| Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router |
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Model: WRT54G
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 1702
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: Windows XP Professional Edition
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 (1702 total): |
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good for ibooks., July 9, 2005
By waistfire (Seattle)
While it's sort of a pain in the butt to set up...(it's not theoretically to be used with macs)...i called up the linksys people and they were incredibly helpful. You can also search on google for mac setup of the linksys router. They have some pretty helpful advice as well. Once it was set up...everything was good to go. I have never had a problem with it. I mean...except that being able to tote my laptop into bed only encourages my sessility.
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My favorite wireless router on the market, July 2, 2005
By SeattleNerd (Seattle, WA)
This is my favorite wireless G router on the market since its one of the few that can be modified by the user to do things like serving web pages, setting up a VPN, etc. It's perfect for geeks like me. People have put together firmwares for this that will do many things. See linksysinfo.org for more details. This route is probably not for the faint of heart and will void your warranty.
The default firmware is good enough for most people and I would recommend it for anyone. The web management interface is easy to use. I was using it for a year or so before deciding to upgrade it. Even if you're not going to upgrade it, its nice knowing that you have the option to do so later on.
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No Issues.., July 2, 2005
By pIx (USA)
I had some issues when I had enabled WEP encryption and then moved on to WPA. Ironically, the latest firmware update addresses this very specific issue.... so now I have no problems what so ever. Even during the firmware updates my roommates did not loose wireless connectivity.
New firmware update allows for automatic wireless network configuration. All you have to do is click one button on the router configuration window and the router automatically senses the devices and configures the network. Awesome for the newbie, though I personally like to fasten every bolt myself.
Comes with a installation CD which instructs you step by step to setting up the router. You need to know absolutely nothing about setting up the network.
Linksys is more costlier than others and is a home/consumer division of Cisco. But I believe for stability, this extra price is worth spending. Whatever you do, please don't go for a Netgear.
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why the wireless on this router sux, June 29, 2005
By Paochin An
The wireless access always drops your connection. I tried experimenting with G only, B only, and mixed all to no improvement. I tried upgrading the firmware only to find no improvement. Its absolutly maddening to consistently lose your connection to your router ever 2 minutes at times. Other times are even worse, I have to connect to my neighbor because my wireless won't even acknowledge me. It will show full bars for signal strength and still no use.
Another friend of mine had a similar experiences with this, went out and bought the most generic brand-X router, a motorola but I don't think he has wireless-G on it. He has no problem with a great stable connection now and I'm purple with jealousy.
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Great Gift for Parents, June 24, 2005
By Robert Otlowski (Sterling Heights, MI United States)
I recently bought one of these for my parents, and it's working great. I was a little bit worried it wouldn't have enough range to cover their entire house, but it does. All of our computers were online as soon as I plugged it in (we're using a cable modem in case you're interested).
For security being the nerd I am I'd recommend simple MAC address filtering. Enter the MAC addresses of all your computers then simply configure the router (using its simple web interface) to block all MAC addresses not on the list.
I'd like to see a wireless router with 8 ports, but that's just me. This one _IS_ better than its D-Link counterpart, that much I can promise.
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Easy to use, June 23, 2005
By Mrs. P
We used this product to wirelessly share the internet connection of our desktop with a notepad. As we were novices and had never used any networking equipment, we were apprehensive about security issues.
The security features in this router are quite good and were fairly easy for a novice to to set up. After first trying to obtain information for setting up the security features in this router via phone with Linksys tech support and not receiving help fit for a novice, we went online to the Linksys website and found the information there to be helpful and easy to understand. They list important security features to implement. We just put them in place one step at a time and check them off after verifying that the notebook could connect.
We also download the User Guide (Manual) for this router in .pdf format and were able to make use of some of its information as well.
This product comes with an installation software CD, however, with Windows XP, I didn't need to use it to set up my connection. I went through the steps on the CD (which show pictures of where to plug in the various cables and in which order to plug them in and then cancelled the installation prior to completion as I wasn't familiar enough to make decisions on certain settings the software was asking me about so I cancelled the connection software wizard and my desktop connection worked fine.
Overall, I am thankful that this router has been user-friendly.
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WRT54g ... .definatelyh good choice, June 22, 2005
By Pal (Oklahoma)
I think most of the negative reviews are either bogus or are done by idiots not knowing how to do things.
Yes I agree any product can fail at times...
Ive had my wrt54g for years and its been flawless..
Those with thinkpads, blaming linksys.
You need to blame thinkpads....thinkpads are notorious for being very worthless laptops.
I know I was the primary tech at my previous companies IT.
The thinkpads were among the worst laptops Ive ever delt with.
I agree setup can be a bit of a bummer, but thats almost totally a given for newbies (or wannabe's who think they are expert)..
I pretty much consider those who had trouble with this, were proabbly more the problem than the wrt54g (excluding defective units, which can & does happen with all products in this world).
I do consider dlink to be acceptable.. but ive actually had less trouble with linksys than other brands.
