Siemens Wireless router w/ print server $35 shipped @ OD NO REBATES OR PM

[magis123]

FYI ... you can get a ream of 500 sheets of 24lb 92 bright paper (sku #751381) from Office Depot for $1.98 and your router (sku #615853) for $48.86 ... add the coupon and you got some useful stuff for your printer and the router to boot for $35.84 ...

That is what I did ...

 

[slappy76]

FYI I picked it up last night and tried it. I'm very disappointed. It's not very reliable at all. I had lots of random dropped connections. I would have to release and renew my IP (on the wireless computer). Lost the WAN IP once. This is even after I loaded the newest firmware. And this is also the first time ever a firmware update didn't go through as expected. I actually had to reboot the router after the update (it was hung).

This was put in the SAME exact place as my Compaq wireless router. So location shouldn't have been an issue. But Compaq ran damn near flawlessly but I was replacing it for the built in print server. I googled this router model and I have read less than favorable reviews about it with specific details. Apparently I'm not the only one to ever experience this. I also read this was actually made by some 3rd rate company with a Siemens label slapped on there (not confirmed).

I'll play around with the settings some more over the weekend but I will most likely return this to the store in Manhattan, NYC next week. Just an FYI incase anyone wants in on this "deal". Too buggy for my taste.

 

[metalmania]

Slappy76, I placed order yesterday morning and it showed out of stock in Manhattan. How did you get to pick up? Just curious.

 

[slappy76]

Just called around to see if they had the particular sku in stock. They did have it (obviously) even though it wasn't available in my area when I checked online. I explained the situation to the store manager and he accepted the coupon. It was the last one in that store though.

The secret to getting deals (over the phone and in person) is being friendly and polite (aside from timing). I'm always polite and friendly to my Staple, Officemax, and Office Depot managers and workers. I've seen people walk into stores demanding stuff.. like they own the place. Needless to say they get squat. Dale Carnegie's book is as useful today as it was 50 years ago.

 

[merlink]

Repost -- I posted the same deal from TigerDirect on the 7th.. However, with my deal, it's only $24.97 before shipping WITHOUT rebates.


Earlier Thread

-Merlin

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: merlink
Repost -- I posted the same deal from TigerDirect on the 7th.. However, with my deal, it's only $24.97 before shipping WITHOUT rebates.


Earlier Thread

-Merlin

This has NO rebates and is shipped for $35. Office depot is also a better company than Tigerdirect. Add the fact of shipping from Tigerdirect and we come to the same price point. Except I will pick OD over TD anyday of the week.

 

[Mektarus]

I've beed reading some pretty negative things about this router on another forum. Does anyone have any experiences with this unit?

 

[Pennstate]

I bought the first one of these from CC when they had it for $30. I works flawlessly for me. I don't understand what these "problems" are. I get good coverage and I don't get dropped signals.

 

[cpars]

Well I was stupid enough to try the Tiger Direct deal:|

Paid for it paypal and a few days later checked the status and the router was on backorder ( no mention of that when ordering)
So I called to cancel the order and the card had already shippped so I cancelled the router.They still charged me the same amount of shipping for just the laptop card $10.95 :| and I have yet to see a credit to my paypal funds.

TD never again :|

I just ordered the router from OD

 

[dchakrab]

Originally posted by: magis123
FYI ... you can get a ream of 500 sheets of 24lb 92 bright paper (sku #751381) from Office Depot for $1.98 and your router (sku #615853) for $48.86 ... add the coupon and you got some useful stuff for your printer and the router to boot for $35.84 ...

That is what I did ...

Damn...wish i'd seen this before i added thumb tacks and a clipboard...that paper would have come in handy.

Will keep that in mind for the next OD deal...

-D.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: Pennstate
I bought the first one of these from CC when they had it for $30. I works flawlessly for me. I don't understand what these "problems" are. I get good coverage and I don't get dropped signals.

Well from my experience this is a HUGE POS. Here is my rundown. I have bellsouth DSL. My dsl modem has a router built in that I can disable or enable.

