| Linksys Wireless-G Range Expander WRE54G |
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Model: WRE54G
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 0
Platforms: No Operating System
Operating system: Windows
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Dimensions - 1.1 x 7.4 x 6.9 in (H x W x D)
Wireless Standard - IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
Security WEP - 64/128 bit WEP |
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| Description: |
| The WRE54G Wireless-G Range Expander increases the effective coverage of your wireless network. Unlike other access points, this wireless expander doesn't require connection by a data cable. Just place it within range of your wireless router and bounce the signals off remote wireless devices. It's perfect for any wireless home or business network that requires wider coverage: Multi-story homes, warehouses, outdoor spaces and more. |
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| User Reviews (0 total): |
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Run screaming, September 5, 2004
By Dave (Acton, MA USA)
Other than the fact that it just didn't work, there's the little things, like selecting 128 bit encryption mode to be compatible with my home network and finding out you can only enter 10 characters instead of 16 making it impossible to configure.
I hope they didn't pay the monkey they used for testing this product very much.
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Great range, but KILLS your bandwidth! (do not buy), September 5, 2004
By napsfan (Granville, OH USA)
I had an older Belkin 802.11b WAP that worked fairly well, but left us with dead spots in certain portions of our house. So last night we bought a Linksys WAP54G access point and the WRE54G Range Expander. Set up the access point quickly and without any issues. It is definitely an improvement over our Belkin and provides better range.
So far so good. Then I set up the WRE54G Range Expander. I agree with the various comments about being complex to set up with anything beyond the basic autoconfiguration. But we did get it up and working and confirmed that it did a GREAT job of expanding our range. We were initially quite pleased with the results.
But I did notice my web pages seeming to be slow. So I checked the internet reviews and saw comments about how this unit slows your bandwidth. So I used the www.pcpitstop.com bandwidth test and confirmed that this expander KILLS my bandwidth!! Without the expander, my bandwidth (DSL) averaged about 855 kbps. With the expander turned on (and with my wireless signal indeed showing much stronger, as advertised), my download speed was down to less than 100 kpbs!!! From 855 kpbs down to less than 100 kpbs!! (as low as 43 kpbs, as high as 138 kbps) I had to try this many times to confirm, as I couldn't believe it myself. Wow. I'm taking this unit back to the store today.
Be forewarned -- What a bandwidth killer this is. Very disappointing.
(P.S. I am using 802.11b cards in our laptops. I did not upgrade to the newer 802.11g cards yet. But I can't imagine that this would matter. My 11 Mbps cards are plenty fast enough for my 1 Mbps DSL line.
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Save Your Money, September 4, 2004
By mjmj2007 (SE Ohio)
After hooking up our home wireless network using a Linksys WAP54G and appropriate cards, in combination with a Direcway DW6000 sattelite Internet connection (the recommended approcah by both parties) we anxiously awaited the range extender. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT. This product, once it finally decided to set itself up after numerous attempts, crippled Internet bandwidth capability to pre dial-up speeds, locked up PC's, and required electrical power reboots after several hours on the device to restore network communication. If you use broadband
satellite internet/e-mail with a WAP, DO NOT USE A WRE54G.
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Misleading Marketing = Return, September 4, 2004
By Jason Fry (Brooklyn, NY USA)
Spent 90 minutes on the phone with perfectly nice tech guys before the truth came out: Range expander won't work with my BEFW11S4 router. Incredulous, I read off the back of the package that "the Wireless-G range Expander is compatible with both Wireless-G and Wireless-B devices" -- to which the tech replied that " 'devices' means cards, not routers." When I noted that was incredibly misleading, the tech acknowledged that yes, they've had a lot of complaints. Which raises the question: Are the Linksys marketing guys evil, or just dumb? Either way, it's pretty hard to recommend a product that doesn't work as advertised.
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Do not buy!, September 4, 2004
By BlueHooker (Reston, VA United States)
I should say first that I've been very happy with LinkSys products and support. However...
Why would LinkSys put a product on the market that doesn't use WPA encryption? Why did I have to disable security on my network entirely to install it, then enable WEP, then repeatedly reboot every machine in my house connected to my wireless network? Why did the Setup utility finally say, repeatedly, "Cannot associate with this AP in repeater mode"? Why is this message completely undocumented? It turns out that the RE is *not* compatible with my WRT54GS, contrary to the claims on the box.
Most of all, why did a LinkSys technician finally suggest to me that I run a cable up the stairs from my router, attach it to a brand new WAP54G, and return the Range Expander? Because that would probably work, unlike this device, which consumed oh, about 3 working days.
