Customer Reviews
Worthy of a class action lawsuit 
2008-02-26
I have two of these devices, purchased in January of 2007.
While the specs on the box are impressive, the unit is only as good as the company that stands behind it.
These units have been plaqued with buggy firmware since day 1, and not a single version has performed nearly as reliably as it should. Some folks experience a loud whining noise from their units, vpn issues, problems with wireless, problems with it not allowing FTP transfers, firewall issues, etc. It has to be rebooted daily, just for basic functionality.
It is bug ridden, and the company is non responsive. In fact, if you call tech support they claim they are not aware of these issues. Their forum is full of claims supporting these known issues, yet it has been over 4 months since a new firmware was released.
I have been a Linksys/Cisco fan since the start, as someone in the IT field, but this product is truly a disappointment. Save yourself some hassle and get another brand.
Consumers who are stuck with one of these should be outraged, and considering some kind of class action compensation from the vendor.
ADDED MAY 19th: Here we are 7 months later, and Linksys has yet to acknowledge that there are problems. There has been NO fix. This is supposed to be a BUSINESS CLASS piece of equipment. In it's current form, it is unusable. It should be pulled by retailers until most of these serious issues are addressed, IMO. This is COMPLETELY unprofessional and unacceptable.
Very Good Router 
2008-02-07
We purchased this router to provide internet access to our christian school. We know that this was designed for Home use, but our budget was small. However, in a small network of about 20 PC's and 20 wireless laptops, it works very well for basic internet access. This router is connected to a network with 3 GIG switches and 8 wireless access points. We have not had to re-set the router as indicated by the previous reviews. We do have the router connected to a UPS. Works very well in a low budget network. I recommend configuring the router with OPEN DNS as your DNS server to provide content filtering on your network. This service is very good and it is free.
High pitch sound, Wireless Drops out 
2008-02-04
The title pretty much says it all. Was a very promising product. Unfortunately, that's all it was... a promise.
My unit makes a high pitch noise that will drive anyone insane.
The wireless either won't grab an IP address or it will drop out shortly after.
If this product isn't recalled, then there is something wrong with the world.
Terrible Product. Terrible Company. 2008-01-29
I should have known better. I'm a geek (I've owned more than 20 computers/servers in my >10 years as a software engineer and I've setup >10 wired/wireless networks for friends and family), so when I read all of the bad reviews on this product, I just figured it was people who couldn't figure out what they're doing. I was wrong, so wrong. The WRVS4400N is totally worthless - don't make the same mistake as I - BUY A DIFFERENT ROUTER.
The problem is that every 24 hours or 36 hours (on the exact second) this router stops sharing the internet connections to all computers on the network. It must them be unplugged or rebooted via the web interface and then the problem goes away. So far their tech support has been unable to resolve the problem they keep sending me new routers. After this last one, they told me there is nothing more they can do and it will have to be reported as an issue to their product development team. My internet connection is fine as evidenced by plugging in a laptop when the router fails and they have reported no compatibility issues with my cable modem. And furthermore other people are experiencing the exact same problem.
This router does offer a great set of features for the price, but be careful - they're implemented poorly. So you'll likely turn them off.
The IPS (special security features that this router offers) features are worthless - if you want to FTP anything, you'll need to turn them off. And even with them off, I still can't connect to several of the FTP servers that I routinely connect to, which I could with my last router - for example Google Base FTP servers and Yahoo's webhosting accounts.
The QoS (quality of service) features are extremely hard to configure and there is NO documentation on line, include with the product or in the help section of the administration tool, which explains how to actually configure it.
The range of the N wireless network isn't very impressive. It's only slightly better than the G router from Linksys that it replaced. Both routers were placed in the same spot in my basement.
I haven't tried the VPN connectivity yet, but you're only limited to 5 clients connecting, which is a limitation that's not published on this product description, nor easy to find on Linksys's site.
Now, I've been a long time buyer and recommender of Linksys products, but in the last two years their product quality has plummeted as evidenced by the ratings they get her on Amazon. They keep sending me these survey's every time I contact their tech support and I share these same complaints, but they don't get any better. If anything they're getting worse.
Linksys's phone technical support is horrible. This unit isn't serviced by the "home" area of Linksys's tech-support staff, you must go through the "business" area and their level 1 support staff aren't even trained, so you go right to their level 2 support, which you'd think would mean you'd get good support, but not from Linksys. They have no idea how to solve problems with this router. Several of the tech support people have given up and made excuses to get off the phone - my favorite was to reapply the same version of the router's firmware, waste an hour reconfiguring it, and then wait 24-36 hours to see if the problem came back; and sure enough it did.
Linksys's phone customer support is horrible. After my last tech support tech's manager determined that I have yet another defective router and I should get a new one, I was transferred to their customer service department so that they could process an RMA. It took them 43 minutes to process the RMA. The customer service person, who could barely speak english, said he had to read everyone of the case notes in order to process an RMA. Then it took 24 minutes to get transferred to his supervisor to complain about him.
So to reiterate my review: While this router looks like a great set of features for great price, you'll need to turn off much of those features to be able to FTP, and you'll need to reboot your router every 24-36 hours if you want it to router internet service to other computers on your network. And if you have to call tech support or customer support, you'll be in for some horrible experience. So don't make the same mistake as I did. Don't buy this router.
Not worthy of the Cisco logo on it.... 2008-01-24
Initially this product seemed like the perfect mix for me.... Gigabit switch, Wireless N, and site-to-site VPN tunneling. Well, it turns out it's too good to be true. There are a lot of things wrong with this product.
The firmware that came on it was as buggy as ever, and in order to upgrade to the latest firmware cleanly, it involves multiple resets to factory settings (otherwise you might brick the thing).
I had issues holding my VPN connections (using it for site-to-site tunnels to Cisco PIX's at other locations) with the old firmware. I upgraded to the latest firmware, but then ordinary FTP would not transfer files anymore, in active OR passive mode (making FTP useless).
So I downgraded again, this time to firmware in between what came on it, and the newest. FTP returned, but the VPN tunnels would tend to drop and/or not negotiate from time to time, and Wi-Fi would drop out from time to time. Every once in a while Internet access would drop out completely, and the reboot process on this thing is woefully long (about 2 minutes, taking down the network) as compared to the consumer-grade Linksys routers that boot right away. The ongoing problems with this thing consumed my time, and I was less productive because of it.
I don't know if it's ongoing firmware woes, or just bad design, or trying to pack in too many functions in one device. Suffice to say, the thing's not reliable. I returned it and bought a Cisco ASA 5505 instead (if you use this for remote office purposes, this thing costs more, but it rocks).
True, I don't have a gigabit switch or wireless included in the package anymore, but I do have a rock-solid device that takes advantage of my 10 meg service, and I can always go out and buy the other devices separately if I really need them.
