Cisco-Linksys WGA54G Wireless-G Gaming Adapter
by Linksys
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Our Price: $89.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $24.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WGA54G Wireless-G Gaming Adapter
Customer Review: Terrible Product, Worse Support
Summary: 1 Stars
Wow! What can I say about this product?History:
I've been using Linksys products since 1998, and have had nothing but great experiences. I've referred many folks to spend the extra money on a Linksys, as it was the "Cadallic of home networking gear." To my shock and surprise, I can unfortunately say this no longer.
I purchased the WGA54G adapter, along side with a Linksys wireless broadband router. From the start, this piece of junk looked like trouble. The packaging and instructions were poor. I plugged it in, and after 5 minutes, the unit becomes uncomfortably warm. Plus, there's this faint "hissing" noise it makes when fully powered on. After an hour of repeat attempts, I eventually get the unit to "see" my broadband router, which is only 20 feet away. It connects fine, transmits data, and then at a COMPLETELY random period of time, the unit disconnects from the basestation, and is unable to transmit data, connect to the Internet, grab an IP address, nothing.
(Non)Resolution:
After much frustration, I call Linksys 24x7 "technical support." It reaches an outsourced call center in a foreign country. After two hours, here are my new impressions of Linksys new customer support:
* They speak very poor English
* They have very basic/poor product knowledge.
* When I asked for technical help from a level 2 technician, I experienced hostility
* I told them that I needed WEP privacy. They advised against this, as there are "problems" with WEP on the unit. Not acceptable-I'm not opening up my home network to the rest of the world.
* They insisted that my router was working, when I told them five various times it was still not working.
Conclusion: Junk
In conclusion, Linksys poorly designed a cheap product, and they only back it up with terrible customer support. I left this with an absolute customer experience. Until the folks at Cisco (who own Linksys) catch up with these problems, BE CAREFUL!!
So what to do?
Some say try another vendor. What do I do? Funny enough, someone gave me a second Linksys WRT54G router. I added the Sveasoft firmware hack to boost output to 84mW, and then threw it into "client" mode, and WEP encryption works (no WAP yet). It's worked flawlessly. If you'd have to pay for this, you'd end up saving money over the WGA54G purchase, and see dependable results.
Customer Review: I must have been very lucky..
Summary: 3 Stars
Happy - techno- year to all of you !
So, I started reading your reviews AFTER ordering mine - bad timing indeed - : I was completely devastated !
You give horrible reviews + I'm on a Mac + on a laptop !
Imagine my anguish waiting my adapter to be delivered.
When it arrived, I first tried to use the installer from the CD via VirtualPc : didn't work.
So I tried to reach the web set-up, on 192.168.1.250 (thanks for all you VERY HELPFUL reviews !!!)
First I didn't reach anything, when I had the idea to put to sleep my Powerbook, and on the wake-up - miracle - InternetExplorer found the set-up webpage.
(I would strongly advise my fellow mac-users to use their old IE instead of Safari or Firefox : works so much better for these admin things ...)
I clicked on the update button, it found my SSID - the name of my home network - and the page said it was "connected".
I tried to reach the Advanced page... didn't, so I decided to connect it to my XBox.
I powered it, powered the Xbox, and by the time I powered my TV the recognizable Live menu was on my screen.
I thought it wasn't possible, since I didn't enter ANYTHING on the XBox yet.
I put Halo2, tried to reach a battle, and there I was in the middle of a fight : on XBox Live I was indeed !!
I must have been very lucky !
-> granted : the settings that you have for the wired connection will work with the non wired ; I have a manual IP, and it found my router ;
-> on the XBox - Advanced set up, where you're supposed to enter a MAC address and the set up for you wifi adapter I had nothing to enter : the XBox doesn't recognize the adapter !
I have a message that says there's no adapter, wrongly connected, or not compatible : even though it works !!
Definitely WEIRD !
-> Obviously, and before connecting the adapter, I put both the Xbox MAC address and the Linksys MAC address on my closed network.
-> I don't know "where" is the adapter now : I can't find it, don't know its address. Is it still 192.168.1.250 ?
I tried to scan my network, I neither find the adapteer NOR the XBox (that I can't ping !)
Maybe it's because it's not possible on a mac ? Don't know ....
Customer Review: Not for the network novice, works with Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray
Summary: 3 Stars
The bottom line is, I was able to get the device configured to work with my Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray disc player, but only after reconfiguring my network to work with WEP encryption. I don't recommend this device for anyone not familiar with network configuration unless your wireless network is unsecured (in which case you should first visit all your neighbors and find out which ones are hanging off of your network, and make them at least buy you a beer, or share their popcorn).
