Customer Reviews

3Com 3CR858-91 Office Connect Cable/DSL Router

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While this isn't a new product, it has been more reliable than a previous Netgear, SMC, and Linksys I've had. This is just my own experience, but the Netgear router I had died on me after a few months, and the SMC and Linksys usually had to be rebooted every week or two (sometimes more often) to keep things running smoothly. The SMC would also sometimes fail to renew its DHCP lease on the WAN interface, requiring manual intervention. A firmware upgrade didn't fix either problem. I've been using the 3COM for a few months now (I also updated the 3COM's firmware) and so far it has worked the best for me out of the four. It also seems faster, but I don't have any exact numbers to quantify that.
The url/content filtering feature seems a little difficult to configure, but I don't really need it so I didn't spend much time playing with it.

On a side note, this obviously isn't wireless, but I consider that an advantage. I may be old fashioned but I still prefer products that do one thing and do it well, so I use separate wired routers and wireless access points.

I run WHS (Windows Home Server) and it requires several ports to be forwarded. This product works great when you have it set up. But it serverely lacks intuitive setup guide.

I have this router in automatic mode with DHCP, firewall enabled.
So far everything works. It has been up and running for a week;
no need to reboot it yet.

I bought this to replace a failed dlink.
All ports filled, couple months so far, not one issue.

I decided it was time to replace my aging linksys BEFSR41. I wanted something that had SPI, but a processor that could handle it. I had forgotten about 3COM until I did a search on 4 port routers. The reviews certainly helped it out. It sets up easily. The web interface is ok. Be sure to download the latest firmware. And it is fast with SPI turned on. Looks pretty good too. Well worth it.

I've had the router for two months. It's great! Both our Mini's went on line by just plugging everything in. The Windows 98 wouldn't go on line until we unchecked everything in the proxy window including "automatically assign IP" or something like that. Seems to be very user-friendly and I like the fact the it has SPI.

Bought this 3Com router for SOHO-use with Verizon's FiOS Internet service. Among the devices on the LAN is a VOIP phone adapter that provides our Vonage phone service. Every morning at approximately the same time, the Vonage servers would send a packet stream that the 3Com router would misidentify as a SYN flood. The router's log showed the packet stream as a possible attack. Thereafter, the router would stop routing packets until it was restarted. Once restarted, it would function normally for approximately 24 hrs until the next packet stream arrived. This behavior was observed using the default settings on the router's firewall. I suspect a flaw in the router's firewall rules is responsible for the problem. Another (home brewed) router functions flawlessly in the same network environment.