| Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router |
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Model: WRT54G
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 1447
Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4, Windows NT 5, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, Windows
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
All-in-one Internet-sharing router, 4-port switch, and Wireless-G (802.11g) access point
Wireless data rates up to 54 Mbps--5 times faster than 802.11b
Shares a single Internet connection and other resources with Ethernet wired and Wireless-G clients
Interoperates with 802.11b clients at 11 Mbps
Advanced wireless security with 128-bit WEP encryption, MAC, or IP address filtering |
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| Description: |
| LINKSYS WRT54G - Wireless-G is the emerging 54 Mbps wireless networking standard that's almost five times faster than the widely deployed Wireless-B ( 802.11b ) products found in homes, businesses and public wireless hotspots around the country. The best part is, since they share the same 2.4GHz radio band, Wireless-G devices talk to existing 11 Mbps Wireless-B equipment. Operates as a DHCP Server NAT technology to protect against Internet intruders Supports VPN pass-through Easy configuration with web browser based configuration utility |
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| User Reviews (1447 total): |
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Wireless satisfaction, January 24, 2007
By AMV (Costa Rica)
I am very pleased to tell you that this product has been working great since that I got it and I have a very good signal range all over my place even using an internal wireless adapter on my notebook.
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good, but can be better, January 23, 2007
By Pacifico S. Gonzales
first one i bought was defective. out of the box, the power led kept blinking. read a few forums and found out that a firmware upgrade is needed. i thought this didn't make sense as new products should work immediately. anyways, i decided to return the product and asked for a replacement. the second one was a lot better. it worked as soon as i've got the cables connected. signal strength was good and i haven't had any connection dropped. one issue though is i can't vpn to office network. again, read forums and found out that this is an outstanding issue. waiting for a firmware update that will fix this. overall, it's a good replacement for my old usr 5461 router which kept dropping connections.
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Burnt out fast, January 23, 2007
By Samuel A. Munoz (West Orange, NJ United States)
Reception was excellent, but in less than a year I had to purchase a replacement. Not recommended.
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Linksys NOT Mac Friendly, January 22, 2007
By CharlieG (Satelite Mexico)
If you're running a Mac network, forget Linksys, go with Netgear products, they are far better and VERY Mac friendly.
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Not Mac Friendly, January 20, 2007
By E. Frankl (virginia)
This wireless router is not for a mac and was very difficult to set up on the Linksys website for security. It kept kicking me out. Additionally, it is NOT mac friendly and they do not offer any Mac tech support. The CD that comes with it to set it up is PC only. I am pretty computer savvy and I had so much trouble that we have returned it!
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Excellent, January 20, 2007
By R. C. Nichols
This is the second Lynksys product I have purchased. They both have preformed excellently And would recomend them to anyone.
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Works Flawlessly with my entire household., January 20, 2007
By Michael Davis (Canoga Park, CA USA)
I'm not sure what problems the reviewer below was having with his MAC computer, but I did not run into a single problem with this router, and I'm running two MAC's at home. One of them is hardlined and the other accesses the net wirelessly. I also have my XBOX 360 console hardwired into the router. All three work flawlessly with this router, and set-up was easy right out of the box. The disc media that comes packed with this router is formatted for PC only, true, but the same options that the CD offers can be made via the linksys website, so it's really no big deal for MAC users. The only thing I needed help with was setting up my WEP security, but not because it was hard, only because I had never done it before. The help desk personel at Linksys were very cordial and answered ALL of my questions regarding my Mac computers as well as my XBOX questions too.
All in all, I am very happy with this product and would highly recommend it. It works right out of the box and tech support, at least in my experience, was extremely knowledgeable and had my security network running in less than 15 minutes.
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Poor Beyond All Standards!!, January 20, 2007
By T. Lovaj (MN)
Bought one about 3 months ago and two months later it just stopped working. Called customer service spent two hours with the operator to find out it was defected, which was something I already figured out before even calling. Did all the paper work for the warranty replacement, and low and behold I've been waiting a month and a week for it. Have been calling customer service back to figure out what the long wait is for and I get the same answer . . . "Your router is on backorder blah blah blah will be shipped within the month." (this being after the first month of waiting). Basically BS because if you walk in to any store you'll see shelves full of the same router and at the same time the employees are restocking them!!
