Customer Reviews
bought it and loved it since! 
2008-05-12
i was looking to upgrade to the next wireless standard and reviewed quite a few products and i'm happy to say that this purchase is solid for my first linksys buy dated 4/7/08, out of the box...it functions well as advertised. basic setup was straight forward and the console is the usual...web base, once you've seen one they are similar in getting around to configure, and the router looks great too...stealthy. there is a lot of features that most home users are not gonna use, but its nice to have when needed. tinkering around with the settings to tailor your needs after you tried out the defaults. currently on the 5ghz settings, 40 mhz channel @ 5.2 ghz for n adapters only and the 2ghz settings, 20 mhz channel @ 2.462 ghz for g only adapters. both are setup with wpa2-personal/aes encryption/36 sec renewal. i'm connecting at 270 mbps most of the time while using the wec600n adapter...what i would like, is the capability to restart the device remotely...but thats minor.
Linksys WRT600N - hard work 
2008-05-09
Difficult to configure. but at the end it worked... The storage link icon in "network" diseapear everytime the time and the trick is to go to "COMPUTER" and to "map network drive" before it diseapears!
Can't get Draft N speeds 
2008-05-07
I purchased this router a few days ago and returned it after 2 days of usage. Reason? No matter what I did, couldn't get it to go faster than ~ 50 Mbps. The draft N speed (270 Mbps) never materialized for me.
Used it with a brand new Lenovo T61 laptop running Vista ultimate. The 5GHz band would always run at 801.11a speed! The 2.4 Ghz band fared better and would run at 802.11g speed.
Worked with Linksys technical support for several hours. The first line of support is pretty useless. The support from India had a hard time differentiating LAN and WAN performance. One of the support rep told me that Wifi routers are designed to go slower than 54 Mbps as WAN connections don't go that fast anyways so what's the point of faster wifi. I tried to explain to the rep LAN performance is required for fast file transfers across the LAN and has nothing to do with WAN bandwidth. He wasn't convinced and kept harping that I can get online so what's the big deal. Apparently most of his support calls are from users who are clueless and can't configure basic internet on a router like this.
I did get through to 2nd line of technical support based in the US once and the guy actually was helpful. He tried tweaking several parameters in the router's advanced wireless page but to no avail. He indicated draft N routers are buggy and advertised speed rarely materializes. In the end the tech support suggested returning the product!
I also had trouble with getting a Gigabit NIC in a desktop connecting a 1 Gbps speed. The desktop couldn't get past 100 Mbps when connected with the router even though it had a GigE NIC. Again support was useless in figuring out the issue.
Seems like Linksys has put out a buggy product. Most people will not know enough about draft N versus 801.11g speed difference to find out. So there may be bliss in their ignorance. For a tech savvy user, the product will not meet its advertised promise.
A very difficult company to deal with 2008-05-06
This is a bad company. I purchased a wireless router from them and, truth be told, it never really worked right. The speed was ok, but it was impossible to set up without tech support and every so often it would simply stop working. When that happened I would be forced to call tech support and spend 30-60 minutes on the phone fighting with them about resetting the router. I recently purchased a new computer and decided to save a little money by moving this router to it. When I called tech support I was told that the router was out of its warranty period and they could not help me... unless I would pay them to. That's right, I would have to pay for the assistance on their product - a working product because it was not under warranty.
So be warned that you are only buying the option to use Linksys' products for a limited time - that is if you have any problems whatsoever that require tech support. I am now trying a Trendnet. Let's see if they are any better.
Just does not work 2008-05-03
This is a very disappointing product. I have a mixed network B, G and N with devices in both the 5GHz and the 2.4GHz bands and wanted to use the WRT600N as an access point. None of my computers and devices is able to maintain a stable link with the router. This purchase was a complete waste of money as I have to reinstall my previous access points.
Excellent N Router 2008-05-02
The Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router is really four devices in one. There's the dual-band Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires. There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100/1000 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together at up to gigabit speeds. The Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection. There is also a Storage Link that lets you easily add gigabytes of storage space onto your network using readily available USB 2.0 hard drives or plug in a USB flash disk for a convenient way to access your portable data files. The built-in Media Server streams music, video, and photos from the attached storage device to any UPnP compatible media adapter. The Access Point built into the Router uses a dual-band version of the very latest wireless networking technology, Wireless-N (draft 802.11n). By overlaying the signals of multiple radios for each band, Wireless-N's Multiple In, Multiple Out (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate. Unlike ordinary wireless networking technologies that are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually uses these reflections to increase its range and reduce Dead Spots in the wireless coverage area. To help protect your data and privacy, the Router can encode all wireless transmissions with industrial-strength 256-bit encryption. Security features - WEP - WPA - WPA2 Security key bits - Up to 256-bit encryption System Requirements - Internet Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 1.0, CD-ROM drive, Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000, XP and Vista, and Network Adapter Dimensions - 7.48 x 5.71 x 7.01 (190x145x178mm) Weight - 1.51 pounds (683 grams)
Linksys should be ashamed 2008-04-30
I bought this router based on Linksys'(and Cisco's) reputation. I couldn't be more disappointed in a product. I replaced my Linksys WRT54G with this, and replaced my XBox wireless adapter with the Linksys N Gaming adapter and my signal strength went from very playable to 6% and completely unusable for XBox Live.
