My WRVS4400N v 1 gave me dozens of problems when I first bought it. Constantly dropping connections to apple computers, terrible range, etc. After 2 or three months of talking to support, I was given a firmware upgrade to fix the wireless problems. It kind of worked. The problem was that it implemented DNS injection (!!!) so no matter who or what on the network demands a static DNS, it always gets the DNS given to the router (dhcp ip address). So, I can't use OpenDNS as I'm always forced to use comcast dns. I got around that by carefully configuring a rvs4000n I got for free on the net to get the dynamic IP address from my ISP, and give a static ip address to my wrvs and set the wrvs as the dmz, etc. Ok, so I only need two routers to do the job that one router should have done. whatever. Immediatly, though, I noticed that I was getting 14 MBps instead of the 30 I was paying for. 14? Surely my modem has a problem. I directly connect and, nope, I get 30 when connected directly to the modem. So I'm losing half my bandwidth somehow going through the 2 routers. After trial and error for a few hours, I found that simply disabling IPS on the router made the speed decrease completely disappear. I went from 14 MBps to 30 MBps by turning off IPS. Great.
Only then, seconds later, I had no internet at all. Reboots of all my devices and other steps showed me I had addresses and was 'connected' to my devices, but internet requests would time out. Only re-enabling IPS gave me internet back. Disabling it again gave me almost immediate timeouts from the internet.
So it seems that any attempt to disable the speed-killing IPS on the router also completely disables my ability to connect to the internet. Good thing cisco gave me such a useful option! No speed, or no connection! Which would you choose?
If any one out there has some clue how to disable IPS and still get a connection, or better, can name a router that actually works and doesn't require months of speaking with tech support agents to get a firmware update (and then get asked to pay $$ just to be told the product has been abandoned by cisco) Because I was really, really hoping I could waste hours of my life trying to make use of something Cisco themselves don't even give a crap about. I enjoy spending hours of my life on the only day I have off trying to fix the consumer-grade hardware I don't have the money to replace, instead of the hundreds of other things I legitimately have to do. But, if someone out there could spoil my plans for wasting my life away and tell me theres a way to make this router actually not fail epically, I'd listen. If not, maybe someone'd like to take both of these routers off my hands so I can find something that works.
