| 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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So far so good..., March 31, 2008
By M. Peters (Northern California)
Setting up this router with my Windows XP desktop and Wii console was very easy using the setup CD and instructions enclosed. In less than 20 minutes I was connected by cable to the desktop and by wireless to the Wii.
By the next morning, however, my system no longer acknowledged that a network existed and I no longer had any type of connection through the router.
Scanning through some of the earliest comments posted here I decided to try the following solution: Using the Network icon in Control Panel for Windows XP, I UNchecked the option to "Enable IEEE 802.1.x authentication for this network."
The router has worked without a hitch since then.
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Works great as my main router, March 30, 2008
By D. Golub (Cleveland, OH)
I have another router, but this one has replaced it. Works great with the PCMCIA card I bought, so my lap top is wireless, and my desk top is wired.
I've had no problem with this. Great product!
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Works for me, March 30, 2008
By MendoDan (Ukiah, Ca)
I am not a geek. It did take me a couple hours from when I opened the box until when I had everything working right, but I expected that.
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WRT54G, March 30, 2008
By Ronald Martindale
Easy to install, will sometimes lose communication with other computers in house. Have to press "Easy Access" button regularly. Will sometimes disrupt DSL, must unplug, setup DSL and replug.
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Excelent product with adequate reach, March 29, 2008
By electronics fan (Venezuela)
This is a excellent router. It is worth every dollar you pay. It has an excellent reach to be labeled with the lowest 1X rangemark. I had bought another generic router I do not remember the brand and thanks God somebody stole it and gave me the chance to buy and try the Linksys. The one I had was supposed to be 108mbp, but no way the Linksys is far more superior. In the place where I have it installed this router covers an area of about 50 sq meters with very heavy concrete walls in between. It is located on a 2nd floor and it can be accessed from ground level.
Impressive!
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Great after setup, March 28, 2008
By David Sauer (Bensalem, PA United States)
After following the instructions included with the router, it did not work. I called their help line & was connected to a woman in the Phillipines. She spoke very good English & was very patient. She guided me step by step until she reached her level of expertise. She then turned me over to her supervisor. After 2 hours, I was was finally setup & running. They were great to deal with. I am very happy with this router.
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Linksys, name you can trust., March 28, 2008
By Vucla Jackson (Los Angeles, CA USA)
Great deal for a wireless router. The name brand is solid and the price was right.
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Easy Set up, March 28, 2008
By Steve MacKessy (New Milford, CT USA)
Just got this today and am very pleased. It took me a whole 15 minutes to set up. Worked great the first time I tried it and I am not a technical person at all. Would definitly recommend!
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Perfect for home, March 26, 2008
By P. Sharma (Ashburn, VA)
Brought this router almost 2 months ago. Setup was a bit tricky, u need to have some knowledge about setting up the wireless laptops and lan/wan IP address and such. I got this specifically so that I could hook up my VOIP phone, home PC and laptop. It works very well once u know how to set it up.
Would recommend it to all.
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Allow enough time for installation, March 26, 2008
By Petross (Simpsonville, SC)
Overall I have been very happy with this router. The price was very attractive and generally it has performed well. I was advised by an IT professional to save my money and not purchase an "N" router, that for general home use this inexpensive "G" router's speed exceeds that of even the fastest DSL service. It is blazing fast and works well with 6 different devices (4 PCs, 1 iPod Touch, and one Palm). In several weeks of use I have only had to reset the router once.
All that having been said, however, expect for the router to NOT install with the greatest of ease as promised in the the documentation. There will almost certainly be unavoidable installation issues which (as was the case at least for me) will require conversations with very cordial but distant tech support people in some transoceanic land. Thanks to being cut off a couple of times, for me it took three calls and two hours to get up and running on all my devices.
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Emjoying new toy, March 24, 2008
By David Noonan
Bought a laptop and decided that I needed a new wireless router also. Have been dreading the day I was going to get one of these routers. Was way to easy to setup thanks to the disk. Everything has connected with no issues. Had a friend help me secure the wireless connection which was not that hard to do.
