Corndork2 wrote: » Personally, I started with Packet Tracer when I was doing ICND1, then I moved to real hardware. Once I got a little more skilled with *nix I spun up a dynamips server and moved to GNS3. I did have some strange issues with Packet Tracer in a few of the labs. It seems to come with the territory. I would highly reccommend moving to GNS3 (there are multiple how to sites, videos, and CBT nuggets even if you need) or grab an 1841 on ebay for less than 100.00