Lemon #3 - Edimax Strikes Out

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Edimax Bundle! BR-6324nL nLite Wireless IEEE802.11 b/g/n Broadband Router & USB AdapterLast Saturday I returned the 2nd Edimax BR-6226N, hoping to get it replaced with another brand. It was just my luck that there was a power outage when I did go to the shop where I bought it. I just left it with a technician who promised to test it and he promised to call about the results. After running a few errands, I received a text message and went there. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to mention to the technician that I wanted a different brand-model. So when I got there a replacement Edimax BR-6226N was already waiting for me. Not wanting to mess with them (the papers for the replacement had already been filled out), I decided to give it one more try.

I got home, set it up, and started using it. Since the Edimax setup guide only allowed me the option to nominate a WPA key, I initially set it up with that. It was working for a few hours and I decided to again turn on full DDOS protection in the firewall, a long admin password and WPA2 security with a 63-character password from www.grc.com/password. The same thing happened. It died again. Well, not really died. All the right status lights were on. But I couldn’t login to the admin page. Pinging the default gateway resulted in 100% loss. I attempted to reset the thing at least ten times, each time the symptom didn’t change. I then tried the Edimax BR-6204WLg I borrowed from a friend and used the same power adapter and cable that came with the BR-6226N. I also reset that and used the same settings for password and WPA2 key. It was an older model, and I couldn’t find the DDOS protection module in the settings so I didn’t get to try it on the BR-6204WLg. Well, it worked. Tried pounding on it some more with very large files I tried downloading. It worked flawlessly. I also ran a test with ShieldsUP!. It showed all the ports were stealthed. I officially declared the 3rd replacement dead.

Over-the-Road Wireless For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))So off I went yesterday to have BR-6226N replaced. I was glad that it was the service technician who suggested I get some other brand-model. He helped me get to the sales counter, briefly told the person at sales what had happened and then left to go back to his post. The girl at the counter seemed unsure what to do. She asked a technician nearby who was on break about it and he asked me about why I was asking for a replacement. I summarized the troubleshooting I had done and he told the girl to run it by the manager. She then asked another sales person what she should tell the boss. Clearly she was either new or nervous about approaching the manager-on-duty. To be clear, the manager there that day wasn’t the usual guy. I usually go there on weekdays and I usually see a different person sitting at the manager’s desk.

Apprehensive as she was, she approached him, but not before asking me to go with her. I went with her, wanting to get it over with to get on with my life. She briefly told the man that I wanted a replacement (a different brand-model) and politely said to me, “Sir?” Picking off on that, I started to explain in all technical glory the suffering I had endured and punctuated my statement with a note that this was the 3rd replacement. Manager turned to sales person and asked her, “Anu ba sabi nung technician?” She replied that he had suggested the same, that I get a credit for the broken item and get a different brand-model. To which the manager replied, “O, e bakit tinanong mo pa sa akin. Yun na pala sabi nung technician.” She mumbled her agreement and went back to her counter.

Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gaming Adapter WGA600N - Bridge - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n (draft) externalLong story short, I had my replacement in 10 minutes. I dropped an additonal 400 pesos for the Linksys WRT54GH. I went home and tested it, set-up a strong password, WPA2 encryption with the same 63-character password from www.grc.com/password, and had it humming in 5 minutes. I’ll write up my mini-review of the replacement in another post.

GameFly - Black Anim

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The BR-6226n I installed at my friend's place stops responding in just the same way. First I updated the firmware to 1.19 and it made no difference for the problem. I used passwords no longer than 15 characters so that the similarity in configuration narrows to the FW turned on, something not many people do. I'll try to switch it off next time just to verify if it's the source of the problem...

Ed said...

If it's still under warranty, I'd encourage you to get a replacement instead. Linksys models offer less for the same money, but I have not had problems with the Linksys for 4 months running. And I run it for weeks without powering it off. Linksys isn't the only good brand though, shop around for some other established brand. Netgear or Dlink, maybe?

Anonymous said...

It's me again. On the technical front I checked if switching off the FW does the trick and it doesn't. But then I visited Edimax.ru and found firmware v1.22 there which dates from 07.07.10 and to my great relief this update solved the problem - for over 24 hours the router runs smoothly now! Here is the BR-6226n support page in Russian with clear download links at the bottom of the page: http://www.edimax.ru/ru/support_detail.php?pl1_idSelect=support.php%3Fpl1_id%3D3%26mwsp%3D1&pl1_id=3&pd_id=286&button=Go
My own old Edimax BR-6204Wg also lacks latest firmware on the English site but it can be found at the russian one. I can not explain such an idiosyncrasy on the part on Edimax but my router runs without a glitch with that latest driver from russian site!
On a more philosophical note I'd agree with you that Linksys is a safer bet for some people in some situations, but the price difference where I live between BR-6226n (NIS130) and the cheapest n-router from Linksys WRT120N (NIS295) amounts to 42USD which I was happy to save to my friend in this case.
Anyway, thank you for the original post as we just might have helped others with this annoying technical problem as a result!

Ed said...

Thanks for sharing your solution. This is just the type of commenting I appreciate. I share my experiences with technology for the exact reason as to harvest the wisdom of the crowd. I know that if I don't have the answer, someone out there probably does.

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