There are lots of reviews on this site explaining how to set it up with a static IP address, so I won't go into that in much detail. I'll just reiterate that it is the only way to go, and that you should configure the BD player likewise. The adapter IP address should be set up as 192.168.x.250, and the player should be set up as 192.168.x.251, where 'x' is either 0 or 1 depending on how your network is configured.
Once I got the box configured and connected to the BD player, I was immediately greeted with a "newer software version available from the network" message, and proceeded to download it, but only after one minor glitch. (Funny story): I kept getting "network connection terminated, try again later" errors when attempting to download the upgrade, and thought I had done something wrong, or that the unit may be as bad some of those other folks have lamented. However, on a whim, I decided to move the adapter from inside my entertainment center to the top of it, and closer to the door of my den (and away from the brick wall between the adapter and my wireless router), and it worked perfectly! (I guess you had to be there.) After this, my first foray into the BD-Live experience went off without a single glitch.
I was not, however, able to get this box to work with WPA2/TKID Personal encryption, which at least one reviewer said does work. Save some time and just configure it for WEP with a good key.
The experience was a challenge for me (call me weird), and I'm grateful for all the technical information other reviewers have provided. The results are worth it so far. The three rating is only because of the not so great documentation.
Customer Review: WGA11B much!!!!!! easier in my case.
Summary: 2 Stars
You would think that using the same exact setup, the same application, and all the same name brand equiptment(linksys)in your home network it would be easy to replace one piece,the WGA11B with the WGA54G and it would work fine. It wasn't quite that easy. After seeing how easy it was to set up the WGA11B both on the CPU and the PS2 I deceided to make the jump to an all "G" network because I heard that the mixed setting can really slow down your network. I literaly had the WGA11B hooked up in five minutes without wep. Just set it to In mode plug it in and your off. Then I decided it's better to be safe then sorry so I used the P1 setting to add wep. That was another hard 2 minutes. Up and playing PS2 online in under 15 minutes including boot up time and setting up my EA account.
The WGA11B works flawlessly. I play at my brothers house who has a wired connection and there is absolutly no difference!
The WGA54G on the other hand seems impossible to set up. I still don't know if anyone is able to do it. I have a base knowledge of computers and tried for about 1 1/2 hrs. I then called Tech support. Very nice guy that tried anything possible other that saying just whack it once real good on the side. After about an hr he said it must be defective so I drove the hr one way to return it for another. Got it home fired it up seemed to loading much faster than the other one. Wasn't locking up all the time like the other one. I spoke to soon. It must start messing up when it gets warm and it does get warm.
Called tech support again this time got a woman who was also very nice was transferred once, everyone very polite. But other than when it would freeze up the wireless light would not come on. 0-2 and not attempting #3. I will stick with the much more reliable WGA11B and hope that the come out with updates that allow "B" products to work with out slowing down the network. It doesn't slow the internet only the speed between you wireless CPU's. I still have a Linksys router WRT54G and the game adapter that work perfect. I learned my lesson and it cost me about two days.... If it's not broken, don't fix it!
Customer Review: Useful as a bridge, but has quirks
Summary: 3 Stars
I have been using the WGA54G (version 2, firmware level 1.16) for about 1.5 years to bridge two wired nets together. The first net is based around a Netgear WGT624 wireless router (which is also connected to the DSL modem), and the second is based around a cheap Hawking switch. The WGA54G is connected to the switch, and bridges it to the Netgear router. The network includes a variety of computers (Windows NT, XP, Vista, SGI IRIX, and Linux), a couple of printers, and a Wii.
There are many other Amazon reviews documenting the difficulty of configuring the WGA54G, so I won't repeat them. However unlike many reviews, I have found that WPA-PSK authentication IS supported - at least in my 'version 2' box. The trick, it seems, is to use the TKIP setting - NOT the WPA2 AES setting. I simply could not get the AES setting to work with my Netgear router. These settings are made from the 192.168.1.250 web page, by clicking the 'edit security settings' tab.
Speaking of the web page, it is only reachable from the 'hard-wired' side of the box. And sometimes it is not available. You have to power cycle the box to get the web page to come up.
Though it was frustrating to set up, I feel that if the documentation were improved, and bugs were fixed in the firmware, this product would easily rate 4 stars.
Update: I mentioned the the adapters web page is only accessible from the hard-wired side of the box. This restriction also includes any web pages that any of the other devices on the hard-wired side of the box care to publish. I currently only use this adapter to front-end an older (e.g., predates USB and wireless) network printer. I can not access the printers web page from the wireless side. And this restriction was also a problem when I had Real Computers on the hard-wired side. Attempting to use services like telnet and ftp from a computer on the wireless side to a computer on the hard-wired side was also problematic. So don't put any server-like functionality on the hard-wired side - unless, of course, you intentionally want to restrict access.