Linksys WRT400N Locks Up Every Few Days...

Hello all. Hope someone here might have some suggestions...

A month ago, we purchased a Linksys WRT400N wireless-N router which for the first two weeks was fantastic. However, the last two weeks have been not as good... every 3-5 days or so it will lock up in some odd manner.

The wireless and wired connections wont drop, but we'll no longer be able to access the internet *and* we wont be able to access the control panel at 192.168.1.1... It just sits there and never responds. As I said, this happens on multiple computers, both wireless and wired, at the same time.

The other day I did an online chat with linksys support which was not very helpful... I re-flashed the router (with the exact same version of firmware, but she was insistent that I do it)... re-set it, re-configured it, and then made some further "tweaks" to some specific settings (MTU, RTS, etc)... and it was fine for a couple of days but then locked up again today.

I have 45 total days to return it, since I'm a Silver Rewardzone Member... but I'm on day 32 or 33 now... so not much time left. I thought I'd try to solicit some advice on here before I did that, however. As I said, the first two weeks, it was a great router, no issues at all. Signal here in our apartment is pretty good, and it plays well with both my Dell and my roommate's MacBook Pro... speeds for large transfers are nice, etc, etc.

Anyway... Anyone have any suggestions, or should I just return it any get something else? Thanks in advance! (Eric)

 

lock ups usually means heat or defective product. If the router has adequate air circulation around it, I would return it

 

are you trying to download a bunch of things when this happens? i know some of the Linksys wrt54g routers didn't like it if you had too many connections going on with torrents, it would freeze up completely and need a hard reset.

 

do u set ur ip to expire every certain time? , look in dhcp settings

 

Nope, not doing anything "intensive" with the router at the time when it dies, usually browsing or chatting or e-mail, basic stuffs.

DHCP lease time is set for 1-day (24 hours), so don't think thats it either.

Probably will just return it to Best Buy while I still can... Then the question becomes do I get another one of the same (WRT400N)... or try something different. Hrm.

Unless anyone has any other thoughts and/or suggestions?

--Eric

 

Ended up returning the WRT400N today. I contacted Linksys technical support chat again yesterday. The tech verified that I made the changes that the first tech had suggested, which I had. At that point she said I'd need to send it in to Linksys to get it replaced. I figured since I was still within my return period, I'd save myself the hassle and just return it... so I did

Ended up picking up a Netgear WNDR3300 instead... Reviews of the router with the Netgear firmware are relatively poor -- but I kept reading positive things when users had flashed it with DD-WRT. Soon as I got home thats exactly what I did. No issues with the flashing, and wow DD-WRT sure does have a ton of features. Pretty impressive stuff.

Connection seems decent on the new Netgear, though transfer speeds are not as good as they were on the Linksys. Kinda disappointing, maybe I still need to tweak some more settings and stuff. I haven't really done too much on that front just yet.

Thanks again...