Lab Equipment from ciscokits.com

Has anyone ever purchased from this website?

http://www.ciscokits.com/products.htm

And what were your experiences? I rented online rack from them once and the customer service was excellent but I had bad experience with their equipment. For instance, you can't change the frame relay, isdn configs and they have acl's placed on all the equipment that u can only access 3 of the 10 or so different equipments they have listed on their site. Since then I've been reluctant to doing business with them. So I was wondering if anybody ever bought equipment from them and what was it like?

I'm not an ebay fan, I've never used it and I don't want to make bad decisions by purchasing the wrong equipment or making business with the wrong people, that is the only reason why I've been checking this website. After ebay they seem to be the only site that I've come across so far that list reasonable prices.

Thanks for your advices and feedback in advance.

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Comments

EdTheLad

You are not an ebay fan because you have never used it!
If you buy smart on ebay you should have few if any problems.Check the sellers feedback,read what other buyers say about the seller.Use paypal with a credit card.I've bought all my equipment on ebay without a problem.Once i bought afew dvds and got ripped off.I contacted my credit card company and sent them copies of all the emails exchanged between me and the seller,they reimbursed me and because i used paypal they could track the seller.
If you want to pay top end prices go with ciscokits,their prices look very high to me!

Sa'ad

Thanks for your feedback ed. I think I read 1 of your posts in the ccna forum a while back and you mentioned that you only used remote lab, I thought by remote lab you meant online rack. So when did you start building a lab? and what did you start with? I was just promised a free 2501 router by 1 of my co-workers and I'm thinking of starting of slow and just getting another router to connect to this 2501. I've already spent close to $300 on boson ccna/ccnp sims, and I'm still recovering from that damage, maybe if I came across this forum sooner things would have been different. Anyways, I don't want to make another stupid mistake and buy useless routers so I've already been looking at ebay for the past 3 days and so far I'm not too comfortable doing business there secondly, I haven't seen reasonable deals as of yet. But, I don't have too many options its either ciscokits or ebay cause most other websites I've seen are much more expensive than ciscokits.com. But please give me more advice as to what would work best with this 2501 router, I'm gona get it some time this week. Thanks for your kind feedback and suggestions again.

Webmaster

I've been in touch with ciscokits.com lately, exchanged some links with them, and we'll probably run some ads for them on the entire cisco sections. Which means their reputation is good enough for me to promote here.

Though you may have been dissapointed with the rented rack, if you are considering to buy equipment from them, you can simply ask all the details you need to decided whether it's a good deal and will be what you expect it to be. Even though I have only good experiences with ebay (though you have to be careful), if ciscokits.com provides a good set for a good price and shipping I'd consider it a better alternative.

EdTheLad

Hi Sa'ad,probably you read a post of mine asking how to remotely manage a lab

, from the start i've been a fan of owning my own lab.I absolutely agree with you on the boson software,rubbish, sometimes if i want to check a command i startup boson,why i bother? 9 times out of 10 the command isnt supported.
I've been weighing up rented lab time verses owning my own lab, i think possibly the best way to go is own about 5 2500 series routers and for any special features that the 2500 doesnt support use rack rental.
My lab consists of 7 2610's,a 2620,a 1600,2511 and a 2950.The reason i choose the 2600 is because its modular and it was in my budget range.The 2511 is a must have,it was a little expensive at about $400
I would like to buy another 2 3500's but these are a tad expensive.So my choice is to either go with the 2 3500s or rack rental.

Sa'ad

Thanks to both Johan and Ed. I think I'm gona give ebay a shot and start off something simple and cheap like a 2501 or 2503 and if it turns out successful I will then invest more money in ebay and build my own lab. I wanted to hear from someone who may have purchased some lab equipment from ciscokits.com to give me some advice but it turns out that most people purchase from ebay. Well, thanks for your suggestions and encouragement. I'm gona start bidding right away and look for a simple router. Thanks again mates.

TheShadow

Ebay is not as scary as many believe. Like most things you just need to watch a while. Where I work there are lots of ebay junkies. My last little score was a 40 gig soyo credit card size USB drive, weighs 3.6 oz with leather case retractable cord for $90. Replaced my half dozen pen drives

The trick on ebay with the 2500 series is to look for units with 16meg of ram and 16 meg of flash. If not it better be a very good price like less than $100. If they do not post a show ver then be careful. Maxing out the RAM and Flash is about $30 so not that bad. What is bad is if you need to swap out the boot rom (equiv. to a PC BIOS chip). These are hard to find cheap and if you are in a hurry could cost as much as the router. Most 2500's have a 11.xx boot rom not to be confused with a 11.xx IOS. You want to get to probably 12.2 IOS if you can and for that you will need 16M Flash. 8meg with only get you to 12.0 something but that is still ok for a start. I have many times seen two 2500's and a 1924-EN switch go for well under the $300 dollar cost of Boson. Sometimes well under $200. 2501's often go for $50 but watch out for inflated shipping costs.

p.s. remember all the real auction action occurs in the last 10 minutes before it ends. Don't bid more than you can afford, don't bid too early and be online for the last 10 minutes of an auction. New users make many thing be over priced. You will be disappointed many times trying to get a 2950 or 2511 especially when the brokers are bidding like forbidden warrior and a few others.

