Got my new linksys WRT54G Sunday afternoon.
Thanks for the suggestion(s).
Even though after 13 hours of trouble shooting with 7 hours of that being with tech support and two routers later, I was starting to get a little worried about the purchase.


Had problems setting it up. After 3 foreign speaking tech support guys and 9 hours later. (5 hours with tech support.) Final was the tech support supervisor who finally decides the router is bad. So I had to drive 45 mins back to the store and exchange it. Got the new one home and same issues. (What are the odds? Only for me! ) I'm really second guessing this purchase now. So I call tech support again and got a hold of an American lady with the patience of a goddess and the knowledge of one too.
2 more hours and she had me up and running! So simple all of us were over-looking the obvious. 99% chance there was nothing wrong with the first router. IP conflict with the DSL modem was causing the router(s) to crash constantly. I felt really stupid once we found this. Even connection with the lan was hit and mis with more mises than hits.

But if you ever call Cisco/Linksys tech support and happen to get a hold of an American lady named Apple. You are in good hands. IMO
(Her nickname is Apple Pie. What's more American than that?!?)

Not only did she know her product inside and out. She actually made it fun to be working on it with her even with my previous extensive aggravations. She rocked!
If they had their own extensions, I would call and wait hours on end just to get her from now on.

It was 4 am when we got done and I had to be back at work by 7. So I went to bed and waited til last night to set the WLAN up. Now that it's up and running. I LOVE IT! MUCH stronger than the D-Link in many many ways.
WLAN signal is supperb in comparison. Signal strength and quality are much much better. It's like comparing a 1979 Chevy luv to a 2006 F150. To top it off I paid less for this than I did the D-Link just last spring.

Signal is now solid normal on the furthest computer, (was fluctuating between poor to bad before). Thinking about getting the 7db antenna's. 2db's over the stock 5db antenna's don't seem like alot, but that's actually almost a 70% increase. So it should be good to excellent signal thru out the house with those.

 

I got my WRT54G last week, too, to replace my D-Link router. My install was super easy, and I like getting 802.11g speeds. I don't see, though, much if an increase in signal penetration. One of the machines on the wireless network is a Tivo, and it reports about the same signal strength, even with a new network adapter.

PSS-Mag, before you plunk down money on new antennas, you might want to check on their dispersion pattern and make sure they will meet your needs. For example, a lot of the larger antennae (even those labelled 'omnidirectional') will flatten the signal area of your access point. (Imagine an inflated balloon as the signal area covered by your access point; the new antennae have the same effect on the signal as if you pushed on the ballon from both poles -- it gets wider, but flatter.) If you have a one-story dwelling you're trying to cover, that may be no problem. If you have a two-story house, you might find the larger antennae will degrade signals to some areas (e.g., upstairs) of the house.

 

If you're looking to lengthen your range you'd probably be better off with a wireless repeater.

 

My D-link was the DI-524 it was also a 802.11G/2.4Ghz same as the new Linksys. Maybe my D-link had been going bad for a while. It was much weaker, even the hard wire seems faster. I never check the connection speed of the hard wires, just assumed it was 100mbps. I kept the same settings on the wireless adapters and just set up the router for them. Getting ready to play with the channels tonight and see if there is one that is clearer on the linksys that wasn't on the D-link.

I did not know that about the dispersion of high gain. That's handy to know I do live in a one story house. I am getting ready to start looking at new houses soon so that will be handy to know. Also getting ready to help a buddy set his up in his two story too. Thanks for that tip.

I think what I'm going to do before I buy any accessories, I'm going to move the router to the center of the house, maybe this weekend. I had thought about a repeater sometime. We have been seriously talking about buying a bigger house in the next few months. So this is all plans I have been taking into consideration too. (What I might need) More than likely it will be a 2 story with full basement. If so then I may need two repeaters if I go ahead and buy atleast one, then that will be less to worry about during the transition between homes. I'm sure we will run into all those unexpected things we will have to buy at that time that I'm sure will pop up as we move in. If I have everything for the network then atleast it will be stable, even if the rest of our lives aren't, and I wont have to worry about that.

