Linksys WRT54G 54Mbps 802.11g Wireless LAN Access Point & 4-Port Router

I will never buy a router without antenna's again. We live in a two story house and my router is on the second floor in my home office. This was the first router I ever purhased 7 years ago. When it quit working I could not find it in stores so I let several computer repair people talk me into a wireless router without an antenna. They told me they worked just as good. WRONG!! It had very weak if any signal on 1st floor. My brother had the same problem and he found the LINKSYS WRT54G on line, thank goodness. You must have antenna's to extend the signal throughout your house if on multiple floors, it must get thru walls, etc. Great router, I now have full signal wherever I go in our house, which is approx 3200 sq ft.

Bottom Line: The "WRT54G" is a highly flexible unit at an affordable price. As Personal Area Networks (PAN) proliferate throughout American homes and small businesses fueled by the explosion of DSL, cable modem, and other high speed Internet access mediums, the need for seamless sharing of that access is acute. In order to share an internet connection however, the date stream from the DSL or Cable modem needs to be routed to the computers on the PAN. In my case, I used my primary workstation as a router by inserting a second Network Interface Card (NIC). This allowed the PC to talk to both my PAN and the DSL modem routing the DSL signal to my PAN via a wireless connection to my WAP54G. But this solution was problematic since anytime I took my workstation off-line, high-speed Internet access was curtailed until I brought it back on-line. My solution: the "Linksys (Cisco) Wireless-G WRT54G." The "WRT54G" is actually three network interfaces in one convenient blue and black box; it is a Router, a 4-Port full duplex 10/100 Ethernet switch, and a 54Mbps Wireless-G Access Point; all functions I need. Why you might ask? I need the router function to interface with my DSL modem and act as a stand-alone interface for routing high speed Internet to my PAN. I need the 4-port switch to connect my primary workstation and afford it Internet access. And finally, I need the wireless segment of my network to connect to the wired portion of my network, and to afford the wireless clients on the network high speed Internet access. This last bit of wizardry is accomplished by setting up my existing WAP54G as a wireless repeater of the "WRT54G", a function that allows the former to repeat the signal of the latter, thereby affording my entire network not only high speed Internet access, but access the wired portion of the network where my files sever live. The wireless portion of the "WRT54G" operates at a frequency of 2.4 GHz, and supports the following wireless protocols: 802.11b and 802.11g. The "Wireless-G WRT54G" can transmit and receive networking traffic in a range of 1 - 54Mbps. Problematic Installation Cisco provides lackluster installation procedures for the "WRT54G," assuming (wrongly) that everyone's needs will be the same. For the more advanced installation procedures I needed (these included how to flash the firmware, setup WEP, and configure the WAP54G as a repeater for the WRT54G), I had to make a visit to the Linksys Knowledge Base. Once there I was able to find what I needed. There is no software to install, although the "WRT54G" did ship with Norton Internet Security, I did not load it. I first plugged the "WRT54G" into my DSL modem. In order to configure the "WRT54G" however, you will have to plug the unit into a computer (in my case I used my primary workstation) via a NIC configured with a 192.168.1.x IP address. Once this was accomplished and the unit was powered on, I type the IP address of the router (192.168.1.1) into Internet Explorer, which in turn gained me access to the units configuration screen; note a password will have to be typed in. Once inside the configuration utility, I made note of the unit's MAC address (needed to set up wireless repeating), changed some of the defaults; e.g. I have a static IP address, the default for the "WRT54G" is dynamic or PPOE, changed the Service Set Identifier SSID etc. I also changed the router's IP address to match that of my internal network IP Addressing scheme, and I changed to access password. Note: changes to the configuration have to be saved one screen at a time. If you move to another screen without saving any changes made will be lost. Once this was accomplished I was able to surf the net on my workstation. Now it was time to configure the WAP54G to repeat the signal from the "WRT54G." I reset the WAP54G to factory settings, and then connected it to one of the open 10/100 ports of the "WRT54G" and using Internet Explorer, gained access to the units configuration page. I then flashed the firmware twice in order to bring it up to 2.07. Once this was accomplished, I configured the WAP54G for wireless repeating, which entails transcribing the MAC address of the "WRT54G" into the WAP54G. I also changed the IP address to match that of my internal network since resetting to factory defaults changes the IP address to 192.168.1.245. Once all of the configuration changes were made I attempted to ping WAP54G from my workstation with the unit still connected to the "WRT54G:" mission accomplished. I then disconnected the WAP54G took it back to its original location and tried the ping again: no good. I reset the WAP54G again and configured it for repeating, and then tried the ping again: no good, nor could I ping the "WRT54G" from the wired portion of my network. This told me that the two units were not communicating with one another. I was at a loss, and after two hours of trouble-shooting, including some very frustrating minutes with tech support in India (they were no help), I was about to give up and ship the "WRT54G" back to Buy.com, when I hit on another idea: I could use the WAP54G was another wireless card on the network and hopefully accomplish the same thing I had hoped to accomplish by repeating the signal from the "WRT54G." In order to accomplish this I need to take a site survey from the WAP54G. This survey yielded a MAC address from the "WRT54G" that was one digit off from the number printed on the bottom of the unit, and that reported by the firmware of the "WRT54G." I plugged this new MAC address into the repeater field, and (deep sigh) it worked; I could now ping the WAP54G (wirelessly), through the "WRT54G" and gain access to the wired portion of my network, and I could ping the "WRT54G" through the wired portion of my network, and gain access to the Internet from all of my servers. First Impressions Now that everything is configured, I am impressed! The WAP54G now repeats the signal from the "WRT54G." And now, because I am using two WAP's in my house instead of one, my signal strength is much higher in all areas of the house. Access to the Internet and downloading are also much faster through a 100Mbps pipe, instead of the 10Mbps pipe I hade before. As I alluded to above under real-world conditions, the "WRT54G's" wireless performance exceeds my expectations. So far I have been able to connect to the WAP from anywhere in the house; upstairs or down, most often at a full 54Mbps. My laptop has consistently connected at a rate 54Mbps, and it is in the downstairs master bedroom. This comes in handy when I am perched in front of the television in the downstairs living room, but I am still able to surf the web and download files to and from my server and workstation on the second floor! And the signal strength drops off only marginally on the backyard patio; I can still connect at a full 54Mbps, although at times throughput drops to 48 and 36Mbps. The "WRT54G" is capable of automatically downgrading its data transfer rate as the signal from the connected wireless clients becomes weaker, thus maintaining connection. When at the extreme range of the clients the "WRT54G" can downgrade as far as 1Mbps, which is barley within acceptable limits for surfing the web and working with documents. Conclusion The "Linksys (Cisco) Wireless-G WRT54G" is a phenomenal product. Since I ironed out my earlier problems, I have yet to touch it; it just works and works well, but of course time will tell; I have read some reviews of the unit that were less then favorable. Of course, my particular situation is rare, but if you are looking for the unique functionality and flexibility the "WRT54G" has to offer, I say take the plunge. The "WRT54G" represents the successful melding of several worlds; it can meet your need for current 802.11b standards, but still has the flexibility to expand beyond to 54Mbps; it can act as a 10/100 full-duplex switch, and it can route a high speed Internet connection so that all the computers on your internal network can share it. And it does so at an affordable price. Can you say no-brainer? I knew you could.

