Does this Cisco Router look too good to be true?

[Cloud Strife]

Text

I'm thinking of getting a used Cisco router to get some hands on experience. Do their routers really deperciate that quickly?

 

[TC10284]

I've got a stack of five 2500's that I got for use during the CCNA classes. They really paid off as I could do my work here (most of it except for switch related stuff).

It's not a bad idea actually. I was thinking of doing something similar to you so I could keep my skills someone strong.

Unfortunately I can't say about Cisco router depreciation

 

[cleverhandle]

Much of the value in Cisco routers comes from the service contracts you can get (which cost extra, of course). My (possibly limited) understanding is that Cisco will not provide a service contract on second-hand equipment, even if you're willing to pay for a new contract. Hence the hardware has less value for "serious" deployments. For home use and general geeking around, it should be fine.

Someone will correct the above if I'm mistaken.

Also note that the 831 is ethernet-only, so you'll need a separate DSL modem. Otherwise, it's a nice router. I ran an 837 (which is the 831 + a DSL modem) for quite a while until my beloved cat killed it by pawing it off my desk. If my buddy (an electronics repairman) can't fix for me, I'll probably grab another one off of eBay myself.

 

[Cloud Strife]

The 831 has a 10Mbps WAN port. I'm thinking of moving up to the 871 for a 100Mbps WAN port.

 

[cleverhandle]

You have a >10Mbps WAN connection? If so, I'd think the cost of the router should be negligible in comparison to your monthly ISP bill.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle
You have a >10Mbps WAN connection? If so, I'd think the cost of the router should be negligible in comparison to your monthly ISP bill.

Yeah. Comcast Powerboost gives you 12-16Mbps short bursts. Although without Powerboost, my connection is only 6Mbps.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Originally posted by: TC10284
I've got a stack of five 2500's that I got for use during the CCNA classes. They really paid off as I could do my work here (most of it except for switch related stuff).

It's not a bad idea actually. I was thinking of doing something similar to you so I could keep my skills someone strong.

Unfortunately I can't say about Cisco router depreciation

How much did you pay for the 2500s if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Ichigo]

Wait, so what's so great about Cisco?

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: Cloud Strife
Text

I'm thinking of getting a used Cisco router to get some hands on experience. Do their routers really deperciate that quickly?

It looks fine except you'd need to upgrade the RAM from 32M to 64M if you want to run the current 12.4 IOS.

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: Cloud Strife
The 831 has a 10Mbps WAN port. I'm thinking of moving up to the 871 for a 100Mbps WAN port.

FYI, the next step up from the 831 is the 851. For reference, the 851 lists for $400 whereas the 871 lists for $650. These prices are for the models without wireless.

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: Cloud Strife
How much did you pay for the 2500s if you don't mind me asking?

Keep in mind that 2500s are ancient - they are OK for pure lab work, but I wouldn't really want to run on one. Even an 831 smokes them performance-wise.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Pheran

Originally posted by: Cloud Strife
How much did you pay for the 2500s if you don't mind me asking?

Keep in mind that 2500s are ancient - they are OK for pure lab work, but I wouldn't really want to run on one. Even an 831 smokes them performance-wise.

I know from personal experience

<---2510 owner

They still make great learning tools, although the software emulators you can get these days are cheaper, and not only supplant them, but totally outclass them as you can have entire virtual networks with very pricey equipment

 

[cmetz]

cleverhandle, Cisco will not allow you to put SmartNet on a used device until you "relicense" IOS for the device, because according to their license terms, you cannot transfer the IOS license to another party. Want to guess how much the IOS license costs? I'll give you a hint: the router is basically free when you buy IOS.

Ichigo, what's so good about Microsoft? It's nothing to do with good. It's everything to do with most popular. You want to do networking stuff, you need to know Cisco. Doesn't mean they're the best, or that you should actually use them to solve a particular problem, but you should at least know what the market leader's products are like and what they're pushing.

