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(More customer reviews)Over my life time, I must have installed five or six different types of wireless routers to be hooked up with Comcast and other ISP's. I never had as much problems with this one with the others. The OEM firmware is very unstable. All these installations were based on dynamic IP or DCHP. So, I specified dynamic IP as this is what Comcast would require. I have to try and try cycling power on the cable modem before I finally get a connection. As soon as I modify any parameter including setting up the wireless parameters, bam, the connection is lost with error message like "you specified wrong dynamic IP or static IP address." After that, the only way to get back the connection with difficulty is to reset the router to default values and cycling the cable modem again. That means, it is of no use to me since I cannot specify any other parameter especially wireless for my use. I tried the two USB for both hd and printer when I have a connection following their exact instructions but found them not working. Not letting the harddisk to be NTFS formatted was a big disappointment. My setup is rather complicated. I have 3 bridge clints (one ASUS, one LINKSYS from T-mobile and one LINKSYS with small ram storage) all running with DD-WRT, and a WII connected wirelessly and directly. I have computers, blue ray players, game console, network printers connected to the network. I do not know if any or the whole configuration caused the problem, but as soon as I hook up a LINKSYS running on LINKSYS firmware (this one could not be upgraded to DD-WRT) to the cable modem, everything back to normal.
Anyway, last night I uploaded DD-WRT to the unit. That was another struggle. Some claimed they could use ASUS restore software to upload DD-WRT. I tried for an hour and a half but my laptop does not seem to be talking to the router, keeping a message "wait for getting an IP address." I know I was able to make the laptop talk to ASUS by an IP address 192.168.1.1, but this connection is lost when I ran RESTORE software. Finally, I use TFTP (Windows GUI version) with four steps to successfully upload the mega version of DD-WRT to the unit. Then, the unit seemed to work fine. I tested it as a bridge clint. Tonight when I returned home, I will try it as an AP.
I hope DD-WRT USB supports are better than ASUS OEM firmware because that was the reason I bought this one.
The moral of the story is if you are looking for easy setup and do not know basic knowledge of TCP/IP communication and how to load 3rd party firmware to this unit, I would suggest that you look elsewhere, or very likely you would have a unit without any use. If you are thinking to upload 3rd party firmware like TOMATO, OPENWRT or DD-WRT, I think this unit is worthwhile as ASUS routers are always on sale. I used a ASUS WL-520GU for a couple of years under DD-WRT with complete trouble-free operation. Hardware wise, they seem to be good. It is only the OEM firmware, which are user friendly in the interface but technically useless.
If you are thinking of using DD-WRT, I strongly suggest to look up this for installation instruction and not to use ASUS RESTORE utility.
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If you use the windows GUI TFTP program, you can still follow the command line instruction but instead of using the command line, specify the appropriate .trx file in each step, leave the password blank, the server id should be 192.168.1.1. There is a working progress bar which makes you more confident about the process. However, I followed the instruction to wait 5 minutes when each step was finished. A couple of things you may want also to know:
(1) Whenever you want to pull up DD-WRT from the router, change the IP address of your network adapter to 192.168.1.1XX (I always use 100, but I do not think it matters much), and subnet mask to be 255.255.255.0. After you setup, you may want to change the network adapter setting back to DHCP. Of course, this is not necessary after the network is properly setup. This is only for initial setup.
(2) The first time when you pull up a new version of DD-WRT, they will ask you for a userid and password, just type your preferences and click the change button._______________________________
An update after one week ownership - Have used this unit with DD-WRT as an AP for several days now. I was able to hook up two different types of hard disks at different times to it. (I changed the hard disk when I decided to use the one with Freeagent 250G capacity instead of 75G capacity.) It has been great. The router now is running solid, supporting three bridge client routers, a WII, and two laptops while running the hard disk with no problem at all. The hard disk can be accessed by the whole network. That was my original intention of buying this. There is a wakeup problem from spin down with Seagate drive, but I think I found the fix in DD-WRT forum. That is not the router problem at all. I am now quite happy with it after going through substantial number of hours uploading DD-WRT to it.
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