Bought used and didn't work. Eventually discovered the power supply sent with it was under powered. Seller refunded money but buy that time I purchased something better. This is ok if the price is right - it's known to have some security issues.

Linksys' WRT54G series routers have been an excellent buy from the first revision. My strongest recommendation, if you're looking at one of these, is to download DD-WRT ( [...] ). With dd-wrt firmware these things are incredibly reliable and includes a software feature set I don't even see on the cisco vpn appliance in the same shop as this router. Most notably, repeater-bridge mode is a pretty excellent way to grow your wireless coverage seamlessly, even allowing for separate wireless subnets on different SSIDs simultaneously. Happy Surfing!

Recieved this item in poor packaging (would you believe in a priority mail envelope?) I did not recieve the information I needed to make it work. My father worked 5 hours on this item, I chose Linksys because it sounded like adurable product. I tried to talk to the Amazon client but all he/she was concerned about was he/her rating and he/her would not answer any of my questions. It felt generic and then creepy and then it started to feel like harrassment. I reported them to Amazon and they stopped bothering me about the item. I ended up going to walmart and buying an expensive wireless modem at this point was through chasing cats. Works well.

I have owned one for these routers for over 7 years now, and I bought a second one for a wireless networking project as it was much easier and cheaper than any other alternative. Thanks for offering a great product at a low price!

I purchased a Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G from the seller. It looks and works like new. But since the product was out of warranty Linksys wouldn't give any tech support. (that's certainly not the sellers fault, but it is something to consider when you buy anything 'pre-owned'.)I was able to figure out my question, and the unit works great. I'm very pleased.

i brought a linksys router from amazon model wrt54g in sept07 , it cost me 46$ , i would like to tell u all to buy a buy a brand new one instead of buying a used one. My router didnt work at all an there was an inherent problem with it. I tried customer care and everything else , finally i had to return the product to amazon. A new one compatible with vista comes for 70$ and it is much better than buying this, and it will save u a lot of headache , also the new one is available at any tech sore like radioshack , etc