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Not ready for prime time -- but works if you try hard enough, September 2, 2004
By Matt LaMantia (Boston, MA)
I bought the linksys range exapnder after experiencing utter failure with the similar DLink item. Clearly both of these items were rushed to market before they were ready.
I'm an engineer and I'd like to think if myself as pretty knowledgeable able network issues, but it took me four hours of trial and error to find the formula that would make this work.
The setup wizard on the included CD doesn't work at all. You need to power cycle the range extender to make almost any configuration change effective. It's very fussy.
Here's what I did to get it working with WEP:
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1. Make sure you have a compatible router or access point with up-to-date firmware. My recent linksys wireless-g was ready out-of-the-box for this.
2. Disable WEP on your router, and make sure that it's broadcasting its SSID. Test that it's up and running by going to its admin page from a wireless PC.
3. Power up the range extender, close to the router, so it finds your own wireless network when it self-configures. Press and hold the autoconfiguration button until the lights start flashing blue and red, then release. The link light should go blue. Go to the range extender's admin page (192.168.1.240) from your wireless PC and see that it's working. It would also be a good idea to try to hit the admin page from a PC on your wired network, to check the link that way.
OK, you're successfully configured in insecure mode. If you're happy with that, you can stop here and treat your neighbors to free internet, and unfettered access to your personal data. On second thought, let's try to get WEP working on this thing. This is the hard part.
4. Unplug the power from your router/AP. Link light on the range extender should go red. Hit the range extender's admin page on the wireless network to make sure that you're actually talking to it. Configure its WEP settings, and click the "save" link. You'll lose your wireless network connection as soon as these are effective. To make these settings stick, you will probably have to power cycle the range extender! Then try to connect to it wirelessly again, and verify the WEP settings. You may have to go through a couple of iterations here to make this stick.
5. Once you're satisfied that the range extender is configured, unplug it from power. Now go to the router/AP admin page, and configure its WEP settings identically. Verify connectivity, etc, to the router.
6. Now plug the range extender back into power. Stand on one foot and sing "I know this product stinks but I really hate pulling ethernet cable" in the style of a Gregorian chant, until the link light turns blue. Verify connectivity by going to both admin web pages, from both your wired and wireless networks.
7. If you got this far, you're golden. You can now place the range extender at the edge of your old network's range, and enjoy better network coverage. If that didn't work, I don't know what will.
I have to say that I'm extremely disappointed with Linksys on this product. Their routers are excellent, working right out of the box, so I expected more from them.
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Item worked, range increased, link light still red. Quality?, August 29, 2004
By Rhodes (Georgia)
A bit of problem with installation, the red/blue link light never indicated a good link with the Linksys WRT54G even with the units within 3 feet of each other. With Linksys support on the phone, we figured out that the link was in fact increasing the signal percentage on other laptops in the house. Even though the Linksys representative couldn't explain the red light issue, he suggested that I not worry about it if it is actually working. Almost works right isn't a good enough solution for me. Sorry Linksys. As you can see from my other review, RSLU2, this is the second "Quality" issue with Linksys in two weeks.
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Great product, complex setup, helpful telephone support, August 29, 2004
By Drappier
This is an excellent product once you get it to work.
Unless you have some (what Linksys thinks is a) standard configuration, the setup is quite challenging. Disregard the setup disk. Anthony Taylor on August 1 gives excellent instructions (step1: disable WEP, step 2: powercycle the unit), but I got stuck trying to access the unit's default IP 192.168.1.240 (his step 3). There is no Ethernet connection to the unit, so you must find a way to connect wirelessly.
I'm not the type who quickly asks for directions, but after hours of experimenting, I gave up and called their 24h helpdesk. A very patient man walked me through the installation, and after about 15 minutes he solved the problem.
The problem in my case turned out to be that my Netgear router is using the IP address 192.168.0.xxx while Linksys is on 192.168.1.xxx
Temporarily resetting the Netgear router and the Linksys WAP54G to 192.168.1.xxx allowed me to connect to 192.168.1.240. Once the WAP54G and the WRE54G recognize each other, you then can change the IP address and re-enable WEP.
This may be a one-off problem, but I thought it doesn't hurt to pass the solution along.
Also, once the connection works, don't place the repeater midpoint between the AP and the receiving wireless PC. For best results, place it close to the receiving PC.
5 stars for performance, minus 2 stars for very difficult setup, plus 1 star for excellent telephone support.
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DO NOT BUY THE RANGE EXPANDER, August 27, 2004
By L. Orbach
Linksys fails to mention that by installing this unit on your wireless network, that it reduces your internet speed in half..
