Cisco - Linksys Ea6500

[MathijsZ77]

Dear forum members,

Can I have your thoughts on the Linksys EA6500? I've been reading amongst some reviews on different webshops and it turns out that a huge (read: HUGE) amount of them is extremely negative on this device...

Point is, I never had any trouble with my E3000.

So would it be worth upgrading my E3000 to this EA6500? Keeping in mind that my demands are:

- High LAN - LAN troughputs and WAN - WAN troughputs over ethernet and over the wireless

- A good looking product

- Being able to flash the device with DD-WRT

(Just comes up to me right now, haven't looked it up before, so not sure if the EA6500 is (yet) up to this)

- Being able to somehow mount it on the wall

Looking forward to hear feedback from you guys!

[SoftwarePro]

As far as i know the EA 6500 does not have dd-wrt support.

 

I would recommend you check out something called pfsense, it is a router operating system that you run on a old computer, it adds LOTS of features WAYYY more than dd-wrt, You can get plugins like virus scanners, proxys, openvpn etc. The whole thing is based on FreeBSD so its very light and open source.

 

The normal network infrastructure would look something like this. 

 

You need an old computer, a dual intel NIC, and a wireless router with AP mode. You then setup the OS and setup all your settings, then you put your router into AP mode and turn off the DHCP server on it. Then you plug it into your router/switch (you will need a switch since your router/computer wont have one like a normal router does. But anyway the router basically just acts like a wifi card. 

 

I would highly recomend something like this over a normal router just because it has so much processing power, you will see much better speeds and you wont have to worry about rebooting your router all the time (i have heard stories of these things running for years without a reboot) Plus you get a lot of plugins and more control over the whole system. You can also put an untangle box between the pfesne box and all your routing (untangle is anther router OS, although it is not as good as pfsense but it has a lot more plugins and better filtering, so you can run both to get the best of both worlds.) will go through the untangle box too for even more control. 

 

This is just my recommendation from my experience  I am really a hater of big box routers because i have invested way to much money into some pieces of garbage....im looking at you n56u and cisco E4200v2. So yeah just my two cents 

 

 

 

EDIT!: 

 

Just found this, its the asus n66u i have read to much about this guy but i hear its a pretty good router LINK!!!!

[rufee]

Why did you triple post ? There is an edit button in the topic.

Anyway, if you dont need AC go for ea4500 it doesnt have that cloud software thing like the 6500 does which people hate.

Even when DD-WRT will be out for that device there will be a high chance that it will brick so id wait until its fully supported.

If you are handy you can mount anything to the wall.

Like SoftwarePro said if you are seriuos about your network its a good idea to take a look at building your own router.

Personally i bought a Mikrotik router and i am very happy with one, its less consumer oriented though and difficult to configure, there is also Ubiquiti with their Edge Router Lite (i think thats the name) for 100$ you get 1million pps, good software features, dual core router its also small and again not consumer oriented, but the reliability is much much greater.

[MathijsZ77]

As far as i know the EA 6500 does not have dd-wrt support.

 

I would recommend you check out something called pfsense, it is a router operating system that you run on a old computer, it adds LOTS of features WAYYY more than dd-wrt, You can get plugins like virus scanners, proxys, openvpn etc. The whole thing is based on FreeBSD so its very light and open source.

 

The normal network infrastructure would look something like this. 

 

You need an old computer, a dual intel NIC, and a wireless router with AP mode. You then setup the OS and setup all your settings, then you put your router into AP mode and turn off the DHCP server on it. Then you plug it into your router/switch (you will need a switch since your router/computer wont have one like a normal router does. But anyway the router basically just acts like a wifi card. 

 

I would highly recomend something like this over a normal router just because it has so much processing power, you will see much better speeds and you wont have to worry about rebooting your router all the time (i have heard stories of these things running for years without a reboot) Plus you get a lot of plugins and more control over the whole system. You can also put an untangle box between the pfesne box and all your routing (untangle is anther router OS, although it is not as good as pfsense but it has a lot more plugins and better filtering, so you can run both to get the best of both worlds.) will go through the untangle box too for even more control. 

 

This is just my recommendation from my experience  I am really a hater of big box routers because i have invested way to much money into some pieces of garbage....im looking at you n56u and cisco E4200v2. So yeah just my two cents 

 

 

 

EDIT!: 

 

Just found this, its the asus n66u i have read to much about this guy but i hear its a pretty good router LINK!!!!

 

The solution you mention is pretty cool, except for the fact that I don't want to put a old PC in my meter cupboard (all the data cables are located in there).

 

About the Asus N66U, I've been struggling between the Linksys EA6500 and the Asus RT-AC66U.. I just found out that the RT-AC66U does support DD-WRT and the fact that it has external antennas is a plus.

 

How about the internal components of these two routers? (EA6500 - RT-AC66U)

[MathijsZ77]

Why did you triple post ? There is an edit button in the topic.

Anyway, if you dont need AC go for ea4500 it doesnt have that cloud software thing like the 6500 does which people hate.

Even when DD-WRT will be out for that device there will be a high chance that it will brick so id wait until its fully supported.

If you are handy you can mount anything to the wall.

Like SoftwarePro said if you are seriuos about your network its a good idea to take a look at building your own router.

Personally i bought a Mikrotik router and i am very happy with one, its less consumer oriented though and difficult to configure, there is also Ubiquiti with their Edge Router Lite (i think thats the name) for 100$ you get 1million pps, good software features, dual core router its also small and again not consumer oriented, but the reliability is much much greater.

 

I realy don't see a option to delete the topic?

 

About AC, it's just to be prepared. 

And as I said, don't have the space for a big "router". Just want to have a wall mounted, nice & small, router together with my modem. But still have some decent performance, especially over the LAN. 

[SoftwarePro]

I realy don't see a option to delete the topic?

 

About AC, it's just to be prepared. 

And as I said, don't have the space for a big "router". Just want to have a wall mounted, nice & small, router together with my modem. But still have some decent performance, especially over the LAN. 

Using my idea you could actually get that, by doing this, putting the computer in some back cabinet out of sight and then running the cable to the router and then mounting it on the wall, so you could have your sexy looking router on the wall  yet still get all the power and performance of having a pfsense box. You could also just build a tiny atom based computer, they are pretty cheap....but that does mean you are investing more money into the whole thing. 

[MathijsZ77]

Using my idea you could actually get that, by doing this, putting the computer in some back cabinet out of sight and then running the cable to the router and then mounting it on the wall, so you could have your sexy looking router on the wall  yet still get all the power and performance of having a pfsense box. You could also just build a tiny atom based computer, they are pretty cheap....but that does mean you are investing more money into the whole thing. 

 

Ah yeah I see, just putting the processing unit over somewhere else. Definetly something to consider, thanks for the advice man.

[Dragontail]

Really AC routers is not really worth it atm, the tech is not really mature and has lots of bugs, not supported hardware, you name it. Wait a couple of months or a year before upgrading to that tech and go for a pfsense router if you want good speeds in your LAN and the availability to do pretty much anything. Thats my 2 cents on AC routers atm.

[WALK3R]

if your looking to get a Solid Lan only router no WiFi get a EdgeMax lite it runs a modded version of vyatta solid router and very new to the market tho it has a  learning curve to it  seem to be one of the hardest/easy router ive used