I had a Linksys BEFW11S4 v4 that acted weird and sort of messed up. I used to ran a server on there now it's disconected. I decided to open because I kept calling Linksys over and over again about the problem and kept asking me annoying questions again. They even force me to answer stupid questions just to get a replacement. I'm very very techie smart. I told them I already talked to somebody and they kept pushing my luck.
So one day I opened my router. It had cobwebs inside the router so I cleaned it with a dry tissue and got rid of it. Then I added 2 heat sinks onto the chips since it had no fan to try to get it to act better. I also reapplied the firmware.
I don't know if adding heatsinks to make it work better can void warranty.
You think this was good what I did?
Espically the fact Linksys would not let me get a refund, or exchange of the router before I even opened it and asked me annoying smarty pants questions like i'm dumb or something.
2006-09-15 17:14:27 · 4 answers · asked by Peatie 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Computer Networking
Heck they even lied to me too. 2 Router companies Belkin, and Linksys told me oh we got a new firmware upgrade but was never publicly released. I didn't even get a email. It's like they try to annoy, interogate you, and if that doesn't work they will lie to you about firmware upgrades that are not released publicly.
2006-09-15 17:31:04 · update #1
Based upon personal experience, my feeling is that Linksys "sucks". I have experience with 3 different Linksys products - wireless cards and a wireless router. In each case, they developed problems. What's frustrating is that these products don't fail outright. They work correctly for a while. Then they just develop weird symptoms and partially fail. The wireless router would continue to provide internet access for any computer that was "cabled" up to the router but the computers that were "connected" via wireless cards did not have internet connectivity. I found that this was a common experience among Linksys wireless router owners. I used to work with a lot of other technogeeks for a very large IT company. Most of us had small to medium size home lan's. I had a large experience base to draw upon.
My suggestion is to switch to Netgear products. I don't work for Netgear so this is not a "plug". I have had much better experience with their products. My experience with Linksys and their products is similar to yours.
2006-09-15 17:33:14 · answer #1 · answered by Spiritual but not religious 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Good day..
I own the same router (actually a number of them) and they all have heat issues..
First, you immediately voided the router's warranty by opening it. There is usually a sticker on the package that covers the seam of the shell parts that say breaking will void the warranty. That's the simple answer to that one.
As for heatsinks, it all depends on how you attached them, what temp they are supposed to run at, etc. Linksys loves passive cooling (as in no fan, just lots of holes) so it's hard to say which part might be making the most trouble for you.
I've went so far as to use a little bit of foam double-sided tape to tape a small (80mm) computer fan on the top of the router, to suck the hot air out of the top holes. This has worked wonders for needing to no longer reboot the thing all the time, but it's much more noise, and you need to watch your fingers if the router is in easy reach.
As for firmware, you might want to see if there is any 3rd party firmware available. Linksys doesn't really make the firmware or make the hardware that goes on these boxes, they only brand it with their graphics. (the guts are made by broadcom) It's very buggy (well known) because of all the features that they pack in aren't supported well together by the chips that have to run the stuff..
I just bought a new WRT54G version 6 router, and loaded the dd-wrt firmware on it, and it's wonderful. It runs linux in the background, and is VERY stable.. It also unlocks many features Linksys keeps away from their customers. Take a look -
http://www.dd-wrt.com
Good luck!
Mike
2006-09-16 00:34:28 · answer #2 · answered by Mike n 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First the bad news once you opened it you voided the warranty now for the good news adding the heatsinks won't hurt it @all. If you have a 3 pin power inside you can even get some video cooler fans to add as long as you have 12 volts dc
2006-09-16 02:25:55 · answer #3 · answered by michaelae52802 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Linksys Sucks just like Belkin. They both lied to me about unreleased firmware then never got a email. Those scamartists and their fake waranties.
2006-09-16 22:52:49 · answer #4 · answered by BtAlex 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