In fact dlink, is the only brand that I have ever had product problems with. As I use all manner of belkin products and have even sold belkin in the past.
Basically I consider most of the 'garbage' msgs to be either bogus or prejudiced.. which to me as a buyer makes those comments irrelevant.
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Works very smoothly, June 19, 2005
By Jeet (Milpitas, CA USA)
Worked for me within first 5 seconds. I use an apple powerbook and I was wireless in first 5 seconds (time taken in selecting network). Another 30 seconds to generate WEP keys and I had a secure network.
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Easy set up, great range, fast speed, June 18, 2005
By s_mccrea (Henderson, NV United States)
Although I've done tech support for a certain large computer maker in America's third largest state and having been using PCs since 1985, I had zero experience with wireless before two weeks ago. After making the decision to buy a laptop, my wife and I decided to go wireless so we could surf the net with the laptop anywhere in the townhouse.
Set up couldn't have been easier. I followed the easily understood chart, popped the set-up CD into the dvd drive on my desktop and followed the directions. I had only to hook up the power cable and the two ethernet cables (one from the cable modem to the WRT54G and the second from the latter to the desktop). The wireless networking and security set up was a snap; I was surfing the net in less than ten minutes.
The range is excellent. My laptop's built-in wireless card picked up five networks near out townhome up and running. The 300 foot range touted on the box is, for once, not just marketing hype. After some initial trouble with signal strength on the first day, I've had only a two periods of time (each lasting about 30 minutes) where bandwidth varied widely. Other than those incidents (both of which coincided with a flurry of calls on my 2.4GHz cordless phone), it's been smooth sailing.
Taking the laptop on a visit to my parents house, the built-in wireless card picked up several networks within range of my parents' home. It picked up an open access point from the elementary school a quarter of a mile from their house! Since it was unsecured and listed as "open access" I connected the wireless network to it and was surfing the Net within seconds with a speed of 36Mpbs--excellent considering how far away the router was (in excess of 1,000 feet).
If you're new to wireless or even a computer newbie, the set-up couldn't be simpler or more user friendly. Even the technophobic shouldn't have much trouble with this. Although I had to write down the WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol key) because of its length and random letter/number sequence, once it was input, the network was secured.
I highly recommend this product for both the experienced user and the novice. I wholeheartedly recommend this product.
You'll be surfing from anywhere in your house that you wish with very little trouble. And if you leave the house and find an open access point, you should have little trouble connecting to it and surfing the net.
Easily installed, easily used this one is hard to beat. I've experienced none of the problems I've read in other reviews of competitor's wireless routers.
So if you only need to be able to connect another computer(s) to your cable modem, this is the product to pick.
A sold five stars.
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Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router is garbage!, June 7, 2005
By dr.markie (left coast)
The Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router is a piece of garbage (or whatever)! I spent over 2 hours online with Linksys Technical Support and 1 hour at my local computer repair shop. No one could get it to work properly with my IBM Thinkpad. What a waste of time and money. I returned it...
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GREAT PRODUCT..., June 2, 2005
By The Barbarian (New York, New York United States)
I have an RCA cable modem with RCN as my ISP. A great service which I highly recommend. I recently bought the Linksys G-Router after getting my hp laptop needing to setup wireless at home. I got it to work with no problem but then I experienced bandwidth loss and constant connectivity issues. I wrongly thought that it was the router. Fool that I was! After countless attempts at recycling the modem and WPA keys etc., I finally figured out that the modem could not support the wireless router and it had a short, plus RCA no longer carried it and the thing was ugly, taking up space. I've since gotten the Linksys Modem (BEFCMU10) and stacked it with the WRT54G router and it works fantastic!!! Be sure to call your ISP with the modem's MAC address to get online. YOU WON'T get connected otherwise. My ISP had me up and running within 5 minutes. Also some ISP's give you a discount if you supply your own modem. Check it out.
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Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, May 29, 2005
By Aaron (Seattle)
It sounds like some customers have had really good Linksys router experiences. I haven't. So I have come to conclude that sometimes these routers work great, sometimes they completely fail. I've spent hours dealing with Linksys' customer support and my ISP trying to get my router to work. My iBook AirPort and Windows 2000 /USB wireless adapter both found the router easily. But the router was not able to hook up with my ISP. Both computers get a good wired static IP connection to the internet. I tried using Linkksys' customer support by phone, email, web and chat and kept getting advice that did not work and www.linksys.com pages that didn't work. A software engineer, I'm reasonably tech-savvy so I usually have success with half-decent tech support. They never once suggested that their router might be malfunctioning. One of my ISP's support representatives said that he's had a run of some 40 calls from Linksys customers with this kind of problem. Apparently I got one of these duds.
I'd say Linksys has big problems with quality control and customer support. With many good alternatives out there I don't think it's worth rolling the dice with Linksys. I gave it two stars, rather than one, because it sounds like the good ones work really great and I imagine the duds a in the minority. For what it's worth, the guy from my ISP said he's had good experiences with NetGear routers.