All/OP, I don't know if the 831 have this problem, but the 10Mb/s Ethernet interfaces on Ciscos have caused me much grief over the years, many things they don't do, or don't do right. The 10/100 FastEthernet interfaces, or the GigabitEthernet interfaces, don't have these problems. Examples are not supporting full duplex, and not supporting NWay auto-negotiation. In a modern network, this causes all sorts of trouble.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: cmetz
cleverhandle, Cisco will not allow you to put SmartNet on a used device until you "relicense" IOS for the device, because according to their license terms, you cannot transfer the IOS license to another party. Want to guess how much the IOS license costs? I'll give you a hint: the router is basically free when you buy IOS.

Thanks for the clarification. Big surprise about the IOS relicensing cost.

While we're somewhat on topic, could you (or anybody) summarize how IOS updates are handled, with and without Smartnet contracts? Even when I had the freaking contract, and thus full access to their site, (not to mention a working 837 ) I couldn't make heads or tails of how to go about obtaining security or version updates. I don't consider myself at all challenged in navigating fairly technical sites, but it really seemed to me to be designed solely for people that worked with Cisco gear day-in-day-out and totally lived in that world. Part-time gearheads need not apply... or else I'm just dense.

 

[spidey07]

licensing - you are given IP base software with every purchase. This software will do the basics of most IP routing functions including support for all routing protocols. You don't have to pay extra for this, it comes with. You can purchase additional functions of IOS (feature sets) at the time of purchase for a nominal charge.

upgrades - need smartnet for upgrades (after the inital 90 days i think) of smartnet you get with purchase.

licensing AND upgrades - purchase a router with a certain feature set and get smartnet of any kind and you can download and install/run any version of that IOS in the same feautre set. In reality any smartnet maintenance allows you to download just about anything. I can download enterprise full for a 12000 router without paying for the enterprise license/software, but if I install it in a production environment I am out of my license agreement. It's sort of a "honor system", and I personally don't break that.

If for some reason you didn't get the feature set you needed and want an upgrade, you can pay for it.

Selecting the correct feature set can be difficult, Cisco is trying to make it easier by narrowing it to only 30 selections instead of 3000.

 

[cleverhandle]

Thanks for the info, spidey...

Originally posted by: spidey07
licensing - you are given IP base software with every purchase. This software will do the basics of most IP routing functions including support for all routing protocols. You don't have to pay extra for this, it comes with. You can purchase additional functions of IOS (feature sets) at the time of purchase for a nominal charge.

Right, that part I think I understood OK before - you can see when you purchase what feature sets are included.

upgrades - need smartnet for upgrades (after the inital 90 days i think) of smartnet you get with purchase.

You need smartnet for any kind of upgrade at all? Even something like a patch for a DoS vulnerability? Or just for "major" upgrades?

Putting aside moral/ethical/legal questions for a moment (though not denying their importance), let's say that I eBay'd myself a used 837 to replace the one that was broken, because it's far cheaper to do that than send it to a repair shop. If I wanted a new Smartnet contract (mine expired some time back, before the unit was damaged), could I (technically) get that contract without relicensing IOS again? I still have the old hardware and all relevant documentation for it. Also assume that I'm only talking about IOS update access here - obviously I wouldn't be able to send in the hardware or make a service call for a unit with a different serial number.

 

[spidey07]

security fixes are relased free of charge to the general public.

When I say upgrades - i mean major and minor version upgrades along a certain "train"

I could be way off base here, but ya know....

You could always call them and the the "straight dope" answer.

I don't know much about the purchasing of maintenance for out of maintenance gear. In the professional realm you always purchase maintenance with everything and then run your own spare pool.

Any big computing company follows this, if you wanna get raped just look at EMCs maintenance. I've said it before - cisco systems is a software company and not a handware one.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: spidey07
security fixes are relased free of charge to the general public.