A linksys senior tech support person admitted this to me..
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Make sure you have exactly the right WAP, August 27, 2004
By Richard S. Clark (Lexington, KY USA)
It doesn't work with many popular Linksys WAPS (such as the older BEFW units) It was my fault to buy it without knowing that, but other issues cause me to write a less-than-favorable review anyhow.
If your WAP varies any from the allowed ones above, this unit will not work. Also, if you try it, then can't use it, be aware that its setup will overwrite the wireless control configuration on Windows XP SR2. You'll have to turn that back on, and re-set-up your wireless network. I advise that you make yourself aware of the SR2 Zero Configuration setup before trying this product.
The documentation's troubleshooting section is miserable.
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Linksys False Advertisement!!!, August 26, 2004
By Wireless (USA)
Peace be upon those who follow the truth,
Linksys has falsely advertised that this works with 802.11b wireless networks but in actual fact it does not. I called tech support and asked why my unit was not working and they said that they had made a mistake because the unit will not work with a wireless B network. They are (supposedly) in the process of putting this information on their website.
"When a man dies, the angels say, 'What has he sent forward?' And the people say, 'What has he left behind?'" - Prophet Muhammad
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easy set-up, August 24, 2004
By jock woodworker (Cortlandt, NY USA)
Not sure what the deal is with people having problems setting this up....after a full day at work and dealing with an 18-month old and 3 dogs, and in the midst of a plumbing emergency, my wife had this thing running in 5 minutes with no problem.My signal jumped instantly. Great product!
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Horrible documentation; Did Not Increase Range at all, August 24, 2004
By scottk (Phoenix, AZ United States)
BUYER BEWARE: Don't buy this unless you have a all-linksys network! The documentation on how to configure this is almost non-existent. The Linksys website offers no help either. Good luck getting this to work if you own any other brand network hardware.
UPDATE: In the hopes of getting this to work, I went out and bought the Linksys 802.11G Wireless Router. Despite now having an all-Linksys network, this product did NOTHING to expand my wireless network's range.
SAVE YOUR MONEY! Do NOT buy this product.
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Pain to setup, but worth the effort, August 23, 2004
By Computer Geek (Northern Virginia, USA)
Just to qualify this, I'm a computer geek, and I use Linux primarily at home. I did not use the setup wizard software.
I would have to almost agree with every review that said this thing is impossible to setup. It is nearly impossible, but it can be done. I have it running happily with mac filtering turned on on my main router, wep at 128bits, and now expanded range thanks to this range expander.
I use the auto config, but I first disabled WEP and enabled broadcast essid on my base router. I also added the MAC address of the range expander to my MAC address filter before turning it on. Once that was all setup I plugged it in and held the auto-config button for 5 secs. After that all lights were blue. At that point I had to take my wireless laptop and sit right next to the range expander to make sure that my laptop connected up to the range expander as opposed to my base router. Sitting next to the expander I just allowed my network card to attach to the expander, manualy set a 192.168.1.x address and pointed my webbrowser to the range expander. Once into the admin webpage, I just changed all the settings to match my home network (IP address ranges, WEP keys, etc..) and hit save changes. At this point I turned wep and other settings back on on my base router and the range expanders lights went all blue. But, I couldn't connect through it. So I unplugged the range expander counted to 15 and then plugged it back in. Came right back up and everything has worked ever since.
It is a pain, and takes a lot of patience, but it can be made to work.
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read remarks by a taylor, don't bother with linksys manual!, August 22, 2004
By migdoc (Redondo Beach, CA USA)
works great if you ignore the CD software and install manual that linksys send with this device which is a WASTE of ink, paper and plastic. device works fine in WEP & open mode but the linksys people have no clue on how to write manuals or install SW. the SW CD won't even work properly on my standard XP machine. 5 stars for device and hardware guys, 1 star for linksys tech writers & tech staff @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Here Is a repeat of Anthony Taylor (Sherman Oaks, CA) remarks-
If you're having trouble setting it up, definitely call the 800 number as opposed to going online. I tried with three different people through their website online and none could help. Right before I sent it back I decided to try phone support and it got the expander a reprieve. I've copied some instructions that Y.A. Escalante was kind enough to leave in his review, but corrected and elaborated some of the items based on my experience. I would've given this 4 stars, but I deducted 1 for it not having clear enough instructions with its initial shipping. (Would've saved Linksys some headaches)
Here goes:
1-Disable WEP on your Router or AP
2-Hold the auto-configuration button for 30 seconds(if everything goes well both lights on the expander will turn blue) and unplug while still holding button. Plug back in after 10-15 secs.