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Decent router - get what you pay for, March 23, 2008
By Heywood (CA, USA)
This router is solid for the price. In a wired environment, it is reliable and fast. The wireless is a little spotty - my connection speed bounces around quite a bit while not moving (and not being particularly far from the router). Logging into the router to make changes is simple, and the options are easy to use. For the price, I can't complain.
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Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router, March 23, 2008
By Karim Hanna (Cambridge, MA United States)
This product works flawlessly. I bought it to replate the D-Link which used to crash at least once every three days. Very happy with this Linksys.
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Very easy to set up, March 22, 2008
By Great Nurses (Florida)
This is by far much better router than D-Link. It's much easier to set up and it works excellent. It even comes with it's own password when you're setting up your home network.
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Very bad router, March 21, 2008
By Aamir Farooq
I am not a computer geek but a normal user who wanted to have a wireless setup at my home. I've used wireless routers before and never had any problem. But this LinkSys router has been a pain since day one. First of all, setting it up takes a bit of time. It's software is very slow. But most importantly, you lose connection after every 30 minutes or so. Then you have to manually unplug the router's power cable and plug it back again to restart it. It works for another half an hour or so, and you repeat the same process!!!
I'm not sure why that happens, maybe it's because of RAM or other reasons that people have said on othere reviews.
But my sincenre advice, please DON'T buy this router. Don't waste your time.
LinkSys should be ashamed of making such a lousy product!!!
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Works Good But Installation Was Frustrating, March 20, 2008
By KCP (Portland, ME)
I purchased the router to replace a DSL wireless router because I changed ISP using coax broadband. My goal was to connect my older Dell 8200 desktop, older Dell XPS Generation 1 laptop, PS3, and Nintendo DS.
I was a bit apprehensive because I read good and bad reviews regarding the router and the problems associated with trying to get the wireless portion to work. After the cable guy installed the cable modem, I installed the Linksys Easy Link Advisor (ELA) software on my desktop. It took a couple of minutes for the software to install and I followed the instructions on connecting the wireless router. It worked fine without incident. I followed the ELA directions to enable my laptop to wirelessly connect to the router (make sure you have extra cat5 cable). My laptop has a Linksys wireless card so I was hoping it would not have any compatibility issues. The ELA software directed me to the Linksys website to download software to laptop and my laptop was able to log on the router with WEP enabled. The ELA software also had a print function so you can have a hard copy of your network settings which is nice.
I was pretty happy to have the desktop and laptop connected and the next item was the PS3. The auto network settings function on the PS3 was the easiest of the three computers and all 3 items were connected to the internet. I turned off the PS3 and my son used the desktop and I was on the laptop for a bit.
Eventually I turned off the laptop after a couple of hours of use. Later when I tried to log back on the wireless router, that's where all the problem and frustration started. I have multiple profiles on my laptop, 2 admin accounts for me and 3 limited accounts for my family. I was able to log on the router but not to the internet. I tried downloading the laptop wireless software from the Linksys website but that didn't work. Tried that multiple times. Eventually, I went back to my original computer/modem/internet configuration without the Linksys router and uninstalled all the ELA software and started from scratch. I was able to get an internet access for my desktop but the wireless laptop was still having problems. The ELA software kept getting hung up and would freeze on my laptop. Even more frustrating is that if had hard wired my laptop to the router via Ethernet cat5 cable, I still couldn't get internet access because I believe the ELA software prevented that capability. After about 2-3 hours, my laptop was able to gain access to the router and the internet with WEP enabled. I'm not sure what I did exactly but it was at 1:00 AM. I noticed on my laptop Linksys wireless software that I can save a profile of the wireless setting which I did. I logged off and tried the other admin and limited accounts on laptop. I wasn't able to log on the router/internet. I did notice under laptop wireless software there were options to import settings. I went back to my laptop admin account which had access earlier and exported the settings to a share directory. Logged off this account and logged on my other accounts and imported that setting into each laptop profile for the wireless software. Now each user account has internet access. Amazing but painful.