Linksys have clearly put a lot of thought into the design of the Router.My home network previously consisted of a wired PC which shared it'sInternet connection wirelessly to a couple of laptops. Sharing wasachieved using Linksys PCI/PCMCIA cards in each machine. Internetconnection was via NTL Broadband. I'd felt compelled to review the previous items too. I had/have little orno networking experience, yet was able to setup a secure (as much as thetechnology would allow) ad-hoc network with the original items in lessthan an hour. Turning on the wired PC to share the Internet connection was becoming apain, hence the G-Router purchase. Linksys did not disappoint again, wiredPC unplugged from cable modem and into Router which in turn was connectedback to the modem using a short patch cable supplied on the box (well doneLinksys!). Setup time 5 minutes. All that was left to do was access the Router's admin functions from thewired PC, tap in a few config details (all clearly documented in theLinksys Quick Start Guide & Manual) and bingo, Internet access. Thealteration(s) to the laptops took about 10 minutes each. I really like this Router, it can support up to 4 wired devices orfunction wholly as a Wireless Access Point. The built-in firewall seemsvery robust and Linksys Support are reputed to be excellent. The engineer who installed my Broadband had originally offered to do awireless setup for me as a £200 homer(!). If this is something you areconsidering I'd highly recommend buying the Linksys kit & having a goyourself first. Aside from the fact that it's fairly easy, you'll acquireconfidence in supporting your home network yourself (regular tweaks to thewireless configuration are a recommend security practice). Take the plunge - the Linksys kit will not disappoint.

My initial impressions were very good. It's a neat, good-looking product and initial setup was a breeze - I had two PCs sharing a cable modem in about ten minutes. It's also very good value, particularly as it's quite feature-rich, offering a DHCP server and pretty decent firewall capabilities alongside its connection sharing capabilities. However, when I tried to VPN into my company's network, it didn't work - I could connect but couldn't access the network. More puzzlingly, I couldn't see any machines on the LAN - I couldn't even ping my own system! This turned out to be due to personal firewall software that I was running - you may need to disable this or configure it to recognize a trusted network. Now I could see other machines on the LAN. VPN still didn't work, though. This required me to change the default range of the router-supplied IP addresses (192.168.2.0/255.255.255.0 instead of 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0) so that there was no clash with the IP addresses on the company network and disable the personal firewall software altogether. Note that the router appears to act as a pretty effective firewall itself (I was seeing about ten probes a day from the SQL Slammer worm, for example, when I was connected directly to the cable modem but haven't seen one since going behind the router). These are, I believe, quite common issues so I wonder why Linksys don't provide a troubleshooting FAQ. Anyway, I'm very pleased with it now that it's running correctly. The browser-based configuration is a breeze and the optional CD-based setup is even easier. Had Linksys included a FAQ in the box that solved my networking issues I would have given this five stars. It's worth noting that a more comprehensive manual than the one supplied on the CD is available from the Linksys website.

I bought a BEFW11S4 about 18 months ago and used it to great effect with NTL's broadband service - I recently had some building works completed and when re-constructing the network seemed to be suffering from problems with the wired ports - as we'd also recently acquired a couple of new laptops, I decided to upgrade to "G" . I also purchased a couple of G adaptors to replace some of the old B ones. After installing these I swapped out the old router for the new one and everything just worked straight out of the box - detecting all my old settings including the cloned MAC address. I have an iBook running B and sharing with the G equiped boxes doesn't seem to degrade the speed - everything seems to work much faster than before and we now have 6+ machines sharing the connection with no problems whatsoever - we also have a mix of cards from Apple Airport, Liksys, Dlink and a Siemens. All in all a very easy and straightforward installation.

The router itself is very good and the wireless signal is pretty decent but the software which comes with it is very disappointing. As I already had a modem/router set up and working this should have just been a case of swapping some cables over and reconfiguring the wireless security on the new router. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of following the provided instructions which stated that before I do anything I should run the provided installation CD. This was a big mistake. The CD goes through the process of connecting the wires etc, and then claims that it cannot find a connection to the internet, even though the router itself says that their is a connection. For some reason the installation CD needed me to enter a username and password for my ISP, even though these are stored in the modem and this unit clearly states that it does not contain a modem! After about 4 hours of trying I discovered that I needed to reset the router to factory settings, bin the provided CD and just plug the wires in. Hey presto - I had a connection to the internet! Overall, the router seems very reliable and was very easy to set up. Just make sure to set up manually and don't use the provided installation disc as it may just mess things up.

I bought this piece of kit to use with NTL Broadband through a set top box, linked to my pc through an ethernet cable - if you are connected by USB you'll need to change; the NTL website tells you how and its a better connection anyway. To set up the router I followed the simple instructions in the leaflet that comes in the box. NTL recognised the router as a new connection and after asking for my NTL user name and password allowed me to register the router. I used the default settings and was up and running straight away. I have my main pc linked by ethernet cable and my son's laptop and my pocket pc by wireless. The range is excellent. The router is in an upstairs bedroom at the front of the house and we have wireless connection throughout the building and right the way down the garden, to about 35 meters distance. By going into the settings menu via the web page you can restrict wireless access to specific machines recognised by MAC number (the instructions tell you how to find them). There is also a host of other settings that the more techie minded can play with - but if you just want the vanilla service, stick with the default settings; they work! I can't praise this piece of kit highly enough. I've noticed no drop in speed on my main pc and the router can be used without it being switched on. You want a mixed wired and wireless LAN - buy this kit.