Over the weekend, my router finally gave up on me and died a natural death. I mean, I was just using my laptop through a wired connection (as usual) when all of a sudden connectivity dropped out. I tried to fiddle around with the router for a while, but I couldn’t even connect to it directly. I switched on my laptop’s wireless connection and that wasn’t getting anything either. I tried unplugging and plugging it back in a few times, but that wasn’t doing anything. Finally, I took the connection directly from my modem and plugged it into my laptop. Bingo! Connection! So, that told me that the issue was with the router. I really can’t complain because that Linksys router gave me about 3 years of good service.

So, this past Sunday I headed over to Best Buy to see if I could get another router. After some phone calls I settled on a Linksys WRT160N router. Why? Well, frankly the only reasons were that I have had good a good experience with Linksys, and the darn thing was aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, I know it’s not a good reason, but whatever.

Anyway, I took it home and spent a good hour setting the thing up. It came with this bloated piece of software that attempts to make setting up your network easier for you. I regretted installing the thing because it slowed my system down pretty horribly. So, about an hour into use, my connection dropped out. I thought it might be my modem, so I unplugged it, waited 30 seconds or so, then plugged it back in. That didn’t do it. I did the same thing with the router. Upon doing so the connection was restored so I thought nothing of it. Another hour or two later though, the connection dropped out again. I tried logging into the router from my laptop and I wasn’t even able to connect to that. The connection, for all intents and purposes, was essentially dead. Again, I tried connecting the modem directly to my laptop and that worked just fine. I cycled the power on my router and things were back to normal. At that time, I was starting to suspect shenanigans.

Upon the third time that the connection dropped, I assumed that the router was just a piece of crap. I was not impressed with it at all. I plan on returning it sometime this week. Upon a colleague’s suggestion, I’m trying out a D-Link router right now. So far, so good, but it’s still to early to make any solid judgements. All I wants is a working Internet connection. That too much to ask? Silly Linksys.