**Warning to all you who consider yourselves the avid internet user, don't buy this product unless you want it to break down and you want to jump through hoops trying to get a replacement. In case your wondering, I had my router on 24/7, and if thats the case for you don't buy it. Not worth the money. Nor the stress**
This is an update, Jan. 30th 2007, so they (Linksys) sent my router to me. "Finally!!" i say to myself. I open the box and what do I see? a router, of course, but what else??? Dust!!! WTF!!?!?!?!?! Yeah there was dust everywhere, and worst when I plug it in its already broken!!!! Which caused me to become very very irrate. And when I called Linksys, they wanted to set me up with ANOTHER RMA, giving me TWO total, and TWO broken wireless routers. WTF is wrong with these people?!?!?!? And now i'm waiting for the form to ship it back to them, and its been 5 days already. What I really want to do now is report them for their really crappy service. And this is the only way I can think of let me know if their is an agency that takes care of this kindof crappy service.
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product randomly stopped working, then HORRIBLE customer service, January 19, 2007
By Amy B. Green (Champaign, IL United States)
I bought this router about 6 months ago, and it randomly started not working recently. Once I figured out that the problem was the router and not the internet company, I called Linksys. They had me do troubleshooting steps, and the person who I talked to in India had me repeat the same steps about five times before telling me to update the software. That also did not work, so I called back and they told me I could get a replacement. When I went online to order the replacement, I was told that I had been given an invalid replacement number. I called back, and the person told me that I had to talk to someone else, and basically I've already spent about 4 hours of my life on this problem. It still has not been resolved, and even once they send the router, it will take days before I receive the unit. AND I'll have to pay to send the defective one in. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. I'm done with Linksys just after this.
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tec suport has trouble with macs!, January 19, 2007
By leslieann (los angeles, ca)
this was my second linksys router. the last one i bought broken when i moved. it was not broken in the move it just stoped working when i moved. linksys told me i needed to upgrade the software and that was th eproblem. they tryed to help but we could not get it to work. all thier software installers are windows only. so since i had the old router for 4 years i thought it would be best to get a new one so i would not have to up grade old one. okay so the new wrt554g router showed up i went to set up and all the software is for windows. okay no problem i tried to set up myself since i know the interface very well and to no avail. i was on the phone with the tec person for many hours and got no where. finally i gave up. the linksys tec person did say they were sorry that macs are not supported. well i had thier older product for 4 years and it worked wonderfully except when i moved then the software broke. anyway this is a good product and thier tec support is great but really hard if you are a mac user and are not familar with linksys router.
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WRT54G Wireless-G Router Review, January 19, 2007
By F. Fisher (Kennesaw, GA USA)
The Router I received was exactly what I ordered and arrived in a timely manner and in excellent condition. The unit also performs according to the advertised specifications. Thank you for your services.
Fred Fisher
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Mac/Apple users CAN use this product, with some effort and incantations, January 18, 2007
By Andrea E. Burniske (Stevenson, WA)
Before buying this product I read a lot of your reviews - many of which warned potential buyers that NO WAY does this product work with Mac computers, is a bad product anyway, has no customer support, etc.. I found that all of this was just not true - for the most part. It is true that it is obviously not meant for Macs, not really. It works with Macs in that there is nothing preventing a Mac from working with it, but all the customer support and the CD that comes with the product (which has no Mac OS version) is pretty clearly NOT for Mac. That said, my Linksys Wireless-G is up and running just fine with my Mac. The guys who installed my high speed internet recommended this model, which they have recommended to all their customers. I have used it many times in the little town near here which has a downtown Wi-Fi project, and so I knew that there shouldn't be a problem.
My Mac picked up the wireless signal immediately, but getting my modem to communicate with this signal was another matter. Because the CD is for PCs only, I could not use it so I called my techie brother to come here with his PC laptop to configure it. I'd say that'd probably be the easiest solution for anyone with a Mac who wants to use it. Configure it through a PC, then make sure you can connect as well.
I was a little amused after reading electronics guy's review, where he says: "The fact is that configuring networking and especially secure wireless networking requires that the user know at least a little bit about what they are doing." My brother has been working with computers since the days when they were TRS-80s and he was 13 years old. He knows hardware, software, systems better than most people and it took him more than an hour to get my Mac to work with this. Of course he poo-poo'd the CD, along with the instructions the support guy sent (yes, you can get very good support without spending two hours on the phone to India - just EMAIL the request, I got a response in less than 24 hours, with follow-up a couple of days later). Anyway, so, he didn't use either of these resources, avoiding them in the way men usually avoid asking for driving directions.... He got his PC to function with this router fairly quickly. My Mac required some 'jiggling.' Eventually he had to take off the security because when it was on, I could not connect. Also, we had a difficult time getting the router to surrender the 'Linksys' name. But we did manage that finally.