My first problem was the fact that I plugged in all of my computers to the wired ports. Right off the bat, the router said another computer was configuring it. Well the ip it gave was my server which had not even been logged into so unless it can magically guess passwords.

I couldn't configure the wireless router from my computer. I remotely connected to my server and it did let me connect to the router webpage. I configured everything.

Things from there went down hill. The whole thing would only work for about 5 minutes before locking up. The switch wouldn't even work. I couldn't connect to any computers on the network much less use the internet.

See my mindset was that I wanted to get everything running with wired connections before I started fooling with wireless.

Anyways, I upgraded the firmware. That fixed most of the lock ups but anytime my server is connected to the network, for some reason the router only allows it to be the computer to configure it.

Next problem was the fact that it would constantly drop my bellsouth dsl connection and rarely reconnect correctly. I could have to manually go in and restart the connection.

At that point I thought, well screw it, I don't need it as a router. I just need it as an access point and switch. I configured my DSL modem as a router and tried to configure the wireless router as an access point. That didn't work. I could get my wired connections going because I just assigned static IPs anyways. Wireless is a whole different ball game. I turned off DHCP on the wireless router and left it on in my DSL Modem's router. Now my wireless card couldn't connect. I decided to turn the DHCP on the wireless router on. My wireless card now would get an IP but it would get the wrong gateway. The gateway it assigned was the wireless routers gateway. So internet wouldn't work but the lan would. There is no way to tell the wireless AP what gateway to assign for DHCP.

If one thing worked correctly then I would be set because my network is very flexible but there isn't one thing that works entirely.

 

[dchakrab]

Sorry to hear that...wonder what i'll get?

Mine comes monday...i'll post back with lan performance, but i dont have a wireless card, so i'm not going to be able to test that for a while.

Why not return it if it was that messed up?

-D.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: dchakrab
Sorry to hear that...wonder what i'll get?

Mine comes monday...i'll post back with lan performance, but i dont have a wireless card, so i'm not going to be able to test that for a while.

Why not return it if it was that messed up?

-D.

Well I am trying everything I can to get it working. Since it isn't locking up every few minutes I can test more things out now.

 

[Pennstate]

codewiz, why don't you configure the router while it's disconnected from the modem. I would also disable the routing on the dsl modem. Also, make sure you test your wireless NOT in powersave mode.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: Pennstate
codewiz, why don't you configure the router while it's disconnected from the modem. I would also disable the routing on the dsl modem. Also, make sure you test your wireless NOT in powersave mode.

I have done that. Currently, I have routing on my dsl modem disabled and I also disabled DHCP. It is in bridged ethernet mode just like I had it when I used a wired router with it. I have internet working on all wired ports. Now wireless isn't working correctly. If I have the wireless computer within 5 feet of the wireless router then I am good. The moment I get beyond 10 feet the connection says it is still excellent but it drops the connection.

BTW, the computer I am trying to put on the wireless connection is my server so it has no powersave power settings turn on. I wanted the wireless so I could go store the server in a closet instead of besides my desk. I don't have a monitor, keyboard, or mouse hooked up to it. I normally remotely login to it. With the wireless acting all ghetto I had to pull out a monitor to see what the deal is.

I have set up many wireless networks before. I setup a linksys for my friend and I had an expensive Cisco Aironet router about a year ago. I sold it because I didn't have a reason for wireless. Now I moved and I want my computer in a closet and I want my fiancee to be able to use the network wirelessly when she comes down to visit.

The thing that is really starting to piss me off is that about 50% of the time when I save new settings the wireless router locks up and I have to plug the power.

 

[lostatlantis]

sorry to hear about your problems, maybe you got a bum unit? I got one with Office Depot a while back, and it's been working 100% without any problem. I can't get the printer port to work with my HP 932 and 940C printers, but I don't print much anyway. The wireless range is a bit weak with the stock antenna, but with the add-on directional antenna range improved substantially and now my entire house is covered (i'd say 60 to 70 ft through floors and carpet at 30 ~ 50% signal and link quality, two bars).