 

Well, I tell ya, when we built this house I had every room wired with cat5e and linked back to the small closet in the office where a cable jack is located. It's nice having the hard wire so I can move files and backup computers. I can also turn the wireless off when I don't need it (I have a seperate w/access point). Anyway, if you can do it run hard wires is my recommendation.

Otherwise, my netgear wireless access point is located near the center of our house and I get good coverage all over. It's 2500 sq ft single story.

 

My Linksys gives me a 169.254 IP every couple of days and I have to reset it (powercycling doesn't work) which means I have to set up the security every time as well. Starting to be a pain.

 

in all likelyhood the router isnt giving you that IP address....it just isnt giving you one at all...Windows will assign that IP address if it cant find a DHCP server to give it one.

 

I know, that's what I meant. 169.254 is the Windows default IP meaning the router isn't sending it an IP address at all. It's what I meant, just not what I said.

 

Repeaters are OK if you plan to primarily transmit data for a computer. If you're streaming media (e.g., music or video from a media center PC), a repeater will slow down the signal, even 802.11g, substantially. It will certainly introduce enough of a lag to affect playback. For data (web, email), a repeater is a good solution.

Moving the router/access point often will help. Wireless signals are degraded a lot by wood/cellulose, so minimizing the number of walls (or bookcases) through which the signal must travel will help.

Wiring the house with CAT5 cable is a great solution... unfortunately, our house was built in 1924. We still have ****-and-tube wiring in some of the house....

 

Yea if I was going to build or remodel then I would put Cat5 in every single room. Kitchen dinning room and even the bathrooms. (Just incase) You never know what appliances they might have in 10 years that may have options available via network. I may need to flush the toilet using a palm PC as a remote by then.
But I'm to lazy to snake existing walls if I can keep from it. If there is a viable option that alows me not to! I'll take it...


Tical you dont have to redo everything manualy. If you are using the latest stock firmware, then once you have it set up. Under administration/config managment tabs. There is a button that says "Back Up". Click on that choose a place on your HD to store your settings. Then if anything ever goes wrong go back to that spot and click on Browse, locate that file on you HD, then hit restore. Wala everything is back to the way you had it.

 

Thanks, I'll have to check that out when I get home. It went out again yesturday.
The settings aren't difficult or time consuming to put back just a PITA.

 

Interesting, I'l keep that in mind.

 

HOLY CRAP!!!!!

I've been doing some research on that sveasoft firmware. I am not sure that it will work with my WRT54G or not because I wound up with Version 5. Some people are saying that Linksys changed from the linux base on this version, but are reverting back again on the next version.

But if it does work that crap is AWESOME!
We're talking VoIP capable and Linksys is getting ready to release a WLAN VoIP phone.
We're talking with that firmware it can be configured as a repeater. So you can have 2 routers one as a repeater and if the one your using as a router goes out. Change the repeater back to a router and use it til you can get another one.

Steve,
You might do some research, I belive I've read that some of the netgear routers are based on linux too. That firmware works on those. I know I read that it does on the Belkin's. I'll probably try that one out on my buddies after I've done mine and know what I'm doing. I'm still a little scared to flash it with third party firmware becasue I just bought it. But the chance to turn my $50 router, into what we paid $600 for 4 years ago when I worked at the ISP, and at no cost...... Hmmmm it's unbarably tempting. Almost to good to be true. The one at the ISP was not even VoIP capable. DSL had just came to this area then and we were just looking into and researching VoIP at that time. Then DSL was barely hitting the broad band numbers. The service would not have handled VoIP at that time.

I'm going to have to quit researching for tonight, my brain has hit information overload. Going to have to process the data I have and clear my mental cache. I'll look some more this weekend.