OK, cool. The above ponderings are mostly irrelevant, then. I don't need the latest and greatest.

I could be way off base here, but ya know....

You could always call them and the the "straight dope" answer.

That's probably a very sensible suggestion. I'm forgetting that Cisco (proper, not Cisco-Linksys) is not really a mass-market tech company. Speaking with a non-droid-like human being is probably a very good possibility.

I don't know much about the purchasing of maintenance for out of maintenance gear. In the professional realm you always purchase maintenance with everything and then run your own spare pool.

Of course. But as I think you've already figured out, I'm not in the professional realm - the 837 was just handling my little home put-put network that I use for pretending I'm in the professional realm. Had the 3rd party firmwares for the Linksys routers been around at the time, I probably would have gotten one of those instead.

Thanks again for the info.

 

[spidey07]

cleverhandle....

I'm not ranting on you, just the message board mentality as a whole....

just pick up the freakin phone and call them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, I'm done. The internet is not the oracle, got a question about the practices of a company? Call them.

again, not ranting on you....I spend some time in OT and just want to scream does the internet wipe your ass too!!!!!!!!!!! frickin pick up the phone you lazy piece of dung!

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: spidey07
just pick up the freakin phone and call them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps I'm assuming too much, but have you called a typical, consumer tech company recently? Not with any kind of special service plan or corporate connection? Sometimes people are just lazy, but there's also a despair that's not entirely misplaced. In the last several years, I can really only think of one phone call (to Canon about a bad videocam battery) that wasn't completely inane, or at least about 10 times longer than it should have been.

I spend some time in OT and just want to scream does the internet wipe your ass too!!!!!!!!!!! frickin pick up the phone you lazy piece of dung!

LOL. The easy answer, of course, is not to spend time in OT.

But now, back to your regularly scheduled thread...

 

[Cloud Strife]

Tell us how you really feel spidey07.

 

[Genx87]

I own an 834, nice router, never had an issue, cant say the same with my friends who use Linksys

Friends always bugging me about things and if I have issues. I tell them nope, the thing just works.

Edit: Nevermind, guess mine is an 831.

 

[p0lar]

Originally posted by: cmetz
All/OP, I don't know if the 831 have this problem, but the 10Mb/s Ethernet interfaces on Ciscos have caused me much grief over the years, many things they don't do, or don't do right. The 10/100 FastEthernet interfaces, or the GigabitEthernet interfaces, don't have these problems. Examples are not supporting full duplex, and not supporting NWay auto-negotiation. In a modern network, this causes all sorts of trouble.

Don't forget lack of 802.1q support... :disgust:

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Cloud Strife
Tell us how you really feel spidey07.

/rant

Fine. This is how I really feel.....

The telephone is your most powerful tool, use it. gotta question? Pick up the phone.. The Internet is so full of misinformation it boggles the mind. hell I'm sure some of the stuff that I post is way off base, close, but not authorative.

just because you read it on the internet doesn't make it true.

Just because you can't find it on the internet doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

that is all.

-edit-
Case in point....
I was hard pressed to get some gear out to contractors that were installing it. They needed it Friday for weekend work. Problem was receiving was shut down for the holiday for this site (gee, I need my work done during non-prod hours) and had instructed UPS to not deliver anything.

Picked up the horn with UPS - "what can we do? I need this gear on Friday"

Moral of the story - worked with the manager of the UPS center to hold my gear, personally picked it up in a truck arranged for me and delivered it to the contractors to install/configure.

god I hate logistics.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Cloud Strife
Tell us how you really feel spidey07.

/rant

Fine. This is how I really feel.....

The telephone is your most powerful tool, use it. gotta question? Pick up the phone.. The Internet is so full of misinformation it boggles the mind. hell I'm sure some of the stuff that I post is way off base, close, but not authorative.

just because you read it on the internet doesn't make it true.

Just because you can't find it on the internet doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

that is all.

2/10.

Networking suddenly became ATOT.