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.

2nd Lemon - Router Trouble

Last week I bought an Edimax BR6226N router for my home setup and it work only for a day. Because of a busy week, I brought it in for a warranty replacement this morning. I brought home the router, set it up not more than a few hours ago and now it's dead... again. This is utterly frustrating. Not only have I been recommending this router to friends and officemates, telling them it's the best bang-for-the-buck router they could get. Now I am having problems with the exact same model I had been exalting not a few weeks ago.

I followed my usual troubleshooting, except for using a different working router (which I don't have, the reason why I bought one). The only common thing I could think of on both routers was that they died after I had ticked the options for the firewall and DDOS protection. Come to think of it, I also set them up with WPA2 using a PSK key from GRC.com's Ultra High Security Password Generator. The first one conked out the next day. This second one just minutes after I had applied the settings. Now that's bothersome and frustrating, expecting the second to work after getting a lemon. After that, I could not get to the admin page, or ping the default gateway. I did multiple resets. I changed cables and tested both cables linked directly to the modem and they worked. I modified the settings on the LAN, hard-setting them to 10 and 100 Mbps on both full-duplex and half-duplex, testing each time with just the DSL modem and then the router. On all occasions, my internet connection worked without the router.


I will have to take this back to the shop I bought it from tomorrow. A week's delay in getting my home network setup is enough. Did I mention this whole situation is frustrating? I'm giving up on this brand and I'll ask for a Linksys even if I have to pay extra. A whole lot extra.