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VERY easy to install, VERY easy to use!!!, May 28, 2005
By JC (Puebla, Mexico)
Hi, I'm very happy with this Linksys Router. It took me only 10 seconds to surf in the web. Believe it or not!!!. I just plug in the Ethernet cable from my DSL Modem into the Router conection. I turn on my Gateway Laptop and....surprise!!! I was already conected to the web!!!.
No configuration needed, no CD running, no nothing!!!
Great product, great Plug and Play from Windows XP.
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Good product, very poor tech support, May 25, 2005
By John Hulburt (Charlottesville, VA United States)
Used earlier model router will little trouble but when upgrading to thus model strange problems came up. Tech support was useless - hung up on me, ran me around in circles for an hour checking stuff that had no relation to problem, asked for old router model 3x, ended with no real solution.
Asked a question in Tech Support chat area then called Tech Support to verify answer and received exactly the opposite answer.
Linksys, your Tech Support needs help!
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quite good, for a small home network, May 25, 2005
By J. Gillen (Champaign, IL)
I've had this router for about a year now, and it does everything I need for a home network of < 5 computers. The only thing the out-of-box firmware doesn't have that I wanted is DHCP reservations. However, I got a better firmware from:
http://wifi-box.sf.net
which does this and adds a few other features.
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DEFINATELY A MUST HAVE FOR NEWBIES, May 18, 2005
By Aldana G. (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
We bought this router in order to bring WiFi into out home. We have 3 wired PC's but we got a new laptop so we wanted to expend out possibilities.
We got the WRT54G and it was VERY easy to set up, even though for us computer newbies.
It has a built in web server so you can set it up from any browser on your network wich i think is a cool feature. It also supports MAC address filtering and wep security.
On the "bad" side i should say the plastic wich this router is made of feels kinda cheap but that doesnt mean anything since it works out nicely.
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Greater router and wireless, May 17, 2005
By SpeakingSpaces (Belmont, MA United States)
As a long time fan of LinkSys, with some exceptions on early versions, I upgraded my wired BEFSR41 router for their WRT54G equivalent. The upgrade was trivial, in part, because I was familiar with the language, technology and simily products.
When buying wireless equipment from any vendor keep in mind that the version number for the hardware and software is as important as the model number. In this case, it was version 3 hardware, and 3.03.6 software, operating under Win2k.
As with many LinkSys products, which are build using real computer chips and open-source operating systems, they produce some heat. To minimize the negative consequences of heat use the chimney effect. I always mount units vertically, with air under between the unit and the wall, using the standard LinkSys mounting bracket, which can be found on eBay and other places. Keep the unit coooool, and like all equipment, it will last forever.
Another issue is that the range of wireless depends very strongly on the enviroment, not just the vendor. In one room, local hot-spots, no more than a few inches in diameter, producd a 10 dB change in sensitivity (3:1 in signal strength). The best location for my WUSB54g turned out to be on the side of the monitor, where internal metal acted as a corner reflector, significantly amplifying the signal.
Finally, if you use the most advanced features, or if you combine the unit with differnt vendors and technology, especially with WinXP SP2, the probability of having problems increases dramatically. Regardless of what the literature says, no vendor can test the millions of combinations. Bugs happen and you may be the only one to experience a particular kind of bug if your environment is not typical of the rest of the world. And technical support is way down on the corporate food chain.
As we say, KISS (keep it simple stupid) and the technology will work fine. That means you should not load Beta firmware or other 3rd party stuff unless you want to be a bleeding edge victum. Follow, do not lead, when it comes to high technology, even if the price is the same as that of a hamburger.
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Don't by this router, May 16, 2005
By Ed (SC)
I have been working with Computers for a lot of years and this is the worse piece of computer equipment I have ever worked with. I would like to rate how well it works but I never got it working. I thought maybe it was just me, but a friend had the same problems. He suggested a Netgear router which I installed in about 10 minutes. This equipment has terrible help, terrible web site and is not worth the trouble. DON"T BUY IT.
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Real Good Stuff, May 14, 2005
By Murali (South India, Chennai)
Yes,Its really good. But the CD that comes alongwith the Router is no good. I tried several times as they suggested but failed. I then went to Linksys webpage and downloaded an utility for easy setup and in minutes I was browsing the net on my Centrino notebook wirelessly! Its a good Router and the signal is fairly good throughout my home.Good for Indian homes for the beginner in wireless networking as well as advanced user. I would definitely recommend it.
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Worked for me :-), May 12, 2005
By S Smyth (Belfast, Co Antrim United Kingdom)
I got this inexpensive router to let me connect two desktops and a Thinkpad laptop to my NTL broadband modem, instead of having to go through the hassle of rebooting the modem and connecting to a different PC, as and when needed. So far it all works fine with either cable or wireless connections.
My next project will be to try out sveasoft?s firmware to increase this unit?s capabilities and wireless range.
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