Cisco-Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $12.50 You Save: $87.49 (87%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster
Customer Review: Impressive Linksys Router
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a plain vanilla home network with a desktop (with a wired connection) and a laptop that connects wirelessly and a shared printer. I had to purchase a new wireless router because I switched from DSL to Cable. My previous router (made by Westel) was quite sensitive, dropping the wireless connection from time to time and it seemed that I had to reboot both PCs once or twice a day because it could not connect to the internet or the PCs could not connect or both.
I just got this Linksys a few days ago and it is quite impressive. You can even put your PC in hibernate and when you go back in, it usually is still connected just fine. I could never do that with my last router. When it did lose the connection to the Linksys router(I put the Laptop in hybernate overnight), I just had to disable the connection and then enable it, much easier than rebooting everything (10 seconds versus 5 minutes). I could not do that with my Westel router.
I deducted a star because it could not make a connection to the internet using the setup wizard which Linksys supplied on their CD and because the manual is in a PDF file. It asks for a password in the middle of the wizard and I was not sure which password it wanted. What it wanted was the password of the modem. It ships with a username and password of admin; admin so when you get to that question don't enter a password - there will be one already filled in like this --> **** Just click the button to continue.
Also I had to type 192.168.1.1 on Internet Explorer's address bar get to the manual configuration routine after the wizard failed to get me connected. Once I was in the Linksys configuration I looked around and found a button to get it to refresh or renew the address and once the address appeared, it connected and it was fine.
I got version 5 of this model. You can tell which model it is if you flip the unit over and it says next to Model WRT54GS v5. I noticed on the Linksys website that this is pretty recent model, January of 2006 I believe, so by now maybe they have got their act together.
The setup wizard asks you what type of a connection you have but does not indicate that if you have Cable it is probably a PPOL connection. I believe that the DCHP choice is for DSL however you can call tech support from your Internet provider if you are not sure.
There are a few other choices for the connection type but they are for the corporate world where you have an IT (Information Technology) staff.
Other than the setup, I am quite happy with the purchase because of the stability, speed and the range. I had no problems connecting to it from my deck outside. One thing good about the setup is that it walks you through the cabling steps with pictures etc.
Pretty soon I am going to get VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and hook a few phones up to this router and will get back and report how it worked out. I noticed that an earlier reviewer said this router is great for VOIP as you can priortize the physical ports and give the port that connects the phones the highest priority. Sound like this is just what I need.
Does anyone want to buy a used, slightly unstable, Westel Router?
Customer Review: With Linux inside it is *amazing* what this router can do! - Get OpenWRT and you'll be amazed!
Summary: 5 Stars
This review is targeted to those geeks among us who like to color outside the lines. I have 2 WRT54G routers and now have this WRT54GS router. To be honest, the first thing I did when I received my GS router is boot it up and load the OpenWRT firmware on it. It's quite amazing what you can do using OpenWRT as a base. [...]
My favorite is the wireless remote control truck. I actually am using my oldest unit as a wireless web server. Here are two different sites running on it, one even running PHP:
I am actually using disk space shared from another server (NFS mounted, there are also other ways to mount disk for you non-Linux people).
People have turned them into wireless radios, vehicle tracking devices and more. You can wire up serial, USB, hard drives, sound, and more on these things. You can also hook up other antenna for other applications (outdoor directional, etc).
If you like to color outside the lines you might also use Linux as your primary desktop operating system (all my computers at home and at work run Linux exclusively). For those of you I would suggest this and for your laptop pick up a Linksys WPC55AG PCMCIA card. This card uses the Atheros chipset and works well with the Madwifi drivers (probably should do a review under the card). This is a great combo and for the most part nearly 100% driven by open source software on both the router and the card drivers.
NOTE: Nearly everything I have just discussed will void your warranty so continue at your own risk. I have been using these routers for a couple of years now and still haven't been able to render one unusable. At < $50 for the WRT54G and < $80 for the WRT54GS it might be something you want to risk.
Also, it is important to note that there are several versions of each of these routers and they all are a little different (internal switches are a different model, Broadcom MIPS processors are a little different, speed etc). There is even one version that comes with less RAM and a proprietary version of the firmware. I believe this is the Linksys WRT54GS v5. I wish the version number was listed as part of the model number so you know which one you are buying. The one I just received a couple of months ago was the WRT54GS v3 and it works GREAT with OpenWRT. I guess it's a roll of the dice which version you will get. If you get a v5 I would send it back. I believe they are also coming out with another model that will continue using the Linux firmware. It appears that this new version will be called the WRT54GL.
If you have a choice of versions get the v3, or wait for the WRT54GL to come out so you know what you are getting. I don't believe it even says anywhere on the box what version is inside. The only place you will find this version number is on the label on the bottom of the unit.
At any rate, you Linux experts/users and tinkerers go check out OpenWRT:
You'll find a nice Wiki and great Forums.
