Cisco-Linksys Refurbished E3000 High-Performance Wireless-N Router - E3000-RM / E3000RM (REFURBISHED BY LINKSYS / CISCO WITH A 90 DAY WARRANTY).

I've been a strong proponent of Linksys for reliability to my friends and family, and I've owned the original WRT54, and moved up to the WRT160NL, which was a real workhorse, and after reading the reviews on it, I decided to replace the WRT160NL with this E3000.I had high expectations for it, as people have said it's a great router, with dual bands in 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz, but my experiences have been terrible.I set the router up where I had the WRT160NL and setup was painless. But then I started to lose my wireless connection from time to time. In fact, in my bedroom, which is about 20 feet away, in my wood framed apartment on the second floor of a building... I get 1 bar and sometimes 0 bars and can't connect. The old linksys had absolutely no issues with my apartment, heck I could get a signal outside.I've tried to love this router, I upgraded the firmware, which didn't help, I've tried changing the channels to minimize interference, I've then loaded custom firmwares DD-WRT and Tomato, which have not helped, and I still have shoddy reception. This router performs probably worse than the e1000s I have downstairs.On top of which I have to reboot this router from time to time, as it seems to slow down, not to mention I have to elevate the router as it seems to get really warm.Maybe I got a dud, but I am very disappointed with the performace. What's keeping me from giving this 1 star is that it still works, as long as I have line of sight to it, or am directly connected to it via a network cable. All the stuff about it being a high power router with more range, has proven to be false and I will probably go back to the old linksys.On the plus side, it is a very nice shade of blue.

First of all - I had previously ordered a lower model linksys router which had been refurbished. When I received that item - it would only start with a blinking power light but never worked. That said, I was gun shy to try a second one but gave it a go. Fortunately this router worked flawlessly with no problems whatsoever. I really liked the fact the router had these specific features:1.) Dual simultaneous wireless radios2.) USB Port3.) Gigabit Ethernet LAN portsI was upgrading routers and, since we have more and more traffic on our LAN and internet connection in general, we were really starting to feel the pain of slow connections due to the fact we were basically maxing out the older hardware. The new hardware CPU is over twice as fast @ 480MHz and the memory is much improved to 64MB. At present, we have more than 76% memory free on the router and our average CPU utilization is less than 10%. So in other words - the router hardware isn't even breaking a sweat under our normal heavy network load.Internet browsing is noticeably faster despite multiple users streaming movies, music and downloading files.Although the router has a setup CD to assist non-technical users on first time configuration, I used the standard web interface and replaced the Linksys / Cisco firmware with DD-WRT. The upgrade was easily done and opens up many more configuration options for the hardware. My previous router was also running DD-WRT, however, this version includes additional features specific to the hardware. (i.e. USB port, dual wireless radios, etc.) I used the stock firmware for a brief time and felt is was more than adequate for any user, however, since we utilize VPN to securely connect to our home network from outside locations, changing to DD-WRT was a must.Overall I'm extremely pleased with this router and the performance has met, if not exceeded, my expectations.

I am a fan of the Cisco/Linksys brand. I had one of the WRT54G routers for EVER. Its still in use with another family member and going like the day I bought it. I was going to get this E3000 new, but saw this ad for the REFURB version for much cheaper. I took the risk and got the refurb and have not had a problem with it from day one. The stock firmware has all of the features and then some for basic through advanced home routing. Just to see what it would do, I put DD-WRT on it and was actually more satisfied with the stock CISCO firmware. I flashed back to it and have been running it non stop for months. I tend to go overboard in taking care of my components. This router is set on the top shelf of a 3 shelf wire rack. I have a small fan blowing underneath it, and other components to keep good airflow and cooling on these devices. This router can get pretty warm (as designed) with constant use, so the use of a small USB case fan zip tied to the bottom of the rack underneath this router does just the trick, and hardly costs anything to run! I moved from an apartment to a home recently and powered off this router, unplugged my cables, brought it to the new house, re-powered and cabled everything, had comcast do the xfer of service and turned it back on. I had a working network in minutes without the need for any re-configuration. I'm a particular fan of the simultaneous dual band Wi-Fi. I use the 5ghz band for all of my streaming devices like ROKU's, and the 2.4GHZ band for normal web browsing devices, iPads, iPhones, laptops, etc. At any given time, I have 2-3 5GHZ wireless clients and 5-6 2.4GHZ wireless clients, along with 4 wired clients, and never have any issues with connectivity or bandwith. This model outperforms cisco/linksys' higher end model, the E4200 handily. It has not had any of the problems that the higher end routers have had. I'll continue to use this one for years to come and definitely recommend this product, and I recommend using fans to cool your components!!