Rating: 
Summary: So far, not so good
Review: This may be premature, but I set this router up in one room in my NYC apartment and my Linksys-enabled laptop only picks up the 802.11g signal sporadically--just three rooms away and on the same floor. With paper-thin walls, I don't understand what is so difficult to overcome.
Rating: 
Summary: With this and a WET11 Xbox Live is fantastic!
Review: I purchased the WRT54G about a week ago. It is attached to my desktop a P4 at 2.6 Ghz running Win XP Home. To be honest I got it just to link up my Xbox (attached to a WET11 wireless ethernet bridge)to my cable modem (ISP Comcast), so I could get rid of the 70 feet of ethernet cable that ran down the hall. Even though the WET11 is a B standard I knew that this router would be compatiable and in the future I plan to link 2 other PC's too it . The setup was a breeze, I had some reservations about a wireless network (see my review for linksys wet11)but this item was on sale as well as the WET11 so I just had to splruge. To set up the xbox, wap, and ethernest bridge, with the encryption on was less then 30 mins. Not once did I have to call tech support or the IT guy at my workplace. Nor did I need any settings from my ISP. The setup software did everything. This is my first foray into the wrld of wireless and it couldn't have gone better. My Xbox connection seems as good as with a cable. My Xbox is about 70ft and 3 walls away from the WRT54G. In a week of use i've never had to reboot the router. There is also a Panasonic cordless phone (2.4 Ghz) between the wap and the ethernet bridge but it never causes a problem. Great items !
Rating: 
Summary: Rookie Recommends Router
Review: I ordered this router through Amazon, along with its sister PCMCIA card for my Gateway Solo laptop. My goal was merely to broadcast the Comcast Digital Cable access throughout my 2,000 square feet home at the faster 802.11g speed. I wanted to surf the Web from the comfy couch in the TV room or a cozy chair in the living room...my choice -- no wires involved. I have never installed a network, so a lot of the literature, reviews on Amazon, and other sources of information were lost on me: I simply went with the big name brand at a reasonable price. I installed the router in about 20 minutes using the accompanying CD. Lights were flashing, and the hard connection to my laptop recognized the router. Flipped up the 5 inch rabbit ears and seemed to be in business. All-in-all pretty seamless. I had high hopes that I'd be wirelessly surfing soon. This was pretty exciting to me, as I am still running on Windows 98SE, and worried that I might encounter difficulties. The installation of the sister WPC54G PCMCIA card didn't go so well. Again, I ran it instruction-by-instruction from the installation CD, and while the Linksys software seemed to install OK, the procedure tripped up when attempting to install a program called 'Odyssey' from a firm called Funk Software, Inc. The program kept looking for drivers, requesting that I insert the Microsoft Windows 98SE disk in my drive. I don't have a Microsoft disk, but a Gateway OEM version that apparently has Microsoft Windows 98SE, but not the specific drivers that Odyssey needs. To sum up, I spent several hours, all told, surfing Microsoft, Linksys, and Funk Software knowledgebase pages, downloading stuff, booting and rebooting my laptop, before giving up and going to bed frustrated. Tried again in the morning, and somehow, I still don't know how, hit the right combination of set up protocols that suddenly energized the PCMCIA card. I went from zero to eighty in no time, and my profanities turned to whoops of joy. The best online help came from Funk Software, where I found a customer service technician at the help desk who answered my emails. His solution: as I was running a simple home office network (not a corporate enterprise solution) and I didn't employ a RADIUS server (whatever that is?) I shouldn't need Odyssey, so gave me good instructions on how to eradicate it from my PC. Still not entirely sure what Odyssey purports to do, so perhaps I'm missing some benefit? Nonetheless, the router and card in my laptop are communicating nicely throughout the house...no connections further than 3 walls and 150 feet. Speed is excellent. I stepped through the setup of what I suppose is a rudimentary firewall (clicked a box marked 'Firewall enabled') and turned on WEP 128. I hope to figure out WPA next, and I hope that Odyssey is not part of this set up, but in the final analysis I am pleased with the product, happy I didn't have to pay a consultant, and sending this report to Amazon wirelessly from my comfy chair! Experience of user: None.
Total install time: 5 hours
Biggest problem: Firmware for WPC54G card missing drivers
Rating: 
Summary: I'm no dummy, but couldn't get this to work....
Review: I purchased my system through Best Buy. Perhaps this was a mistake, because we asked for help but went out the door with the wrong notebook adaptor for our system. My husband returned that one and came home with an adaptor for a PC, not a notebook and had to go back and exchange it.
The router installed very smoothly on my new Dell PC. The adaptor was very difficult to install on our Gateway notebook computer, which is only two years old. I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Gateway and got those issues resolved. My next call was to Linksys. I was put on hold and told that the wait would be up to 45 minutes. After two HOURS and fifteen minutes I was disconnected !!
I called Gateway back to see if they could be of more help and was able to determine that the signal strength was only 7% from my husbands desk in the guestroom, to MY desk in the den. I was asked to carry the laptop closer to the router, which I did. One room away, the signal strength was 67%. I was told the router should not be located near the base unit of a cordless phone (it was, but Linksys gave no warning about that) and also that it should be placed high up in the room. Good grief, this is our HOME....it should fit in shouldn't it?
In the end, I packed all the components back up in their boxes and returned them to Best Buy. When I told them why, they nodded their heads as if they had heard this a million times.
