offer today to see if he can get the repair people to ship mine out. I can't live without Internet access, so I ended up buying a factory refurbished Linksys E2500 for about one-third of the price of these. It's running brilliantly and now I'm not even sure I want these ASUS routers back in service once they're fixed. I'm seriously considering buying a second Linksys and selling these when they come back. I've reduced my rating to 2-stars. What's the point of buying high-end products if they keep failing?February 16, 2012The first router is finally on its way back to me. They promise 10 day service, but by the time I get it back, it will have been 42 days. In the meantime, I bought a second refurbished Linksys E2500, and I am not putting the ASUS ones back in service when they do get back. The Linksys routers work much better, have stronger signals and (most importantly) are working reliably. My Netflix used to pause and stop to re-buffer all the time. I never knew if that was about the routers, the cable modem or the Internet service itself, but that hasn't happened once since putting the new routers in place. Yeah, the last star is falling away. I'm getting better service from routers that cost one-third of what these do, so I'll be selling these when they get back.December 3, 2012I've been using the Linksys routers as described above and had left my two Asus routers, returned from repair, in their boxes. I had intended to sell them, but never got around to it. Recently, I decided to set up a media server and thought that gigabit wired Ethernet would be a good idea (the E2500s are 10/100 routers). Cable Internet doesn't come into the house fast enough for that to matter, but moving HD video around the house might. I figured, since I have these two repaired Asus routers sitting here, I'd go ahead and swap out the Linksys ones for them. The Asus ones do have a lot more features. So I upgraded to the latest firmware (3.0.0.4.260), set them up from scratch and put them to work. The good news is that the new firmware does support IPv6 and it works fine. The bad news is, they only lasted two days before acting up again. After working Saturday night and Sunday, I sat down with my iPad tonight and, despite a 4-bar signal, it wouldn't open a web page reliably. I switched it from the 2.4 GHz to the 5 GHz network, and it worked again for a while, then stopped working again. Then I tried to play a show on Netflix from my Apple TV (wired, not wireless) and for the first time since my last update, the show kept stopping to reload the buffer. I swapped the two Linksys routers back into the network and all problems cleared up instantly. Apparently these work for some people, but even after repair and an update to the latest firmware, I am having no luck. Now I'm reluctant to sell them, since they don't really work, so I guess I'll finally write off this loss and give up on Asus altogether. 