My Dell Inspiron 8000 refueses to connect to the built-in switch at 100Mbps, but I don't know if it's the router or the laptop. My desktops connect fine.

 

[dchakrab]

Maybe it's the port...can your desktops connect to the same port you're connecting the lappy to?

And can you connect the laptop to anything else via the same network card/jack/protocol...maybe another comp with a crossover, or another router/switch? That should tell you where the problem is...

-D.

 

[lostatlantis]

yeah the problem is VERY weird... I went through an extensive trouble-shooting period with the setup:

the laptop connects with my desktop via crossover without any problem, I do my big file transfers this way, usually getting 50 to 75% efficiency on a 100Mbps connection

I've tried many (confirmed working) cables, still no luck.

I've tried every port on the router with my laptop, no luck. The desktops connect w/out problem with any port on the router.

When I connect the laptop to the router, the connection LEDs flick on and off as if I am constantly plugging and unplugging the cat5 cable.

I can maintain a 100Mbps connection on the laptop at college, but internet was pretty slow (dunno if it was due to port on laptop or school network).

Dell used Actiontec miniPCI NIC/modem in my laptop, it's based on Intel 82559 chipset, and I've tried installing various drivers but still nothing.

If I force the laptop's NIC at 10Mbps, then it works fine with the router.

I was at a friend's house, he had a Linksys router, and my laptop seemd to be able to maintain a 100Mbps connection, but I didn't have time to do tests. I might go back later to check this out.

Any idea?

 

[dchakrab]

Not incredibly knowledgable about networking (yet)...could it be a problem with the machine not taking an ip from the router? Does it work with dhcp off on the router?

-D.

 

[lostatlantis]

yep DHCP works fine. I haven't been able to figure out the cause, other than some weird compatibility problem... but then I heard Dell used a bad batch of NICs in their notebook and when I contacted them about this, they refused to do anything since I am out of warranty. So much for Dell's reliability

 

[dchakrab]

Possible, but if it worked with a crossover, it should work with the router. DHCP might be working with the other machines...i was thinking maybe your machine was having trouble relinquishing its ip address and getting a new one from the router.

Don't know what else to suggest...tried posting in a networking forum? Maybe someone else has had similar problems, or more experience with this...

-D.

 

[randadore]

i guess it's out of stock in my area? i get a message saying it's discontinued. it seems to work when i use the wisconsin zip code, but i'm the sf bay area in cali.

i also get this:

There was a problem adding these items to the cart.
Select an option to resolve the problem and then click "Continue"

 

[dchakrab]

Hmmm...you can't order it using someone else's zip code for the order, and then your address for the shipping info later on?

-D.

 

[Whiskyboy]

Originally posted by: slappy76

Originally posted by: RDMustang1

Originally posted by: slappy76
Deal is dead.. Please update the header. Can't add to cart. oh well.

stock for you does NOT mean that every other zip code in the entire country will be out of stock too so please don't say it's a dead deal because your local stores are out.

Funny you should say that.. I tried calling my local store and they DID have it in stock. So your statement is not necessarily true. I manage to get the floor manager to honor the coupon. Pretty cool of him.

Ok, to clarify... I can't speak for certain for OfficeDepot as I work for officemax, but RDMustang was right, they sort everything by zipcode and check availiblity locally. However, they only deliver from wherehouse stores, so unlike best buy, there's no way of telling what your local B&M has. If they tell you that its NIS online, the wherehouse is out.
I ended up picking one up despite the fact there were several complaints on Amazon about it, mainly because the errors people are having relate to wireless and range/effectiveness varies from box to box in my experience, I returned my linksys router to fry's twice before I could get it to stop locking up. Anyway, seems worth the money to me. Thanks for the deal.

Cheers

P.S. Congratulations on the tripple post slappy.

 

[Crucial]

P.S. Congratulations on the tripple post slappy.

And you have never made a simple mistake, 4ss

I just recieved my router today. I need to find a cheap wireless pci card now.