Rating:
Summary: My 2 cents on the Linksys WRT54G
Review: To summarize my overall experience with Linksys: 1) Customer Support: Very inadequate. Their online FAQ page on the linksys website doesn't work. When I called Support, after the initial round of qualification that I had a genuine technical issue on hand, I told hiim I was in the service industry like him, and was computer-savvy. The person advised me to do all the following when I couldn't get my router with my Toshiba cable modem to work. :
a) Try with a different ethernet cable...which I did... b) Try increasing the length of the ethernet cable from the router to the cablemodem(as long as 20 ft!!) c) Try with a crossover cable... which I did.. He just gave up and said that it could be probably the modem, and Toshiba cable modems might not work. He asked me to check with my cable service provider and ask for a Motorola modem!! Normally, internet service providers give you a hard time to switch your modem hardware, but I somehow managed to get a Toshiba PC 2200U in place of my Toshiba PC 1100 U(an older cable modem model)...and the router indeed worked like a charm..
Note that it was only through pure luck that I got this working..so on the technical support front, I rate this a "single star". Product Performance: The service provider I have is Time Warner Cable, in North NJ. A colleague also bought the same router , and it works fine with his Optimumonline (Motorola modem) connection.. Lesson Learnt: If you think you have an older cable modem model such as the Toshiba PC 1100U, this router may not work for you. Having used the router for close to a month now, I'm very happy with the performance of the modem, and so is my colleague. Both of us use Linksys WPC54G Wireless-G Notebook Adapters and have had no problems... The firmware that ships is v1.1, and both of us took a risk buying this much against complaints heard from other office colleagues that their home office setups would not work when they tried connecting to the office's VPN through digital certificates....
I use a RSA securid Token, my colleague uses digital certificate authentication..and both of us have had no problems so far.. We took a big risk buying this product...but at the end of the day, uits definitely worth the "15% restocking fee" risk , even though technical support is inadequate/not knowledgeable....I would expect better support from a Cisco subsidiary!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Getting Confuse whether to Buy D-Link's DI-624 Or Linksys
Review: Linksys WRT54G is the way to go. I have tried both, and believe me Linksys is the product as easy to setup as turning on the TV. Plug and Play. I was on the Wireless Network and Wired Network just in 3 minutes; it is hard to believe but all it took me was to unbox the router and plug the network cables, thats it. I turned on my Dell 8600 and I was in business with Wireless Network. However, than after I had to install wireless router for somebody else. Being a tech. geek I thought I already tried the Linksys let me try some other brand and gave a shot to D-Link's DI-624. And guess what.... could not get it to work. I don't think D-Link people understand concept of "Plug and Play". I called the tech people stay with them for Hour on phone, they could not find the problem... finally the tech person told me that it might be my modem... I will have to turn it off for 10 minutes and than try. (I think he just got fade up because it was not working and so wanted to get off with the problem) Anyway Long story short.... Go for Linksys WRT54G if you getting confuse between D-link and Linksys. Also the thing I liked about the Linksys people is that they have online chatting support very convienent than the D-Links phone system.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY
Review: I bought the WRT54G in July of 2003. By September of 2003, the unit was not working. Neither the wireless or the lan would work. After spending a total of 8 hours on the phone with tech support, 5 out of 6 people who barely spoke english, they decided to let me do a warranty exchange. I've heard that linksys has the most reliable products and that's what drove me to buy this product, despite a higher price than competitors. It is now January of 2004, and my new WRT54G is doing the same thing that my first WRT54G did. I have spent another 3 hours with tech support. I refuse to spend anymore time with them. I am going to try to get a refund, but I doubt they will do it for me, so I plan to trade my wireless-G in for the wireless-B. The worst part about it is, I've probably only used the wireless function for a total of 2 hours. This unit was a VERY BIG dissapointment. I am usually not one to complain, but I feel like I have to warn the people out there about this unit. If I had my choice to do it all over again, I would choose Dlink or 2wire. Good luck with your wireless search!
Rating:
Summary: finally it works well
Review: It was disappointing at first when I had to return my unit as an RMA and spend $7.00 for shipping. I received a replacement and it works very well. I think the default firmware is what causes all the troubles. An advise I can recommend to boost the signal strength is try to experiment the Channels from 1 to 11.
Rating:
Summary: Not so easy for running applications and bad B card support!
Review: If you are planning on running a server behind this, be advised that the PC running the server has to have a static IP. I thought this was lame as I use DHCP and didnt feel like reconfiguring my TCP/IP settings. ALso, it didnt work too well with my B card, which was a bummer because it said it would. Also, the housing on the router is really lightweight and seems like it would break if I dropped it once. However, this router had good compatibility with my cable modem and was a snap to set up with my wireless NetGear WGR511 card. It had good range (It's on my first floor, and even on third floor had full 54 speed). It supports WPA, which is very good security. And the passphrases make the WEP set up quick and actually fun.
Rating:
Summary: Great for a home wi-fi network
Review: I just bought the Linksys WRT54G wireless-G router, I have no networking experience but I found the setup extremely simple. It took me about 20 mins in total to get going, now using a Linksys WPC54G card in my laptop I have wireless access throughout my home. The signal is excellent and I'm extremely pleased with both products. I have DSL home connection and used the PPPoE configuration on windows XP. I have to say I was concerned by some reviews that the setup process could be a headache, but rest assured this is an extemely simple solution for a home wireless network. Instruction information is straight forward and its a simple case of following the steps provided. I highyly recommend these Linksys products.
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