The IT Nerd

This is one of these cases where I’m writing this so that you don’t become me.

I recently reviewed the Linksys WRT32X gaming router. It is an amazing router. One of the best that I have ever tested in fact. So much so that instead of going back to the router that I was using at the time, I kept this one in place because it was so fast. And for months that was a non issue.

That changed two nights ago when a new firmware got downloaded to the router and made WiFi unusable. In effect, it took an outstanding router and made it a sub par router. Now I discovered this when my wife’s computer would not back up to the network attached storage box. During my troubleshooting I discovered that it would back up via Ethernet just fine. I then did further troubleshooting and discovered that the firmware had changed on the router. On top of that, I also discovered that I had left auto updates turned on which led to the firmware being installed.

Here’s what makes this situation worse. For reasons that I do not understand, there are no downloads available for this router:

That takes away my first thought at the time which was to downgrade the firmware to something that worked. The fact that downloads aren’t available for this router is a #fail in my mind. Thus I reached out to the Linksys Cares Twitter account for help:

The reason why I am asking is that you guys pushed this firmware out and its turned a great router into a very bad one. I was hoping to find the release notes to confirm my diagnosis. Or, a link to the previous firmware would be even better.

— The IT Nerd (@The_IT_Nerd) December 1, 2017

No response from them as of yet. When I’ve asked questions to them in the past, they were usually good at responding. So I don’t know what the deal is with that. But I did some looking around via Google and discovered that I am not alone in terms of having a router that isn’t performing up to the level that it should and Linksys is apparently aware of it and is “working on it”.

Now I usually turn auto updates off precisely so that I don’t get into this situation. After all, any company can let a firmware update go out the door which will cause you problems. Just like in this case. But I must have left it on as I tend to leave routers in as close to a default state as I possibly can. But I guess I didn’t think about checking that setting when I decided to leave this router in place. Now I am stuck until I get around to swapping out this router for something that works as fast WiFi is important to me. The take home message is that if you a router and you have auto updates turned on, it may not end well for you. Just like it did not end well for me.

I have learned my lesson the hard way and will be much more careful going forward.

UPDATE: ASUS read my story and is sending me a ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 for arrival on Monday to solve my router issue. I will be reviewing it as soon as I possibly can. Thanks ASUS!

This entry was posted on December 1, 2017 at 9:34 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.