Lemon #3 - Edimax Strikes Out

Last Saturday I returned the 2^nd 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 3^rd replacement dead.

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 3^rd 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.

Long 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.