Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $54.95 You Save: $25.04 (31%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $39.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router
Customer Review: Very happy with my new router
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, I want to thank the people who took the time to
write reviews about this product. Thanks to them I made the right
choice.
This router replaced a very old wireless router, which was functional
but gave me some problems (link reliability, performance problems, etc.)
The old router was also lacking in security features.
The Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router addressed my problems and
my concerns. It has lots of nice security features. I downloaded
the manual before getting the product, so setting up the router was
a breeze. I like the web interface, which is far nicer than my old
router's web interface. I like that I don't have to broadcast my SSID.
Both performance and link reliability has been great even though the
router is not located in an optimal place in my house for wireless
connections. The router is on the main floor. One of my PC's
is on the second floor on the far side of the house with rooms in between.
This was my least reliable connection before. Now it works great, though
the PCI card I have in that machine is still 802.11b.
I work from home a lot and I need a router that works with my company's
VPN. I didn't even have to make any changes to my old VPN configuration
and I was able to get on-line just fine with all of my machines.
The Linksys came with its own default IP address for the LAN. I simply
changed it to the IP address range I used with my old router and I didn't
have to modify the static IP addresses I was using on any of my systems.
I have PC's (new and old), Mac's, and Sun workstations connected either
wirelessly or with cables. They all access the Internet just fine.
What more can one ask for? Oh, and I love all the blinking lights on
the front.. ;-)
Customer Review: Better than all other wrt54g models
Summary: 5 Stars
Do not buy the linksys wrt54g (non L )each new version, linksys cuts back on the flash storage and amount of memory in order to prevent people from loading custom firmware
this has a side effect of making the router slow and unstable especially when using bit torrent because all connections require buffer space to be allocated to them, they also require cpu time, cut back on the cpu speed and memory, and you reduce the amount of connections the router can handle before becoming slow and unstable
(if you wondered why your wrt54g V8 lagged and cause the internet to become really slow even though your torrent download was only going at like 10KB/s , thats because of the changes linksys made to their router mainly reducing the memory and cpu speed, ps don't go on clock speed alone, open the router up and look ad the model number of the CPU and while you have it opened, get a wax based thermal pad and a chipset heatsink and place it on the cpu, then run a network benchmark like ixchariot which will max out the cpu load of the router. that will cause the thermal pad to bond properly and the chipset heatsink will allow the router to run cooler, which will allow for a higher overclock )
Linksys hates it when a version of DDWRT is made for their router
so they try to prevent this by cutting the memory and flash storage in half , each new version of the wrt54g (non L ) has less and less memory. the CPU is also of lower quality, even though on some of the models the clock speed will be the same, the model of cpu will be a slower model. since most custom firmware is more cpu intensive and use more memory
DDWRT is a more stable and faster firmware and has some of the best QOS features (A properly setup QOS will make it so you will never have lag due to a bandwidth hog as you will be able to prioritize ports and different computers)
Customer Review: Rock Solid Wireless Router - Highly Recommend!
Summary: 5 Stars
I haven't lost a connection in six weeks - I think that says it all. But, if you want more, read on:
I haven't had to reboot this router once. That's right - I can't believe it myself - I've become so used to constant rebooting on my old routers (Netgear). Security setup took five minutes after the router arrived in the mail and it's been rock solid ever since.
I'm a fan for life and I'll tell you why. I've used Netgear for years and have been generally pleased but router rebooting was normally once or twice a week at least. And, then I bought the WGT 624 (v3) model by Netgear and it was one thing after another: my VoIP conversations frequently cut out and hung up; I constantly lost connections; I had to reboot the model up to a dozen times every day in order for my laptops to re-establish a connection. No matter what I did only a reboot would fix the issue - I tried everything. I even bought a new identical Netgear router in case my last one had just gone bad over the 18 months - hey it could happen, I suppose and their cheap anyway.
But, with the new Netgear I experienced the exact same behavior. And, I don't have time for this. Ba bye Netgear - Hello Linksys WRT54GL!
I'm still using the included router OS but have tried the Linux version (dd-wrt) on a friend's identical router. I'll switch sometime when I have time or if the included OS ever gives me any trouble. But, so far so good. I did experiment with my friend's dd-wrt software and it was very impressive - well done folks. If your a geek like me and have too much free time, do check this out and give it a whirl - the install seems very straight-forward.
Anyway, I couldn't be more pleased with this router - no more rebooting!!!
Well done Linksys!! And, I'm thrilled that the company has the foresight to open up some products to the opensource community - Good Karma.
Customer Review: The reliable work horse of Linksys Routers
Summary: 5 Stars
When my original WRT54G router final gave up the ghost after almost 5 years of continous service (telecomuting from my home office by day, internet surfing by night), I purchased a Linksys WRT120N wireless router locally because I needed to get back "on the air" quickly, What a total piece of crap the WRT120N turned out to be, I wish I had found and read the review at [...] before wasting my money on it
Ok, so what does this have to do with a review of a Linksys WRT54L router? Well, I want to also pass on a warning about the WRT120N and say why I ended up replacing it with a WRT54L.
The WRT120N is a 802.11n router billed as being backwards with 802.11g but it is not!! It is very unreliable and after finding myself needing to constantly do a power off/on reset due to it sporadically "locking" up I decided it was high time to give it the boot after a few weeks of that nonsense and go back to a WRT54 series wireless router.
The WRT54L couldn't arrive soon enough to replace the WRT12N and much to my pleasant surprise it showed up days ahead of the timeframe Amazon gave for the Super Saver shipping.
The WRT54L is a tried and true WRT54 series router that uses Linux firmware instead of Cisco's firmware. That opens up a whole new world in being able to tweak the router's performance by installing a 3 party firmware such as DD-WRT, if desired.
For me, that was not necessary as it provides a strong enough wifi signal to be able to connect from any area of my multi level home. But I sure like having that option available even if it's not needed at this time,
Installation was a breeze and a much improved process than what I went through with my original WRT54G router.
Bottom line... BUY THIS ROUTER if you are lookng for your first router or a replacement, you will not be disappointed.
Customer Review: Solid and Reliable
Summary: 5 Stars
This wireless router, besides supporting Linux firmware, is a tested and true wireless router with 802.11 b and g support. It supports WPA, WPA2 and the older WEP encryption schemes. In addition, it has a built-in firewall, MAC address filtering, and supports access policies (such as "don't allow FTP connections to this computer on Sundays").
When I installed this wireless router, setup was very straightforward (I did not use the Setup Wizard because it didn't work for me). I changed the IP address range (because the DSL modem uses the 192.168.1 address space), set the administrator password, chose a name for the Wireless network, enabled WPA2 encryption and picked a passphrase.
After that, I connected my laptop to the router right away, and received an excellent signal and throughput of 100 KB/sec (for comparison, my DSL connection maintains a throughput of 300 KB/sec when I connect straight to the DSL modem).
I've been using the router for several months now, and have not had any dropped connections (my older Netgear router dropped connections fairly frequently and did not support the newer WPA encryption scheme) and have consistent throughput. The router has been running constantly for these past few months.
For the real tech-heads, this router has customized Linux firmware available from third parties. I haven't tried this firmware, since the base Linksys firmware more than meets my needs.
Finally, good security practices are to: Change the administrator password, disable Universal Plug and Play, disable Remote administrative access, use a unique name for the access point, and if the network is only for a small number of personal devices (i.e. a laptop you own), enable MAC address filtering. A MAC address uniquely identifies a network card, so this only allows certain computers to access the network.