I am an IT guy and am quite familiar with configuration of routers and wireless devices and this one just sucked. PERIOD.
Works great but don't count on the Storage Link. 2008-04-25
Being smarter than anyone else who had reviewed this router I figured Linksys had worked out the bugs with the USB storage and I could get it working and attach my new Drobo through the router. Not on a bet. At one time I could see the Drobo for a very brief period of time but never access it. That passed and the Drobo disappeared, never to be seen again.
I purchased the Droboshare (another $200.00) and got the Drobo on my home office network.
The Linksys works great as a router connecting to my AT&T DSL modem. The wireless side also works very well and the Gigabit switch is great. I hope someone posts and says the Storage Link works great. Till then make other plans for getting USB storage devices on your network.
Almost Perfect 
2008-04-20
I have had several wireless routers over the years, both Netgear and Linksys.
I developed problems with my internet connection. All PCs in my house would sometimes get a very slow connection. The problem had to be the modem or the router. I had my eye on the new "pre-N" routers for quite a while, and decided this was as good an excuse as any to buy a new router. (It turns out the problem was with my Modem, but that's another story.) I especially liked the WRT600N because it is the first unit to offer two independent radios -- one for 2.4 GHz and another one for 5 GHz.
The first thing I did was plug in the router and try configuring it with the Easy-Start CD. Not surprisingly, this did not work. The Easy-Start CD is a good idea, but if anything goes wrong, it gives very little indication of where things went wrong and what the problem might be.
I called Linksys tech support, and had a remarkably good experience. The technician spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable. He didn't even try to play with the Easy-Start program, but immediately jumped into manual configuration. It didn't take long to find that I picked up a bad Ethernet cable. After that, configuration went quickly. To his credit, the technician recommended I configure WPA security. I didn't do it because I am in a semi-rural area. The technician told me that the SSID for the 5GHz and 2.4 GHz radios had to be the same. I later found out this is not true. It makes a difference because it's much easier to tell which frequency your PC is using if the SSIDs are different.
About a month later, I decided to use the USB disk drive option. I had a 200GB USB disk which I use for backup. I map it through file explorer and copy the files I want to back up. I wanted to be able to do this with any of the three laptop PCs in the house. I was able to connect the disk drive without any technical support. The trick is to work backwards through the configuration. Go to Storage / Administration FIRST. Configure the users. Then configure the groups. Then you can go to Storage / Disk and create your share folder. Then you will be able to map the share folder in Windows file explorer.
A couple of days after configuring the disk, I lost the disk connection and could not map my share folder. This time I used "chat" Tech Support. Again, the technician was knowledgeable. She successfully got my share folder mapped. She also suggested I use a different SSID for the two radios, which makes controlling the frequency the PC uses to connect to the router much easier.
The disk connection is still far from perfect. The problem seems to be with Windows. If I suspend my computer, then turn it back on; Windows tries to connect to the disk drive before the wireless network is up. It declares the drive not available. After that, things are ugly. I finally resolved the problem by *not* clicking "re-connect at log on". When I want to back up some files, I connect the drive, back up, and disconnect. It's hardly an ideal solution, but it works very reliably.
Like many Linksys products, the WRT600N runs a little warm. But I keep it out in the open. Heat has not been a problem.
I use the 2.4 GHz radio and a "G" connection with an older Dell and an older Sony laptop, both running Windows XP, SP2. I also have a 2.4 GHz Linksys G Wireless Print Server. I use the 5 GHz radio with an "N" connection with Dell XPS M1330; which dual-boots to Vista and XP. After several months of use, the router works very well with all.
My caveats:
* Both Linksys technicians recommended I configure the radio band to "Wide" instead of "Auto". I set the 5 GHz radio to "Wide" and the 2.4 GHz radio to "Auto" I haven't had any problems. Even when I connect my new Dell to 2.4 GHz using an "N" connection, everything seems to play together nicely. But given the Linksys advice, your mileage may vary.
* The USB disk drive share folder works well. Groups, users, and passwords all work fine. But Windows has difficulty managing drives that automatically connect over a wireless connection.
* I do not use Media Server, FTP server, QoS, or encryption. I can't say how well any of these features work.
* Linksys should offer better instructions on how to manually configure their routers, perhaps on their web site.
Excellent router 2008-04-19
This is an excellent router and the software is great. It is a bit pricy but worth it.