Sa'ad

Thank you so much Theshadow. You've cleared alot for me. I've passed my ccna without ever cabling, installing or configuring a real cisco equipment, and of course my passing was due to my hardworking and this site's help, of coure I used Boson but I don't give em much credit do to their expensive useless with many errors software. Since I started looking at ebay what've been confused about is the price differences in the series 2600 routers and of course other series routers. I would see a 2610 for like $180.00 then I would see another 2610 for about $125 and everything looks the same. What I didn't understand and was confused about is the flash sizes and the IOS versions installed on them etc... But I'm using u'r post like a refence now and it shed some light on my confusion.

I have 1 more question for u, what flash/ram size should I look for on the 2600 and 1700 series routers? Thank you in advance for your reply.

Thanks a bunch mate!!

TheShadow

The price fluxuations are minor things and depends on what the seller wants. Even 2500's are advertized and sold for well over $500.
Flash sizes are the most important and costs the most to upgrade. Memory is reasonably cheap if you find a broker. I upgraded my 2500's for $6 each and 2600's for around $25.

The 2610's normally max out at 64/16 with the high number being the ram size. You will see 32/8's most commonly. Other than that remember that 2600's are modular; 26x0 gets you 1 ethernet port and 26x1 gets you two. 261x is 10Mb and 262x is 100Mb. The reason that 2500's are still popular is that most come with serial ports and some with ISDN. Kind to hard to practice frame with out ports. Those are all extras with the 26xx and a serial port can cost you an extra $50 or more to buy. If you see a unit being bid up it is because of extras included.

Some 2600's have cosmetic problems because the front plate is plastic, is sometimes missing, and is a minimum of $35-$40 to replace if you can find them. However you can get some good buys if you look for units with missing plates.

Take a stab because a simulator will never approach the real thing at the current stage of their development. You will be shocked at some of the things that just look different even if it is just the timing of actions.

Sa'ad

Thanks for your suggestions, I really appreciate it.

Humper

bob @ ciscokits.com is a decent guy...I ordered a couple switches from him and I got them on time..His prices are a bit over inflated and shipping is alot, but you get a good working product from a reputable company...I got ripped on Ebay for 2 cisco 2912 switches and I had to file a dispute with Paypal to get my money back.

Sa'ad

Hey thanks for the info. I have couple of questions for u, first of like I mentioned in my first post, the customer service was great, but I was frustrated with the fact that in their advertising for their rack rental they don't tell u that u can't touch the frame relay and ISDN configs but can only look at them. And I was only able to use some of the rack equipment but not all. Because of that I was a bit unsure as to whether I wanted to purchase products from them or not. But now that I found u(someone who has purchased something from them) are the actual equipment you get in good condition, and as clean as their pictures look on the website? And do they really allow u to return them within 30 days if something doesn't work right? These are the few quetions I have. Thanks for your reply

Humper

I received 2 - Cisco 2912 switches and they're physically in good condition with some minor scratches on them. All 12 ports work great, included in the price of the switch you get a console cable, and a cd with alot of good stuff on it....

Humper

ModemHumper wrote:

I received 2 - Cisco 2912 switches and they're physically in good condition with some minor scratches on them. All 12 ports work great, included in the price of the switch you get a console cable, and a cd with alot of good stuff on it....

Just keep in mind that you are buying used equipment, so you can expect some cosmetic problems when purchasing from him or anywhere for that matter.

Sa'ad

Thanks for your feedback. I'll give them a shot if I can't find a better deal on ebay. Ebay actually looks good, I've already won a bid on a new 2501 and I'm waiting to see how it turns out. It wasn't brand new, but it was still in good shape and had the actual accessories cisco usually ships with and the original cisco box that it ships in. So I'll see If I got a deal there or not.

Thanks again.

ja5983

the routers and switch i am selling in the for sale thread are from ciscokits.com

i have mixed feelings. Yes, they give you what they say they are giving you and the product definately works/fast shipping

i also think these products are DEFINATELY refurb or maybe not even refurb and I think their prices are VERY high in comparison to what you could get on ebay.

my 2c

techman-aka-Format

woo hoo! just ordered it! ready to setup my lab and finally write the BSCI exam after lagging for two years. wish me luck!

Sa'ad

Ja I definitely agree with you on the pricing part, I don't know about the rest as I've never purchased their actual equipment.

I've been fearing ebay but so far I've found it the other way around. Ebay is treating me well. I was very surprised with the shipping and how quick I got my items. What I learned is that unless your buying a whole lab from ebay most of the single routers you buy are either missing accessories or are not maximized as far as dram/flash memory. I've been looking for a reasonable 2503 that is maximed and I found nothing being sold by itself. But when you come accross people who are selling a whole lab most of the time they've got them all maximized and my budget a bit tight now so I just wanted to purchase something within the $40 - 50 range.

But I'll check out what your selling Ja

Techman good luck on your exam.