Void Main
Customer Review: Great Router
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this router nearly 2 months ago and I wrote a good review about the router and that isnt going to change but I had to add something so I deleted my original review so I can add this I had a router before this the D-Link DI-604 a great wired router and when I got this router I had tech support walk me through wiring the Wireless Linksys router into my older D-Link DI-604 wired router and I though it would save me alot of re-wiring and changing of settings and I was right for a few hours until I tried to play online video games on one of my computers that was wired into the Linksys router. There was something wrong with the wired D-Link DI-604 firewall and I couldnt adjust it correctly and it still doesnt make sense why after all the years of playing online games over it without problem it would suddenly just start causing me problems. So I called them back up, totally disconnected my D-Link router, wired all my other wired computers into it, set up my laptop to work with it through the router wireless and adjusted the routers settings and it worked. Now I can play video games on any computer thanks to the features on the router and I use my laptop from the basement and other areas that are fairly far from my router. My router being on my top floor. I can even use my PSP on it and its compatible with Xbox live. I also plan to use the WIFI feature even on more things when I get my Xbox 360 which uses WIFI. Anyway I never had a dropped signal or any other problem since I re-wired everything into the Linksys router. Signal loss was my biggest worry when I made the switch from wired to wireless since I had no experience with wireless routers before this one but thankfully this router hasnt let me down. The people that complain probably didn't have the router setup properly, had a defective router, a wireless card that sucked or was defective or due to the distance or materials of their house affected the signal to the point where they kept on getting dropped or had a weak signal or poor distance. But I seen these devices that your suppose to setup inbetween your router and laptop or other devices that extends the range of the router and those people might want to invest in those or those bigger antenna's since that might fix the problem. Anyway great product and in the future I will consider other Linksys products for my networking needs. Also I decided to get this router due to many good reviews found on this website since I review many things before buying them but I wish I got it from the website instead of Best Buy because the prices are better but the thing is I wanted the router right then and there so I could set it up as soon as I got my laptop home. If you consider buying anything this website is a great place for researching and buying the item.Customer Review: This is a good router
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased this wirless router for $70 from our local CompUSA (which is now going out of business) on Friday January 18, 2008. I finally had time to hook it up on Sunday the 20th, and it took about 10 minutes total.
I installed it on a newer Gateway computer with Windows Vista Home Premium and had no troubles getting it up and running. This computer is located on the left side of the house on the second floor above the garage. The only small issue was, trying to figure out how to do all the security settings, the screen on the CD sleeve looked like there was a Linksys program to do all that, but I never could find it anywhere after installation, so I clicked on the Windows Vista network setup link which appeared over the 'network' symbol in the system tray, and then the Linksys security screen popped up, so then, everything was good, and I could configure the security system. I like that you can set up a time frame to allow users access. I set the wireless feature to turn off automatically at night after 10:30 PM and then to turn on again in the afternoons at 2:30 PM, just as an added measure to help keep people off during the night and during the day while we are at work, just in case the the other security features fail for some reason. I'm running WPA2 security.
I grabbed my brand new Dell Inspirion which has built in a/b/g wireless and it worked all throughout the house. Grant it, on the right hand side of the house, the signal was down to 2 bars out of 5. But it was still speedy! (My in-wall service is coming from a Charter Digital Cable 5MB feed.)
My house is a large house, measuring some 120' feet wide and about 70' deep on the ends with all the interior walls are insulated, and as I mentioned the router was set up on the second floor against the farthest wall away from the main living areas and bedrooms downstairs. So, I am glad to see that my entire house was covered with signal strength! It would probably be better to set it up downstairs in the living room which is in th center of the house... and that may be a future weekend project: setting up an HD Home theather using the PC as a media center.
I debated over getting a Draft N router, but the price point made the Enhanced G more appealing for me, as this is my first attempt at home networking and didn't want to fork out a lot of money to start out. I do have 4 desktops (I do a lot of video editing and graphic design using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as website design) and a laptop that I hope to get all hooked up together as time goes on.
Overall I am very satisfied with this purchase and highly recommend this Linksys Router!
Customer Review: Poor functionality; abysmal service
Summary: 1 Stars
I couldn't agree more with Fred, below, regarding service. How in the world is a company like this going to expect mass consumer acceptance of this technology given the difficulty and confusion surrounding its installation and use? And then to follow that up with such useless tech "support" - as oxymoronic a phrase as I've ever heard.
Buying into the g speed claims, I bought this router and two adapters (WUSB54GS and WPC54GS notebook card) to install a new wireless network after moving into a home that did not have a cable outlet in the room where we needed to put our main family desktop. In my former house I had a Netgear MR814 b router that worked flawlessly.
After almost four hours on the phone with levels 1 and 2 "support" and a still unreliable and unconfigurable system, I am returning these products to Amazon. I am a loyal Amazon customer who has purchased 1000s of dollars worth of merchandise and am glad the company has a solid return policy. I will buy a Netgear system and try that.
Among the technical issues:
a) the setup/configuration tools are seemingly straightforward, but apparently the device doesn't have the capability of detecting the presence of WinXP SP2, thus there are incompatible drivers to deal with right from the start. Encryption simply doesn't work.
b) after downloading drivers that allegedly were going to fix the problem, connctivity remained spotty - for the two weeks I've had this device I've had to spend about half of the time resetting the router/rebooting the computer and various other contortions to catch a few minutes of the internet.
c) Today I was on the phone for almost two hours with level 2 "support", trying to understand a man whose English was barely conversant. A core issue became quickly apparent - his script was clearly directing him to compel me to find and use the wireless connection utility in Windows XP, but all of the linksys literature/CD said to use the linksys configuration manager which is what I used to set the thing up. I followed the installation instructions exactly. Speaking about two words per minute, he failed to ever tell me - I had to find this on my own through some forums - that a Microsoft KB article speaks to the exact issue he was failing to recognize. Finding no other answers in his script, he insisted that I needed to reinstall the entire operating system, including SP2. Unbelievable. Just how did my operating system suddenly "lose" important files right after I installed the router?
Needless to say, I will never again buy another Linksys product. Good luck if you do.