3-open your Internet explorer browser and type 192.168.1.240 (default ip of expander), a window will pop up. leave the user name blank and put admin as a password (this is default password).
4-make sure that the default gateway and subnet mask settings are identical with your Router or AP,change password on the expander if desired & save settings. (all settings should be correct due to auto configuration)
5-Enable WEP on the expander, once again remember use same settings as in your Router or AP, save settings again.
6-Go to your Router or Ap settings and enable WEP. Bang you're DONE. Enjoy
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Complete Crap...2 hours with tech support, August 21, 2004
By inLA (LA CA)
This either works or it doesn't. In 99% of all cases, it DOESN"T. I spent 2 hours with non-english speaking techies treating me like an idiot. In the end, it went BACK.
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Ditto to all these complaints!, August 21, 2004
By K. Mason (NYC, USA)
Thank God, I thought I was the only one! I spent three hours on the phone with tech support, did everything they suggested at least three times, got disconnected, called back, and in the end, sucked it up and started an additional cable modem account for my garage-office. I don't know the specifics, but there are obviously hard- and software bugs or inadequacies that have to be rectified before this becomes a workable product.
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I love it., August 21, 2004
By J. Kaczmarek (Hastings, MN USA)
I've struggled to get my wireless G network to reach from the router in my livingroom to a metal building about 100 feet away. It's our business and we are setting up an office for me upstairs in this building. I've read forums, called and e-mailed professionals with quite an array of answers. When I saw the range extender was for sale I bought one right away. The first night was a nightmare. I updated the router's firmware, I tried configuring the extender and the network went down. I gave up and went to bed. It was up and running in the morning? Don't know why. I walked around with my laptop and tried putting the extender in quite a few different places. Without the extender I could get almost no signal right in the window of the building. I put the extender in that window with excellent results upstairs in the building and all over the house. I get perfect signal strength.
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Works great for me ... set up quick, easy, problem-free, August 12, 2004
By Kevin Woodward (Soquel, CA United States)
First of all, let me say that this is essentially a non-technical review from the perspective of an average end-user who was looking for a simple solution to a common problem.
This is one of my favorite wireless solutions and the cornerstone of my home wireless network. I absolutely love it and would recommend it to anyone.
After reading some of the other so-so reviews, I was skeptical prior to purchase, but I needed something to resolve the problem I was having with slow wireless speeds from the back of my house approximately 80-85 feet from my Linksys Wireless-G router. I considered other options like hard-wiring a bridge in the back bedroom (wired wireless?), or purchasing a better antennae (expensive), but decided on the Range Expander because I feel that it will be backwardly compatable with any future and faster standards.
Upon receipt, I was pleasantly surprised by the small size and sleek design. After a quick glance at the instructions, I simply plugged it in and then checked my laptop in the back. Still 11.0 Mbps??? I walked back to the unit placed high on a wall in the hallway and this time held down the auto-config button. When I returned to the back of the house and checked my speed it was now at the 54.0 Mbps maximum, and the highest signal strength possible.
My total setup time was less than 60 seconds. It really was that easy. This product met all my needs. I don't know why others experienced problems, but I certainly didn't.
I am a DSL user, running Windows XP Pro SR2 on a Dell laptop with an internal wireless adapter.
Based on what I've read, you can avoid a lot of the hassle by disabling encryption before you install, but this did not apply to me personally so was a non-issue.
I'd gladly purchase again.
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It works - eventually, August 10, 2004
By L. Wilson (Seoul, South Korea)
I bought this product to provide wireless coverage at around my apartment, as the concrete walls caused a significant signal drop. It has fulfilled that aim (and therefore been a worthwhile purchase), but there are some features that Linksys does not highlight that prospective purchasers should note:
1) The repeater does not work with WPA, but only with WEP. Hopefully there will be a firware upgrade to address this in due course.
2) The repeater works by receiving the signal and then retransmitting it. Therefore, the maximum transmission rate is cut in half. Users of wireless G should be fine as long as they are not transmitting large (e.g. music or video) files. Wireless B users may not be so happy with the eventual throughput.
3) As highlighted by the other reviewers, this product is hard to set up. It really needs an ethernet port to facilitate setup, absent which, Anthony Taylor's review does a great job of describing the process - I wish I had seen it before spending two hours trying.
In general, I have been pleased with Linksys products, in particular for their easy setup, which is a major benefit for those without professional expertise. This time, Linksys has fallen wide of the mark.
In view of the above and taking into account the cost, three stars are the most I can award. I continue to wonder whether I would have seen similar results with the latest Linksys high-gain antennas...
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