The next day's effort was to reconnect the PS3 via Cat5 cable to the router and went through the network settings page on the PS3. No problem . . . the PS3 was the next easiest thing to set up. I have two external 500GB Western Digital hard drives on my desktop that I wanted to setup on a home network so I can access them by wireless laptop. I selected the drives to be shared and more problems occurred. My entire net work was down. I noticed on my laptop when I refreshed the wireless option that my router was not broadcasting my SSID. I thought I had to go through the entire setup again. However, I pulled the power plug on the router and powered it down for a couple of seconds and turned it on again. My network came up but I haven't been able to access my external hard drives to date.
So far the router has been pretty good with some exceptions. I noticed couple of times the wireless signal has been down but then in a few seconds, my wireless laptop reconnects. I have had to reset the network settings on the PS3 a couple of times as well. I went back to the ELA to print out a network settings page and it was not available, in fact, the ELA software on my decktop reverted back to initial setup to start the network so basically, it's useless at this point as I have the network working. I wanted the WEP code to enable my son's Nintendo DS so I logged on the Linksys gateway. I entered the WEP code on the Nintendo DS and it was able to access the internet. It was the easiest of all the internet capable devices to set up. I have a wireless PDA to connect but haven't tried it yet.
I hope this will be helpful in your decision making. Good luck!
Note: After about 3 weeks of constant internet drops and requiring power cycling of the router (pulling the power plug) to get internet, I returned the 54G router. The 54G router wasn't indicating the active port either i.e. activity light didn't light up. I ended up with a used 54GS speed booster version of the router and installed it without problems and it's been solid performer-previous owner was having similar problems that I had with the 54G. Weird thing is as soon as I removed the 54G router and connected the 54GS router, my desktop saw the internet right away unlike the 54G. The 54GS was much more compatible with the ELA software as well. The 54GS was a version 5 and I updated the firmware. So far no problems. In fact the ELA software displayed all my networked devices correctly i.e. PS3, Nintendo DS, desktop, laptop. I plan on adding an additional wireless laptop and PS2 with a wireless access bridge.
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If I wanted a d-link I would have bought one., March 19, 2008
By Busy phoenician mountain biking computer nerd (Phoenix, AZ United States)
I purchased this product having gone through a few over the years. It has always been a reliable product and I have used it very well. This time; however, it simply did not work. It dropped connections, the admin pages wouldn't come up...it just didn't work. Then I learned why. Linksys, in order to save money, gutted the product, replaced the operating system, cut the memory in half and essentially reverse engineered a d-link. So...naturally, it is now about as reliable as a d-link.
Luckily, I learned that they kept the original version in the market for people who do their homework. It's under the model number WRT54GL (L for Linux). I did; however, learn the hard way, so I now have a $50 paperweight to show for linksys/cisco's stupid decision. Now, I have to second-guess all of my purchases of linksys equipment. Why did they have to do that to us and to themselves?
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Good full-featured wireless router, March 18, 2008
By J. Kim (Orlando, FL USA)
I bought this router to replace a Netgear wireless-B router that was fried by lightning. My past experiences with Linksys were good and the WRT54G was no exception. Out of the box, the unit has a easier setup than most routers with the included software (although it requires a PC with a wired connection). I had some trouble setting it up initially due to my old DSL modem, but after manually setting MTU settings, it was up and running with no problems.
Throughout my house I get a full signal with 2 notebooks (Mac and PC) and the wired connection works fine, after changing the local IP address. It is not a completely intuitive unit to use, as it did require some research on the web to get everything working, but it does seem more customizable and flexible than my older Netgear and D-Link routers.
I also was interested in trying some open-source firmware (Tomato) on the unit, but the one I received was not compatible (version 8). Nonetheless, the firmware that is included works fine, and I haven't any trouble with stability, yet.
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Satisfied User, March 18, 2008
By A. Bryant (CA, United States)
After having used this product for about a year, I can say that I'm satisfied with its performance. Setting it up was pretty painless, just follow the instructions carefully and cross your fingers. Once it was up and running I could forget about it -- it just works. No major problems to speak of, just the occasional manual reboot when the thing starts hanging up. I would recommend this product.
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does not work, March 18, 2008
By Cat (Buffalo, NY)
I could not get it to work and called their 800 number only to be waiting for a representative for 1 hour. I gave up so I have a non-working product. Terrible.
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