Bottom line about all of this - It sure does work with Macs, and works fine. But, it is easier to configure it through a PC, and maybe that is what God, and Linksys, intended. There might be some residual problems, such as lack of ability to protect your network - but hell, I like my neighbors, let 'em hack in if they can. Finally - you will get good support and quickly if you send your request via email. Everyone knows telephone support - for anything, sucks. Your support might not be relevant for a Mac, but, again, this product wasn't intended for them though it does work just fine with them if you can get past the configuration hurdles.
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Decent enough product, great support, January 18, 2007
By lizziewriter (Halfway to Poughkeepsie, NY)
I have had this product for about eight months, and am about to return it because it fried, but I am relatively happy because the tech support has been the best I have had on any of my computer/network/connectivity issues this past season, and they are replacing the product. Tech support is fairly easy to reach and very responsive.
I have been using this router with both wired and wireless connected PCs, and we have had better luck with the wired connections, but the wireless hasn't been too bad. The compact adaptor works better than the regular USB one, aside from a conflict with the Windows Welcome screen, but we haven't yet tried out the PCI adaptor. We will do that shortly.
In any case, I give this product four stars. It's not completely idiot-proof, it does take some tweaking and some attention, but most things seem to these days, and in the final analysis I find it's been better than most and I'd buy Linksys products again in a minute.
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Easy to use, Works great, January 18, 2007
By ADRIAN HALE (McMinnville, TN United States)
Item works great, I followed the manufacture's CD installation instructions to a T and everything worked perfectly. It took about 10-15 minutes to install and I have had no problems since. How could I ask for more.
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Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router, January 16, 2007
By Michael L. Paris (Greensboro, NC USA)
I have always been impressed with Linksys products. This router is very easy to setup, very secure, and very reliable. I recommend it to everyone!
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Linksys Router, January 16, 2007
By K. W.
The product was okay. The signal is okay, and the setup is not so easy. You have to contact a professional to install, it took me over 5 hours to get the router working!
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Caveat Emptor, January 15, 2007
By Edwin C. Pauzer (New York City)
My Linksys wireless router went bad in five months (mid-December). That's what I was told by their tech support. (They were wrong on that one, because I wouldn't be able to write this review right now if it were so.)
I found tech support and customer service an exercise in exasperation:
One told me to go on the internet to request a new router. He couldn't explain how I could do that if the wireless router was bad.
Another one told me she could take the request by phone. That seemed easier.
They promised a replacement by the first week of January. It has yet to arrive.
Their customer service apologized but the warehouse was closed from December 8th to the 27th. (Okay, that happens.)
Second call to customer service was disconnected. There were frequent disconnections with tech support too.
Third call to customer service never answered. There were no prompts like: "There's a two minute wait" or "There are three customers ahead of you" or "Thank you for your patience; please continue to hold." The only way that I knew I was still connected was that I saw the minutes and seconds moving in the phone window. After 11 minutes, I hung up.
Last Sunday it took one hour to get someone to tell me that Customer Service wasn't answering. I had to call Tech Support. A supervisor verified that Customer Service phones weren't working.
Fourth call, I was put on hold by the representative for eight minutes. Then, he told me that my order was being held up because there was a hurricane in the Pacific. (Can't they fly around it, I chirruped.)
Another rep told me that I would have to get a new replacement number. Turns out, I didn't need one.
Still another told me the shipment was delayed because they were moving their warehouse.
Still another told me that my replacement was on back order, and he could not give me any time frame for delivery.
You must provide a credit care for replacement or for tardy return of the old router that has gone kaflooey.
They get one star because they are polite, and their English is comprehensible.
UPDATE: Feb. 6, 2007. Discovered that Linksys charged my credit card $84.52 for router not received after seven weeks. It took 17+ minutes to connect to Customer Service, and another 15 minutes to get the transaction cancelled, and assurance that my card would be credited. They said, "two days."
UPDATE: March 20, 2007. Linksys attempted delivery of the router after cancelling February 6th. It arrived one quarter of a year after my original complaint.
"Let the Buyer Really Beware!"
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Router works flawlessly, January 15, 2007
By David Russell (Pasadena, CA)
We live in a fairly large apartment building with many wireless routers in operation. The Linksys setup was fast and very easy. Every area of the apartment is completely in range, and the performance has been flawless. This has proven to be an excellent choice.
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Fantastic tech support, January 13, 2007
By Rusting underused A+ (Denver, CO USA)
Works as promised. Received tech support quickly and easily for a problem that turned out to have nothing to do with the router itself. I'm surprised that such good support could be offered for an item that cost less than $50.
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Time will tell., January 12, 2007
By Shao Wen
It works fine as my previous routers that typically went down in about 2 to 3 years. I'll see how long this one can last.
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