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Linksys WAP54G Wireless-G Access Point

Linksys WAP54G Wireless-G Access Point

List Price: $99.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good functionality, but stops periodically
Review: I like this router and really need it to work well, but it stops working every couple of days. It can easily be reset by pressing the button on it's rear, but that's ridiculous and if I'm offsite connecting to this computer it's no go.

Thinking perhaps it was a dud I exchanged it and had the same problems with another one. I even went to a local store and bought another brand name (D-Link) and subsequently returned it before 30 days as it had the same problem. It seems that all of these wireless APs simply stop working after a few days, but I'm not sure why. The only thing I can think of is that I send a lot of data through as I'm using terminal services a lot and often to multiple computers simultaneously. I am disappointed with the uptime of this device.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just keep calling cust. service until you get someone good
Review: The paperwork/instructions did not match the hardware in the box. First customer service rep was clueless. Second and third were excellent. I am technology challenged and not mechanically inclined but had no problem with customer service help. Five stars because it has been about three months with no problems and the system is fast!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works Great
Review: I have 3 desktop computers which are wired to an 8 port router; I bought a laptop with a wireless 802.11b card built it. I wanted to add it to my network and so installed the AP by connecting it to my router. Works Great. Support from Linksys has also been a plus.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Quality issues, but good performance
Review: I received one of these DOA -- actually, it appeared to have been a customer return that had just been reboxed and shipped back out the door! I replaced it with one purchased locally, and after a few minutes' setup time, the thing has performed very reliably, as reliably as the 802.11b unit it replaced. Might be worth getting the signal booster or an aftermarket antenna, but I have no problem pulling a good signal from my WAP in the basement to the 2nd floor of my house. Price has been reduced recently, making it an even better deal.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good product, tricky setup
Review: Very nice product. Getting upwards of full 54Mbps within 20-25 feet, 24Mbps within 50 feet. The trick to confguring this thing not to disconnect every 3 minutes is this: after enabling WEP security, DISABLE 802.1x authentication in Windows. You'll fly trouble free after that.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Piece of Junk!
Review: Bought two of these from Amazon to bridge connectivity from one room to another. Despite having all the settings correct, neither AP was reachable. The Linksys tech support people were terrible - it is pretty clear they were just reading from a script. They sent me a firmware upgrade, and once loaded, it killed the AP. Completely unreachable - the tech support person said "uh, I guess you should return it".

After the RMA, I got it up and running (finally) with all the default settings. Tonight I foolishly tried to change a setting - and now the AP I didn't exchange is only reachable via the wireless AP - the ethernet port seems to be dead. Power cycled, factory reset, etc... to no avail. I can reach it from the AP - but there's nothing going over the ethernet port.

The most frustrating part - I work in a NOC and do this for a living. I'm sending these back and shelling out the extra money for cisco - at least they work.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An honest and thorough look at the WAP54G
Review: Short version - great unit, but the logging leaves much to be desired, and the latest firmware seems to have a few minor glitches. If you want to know the details, read on...

Bought a WAP54G recently. Performance is decent. Range is good. Anyone who claims that they don't see a speed difference between a wired and wireless connection probably isn't looking close enough - a 100Mbps full-duplex ethernet has much faster throughput than a wireless connection. Try comparing an FTP of a file that's a couple of hundred megs and you'll see what I mean...

The issues I have with this unit are what I believe to be firmware bugs, and their tech support claims they can duplicate them but hasn't done anything in the way of fixing them in the last month that they've known about them. I was told that a future firmware release "might" address these things, but no indication as to when or if at all.

I feel that security is critical, especially on a wireless device that any passer-by can potentially connect to if in range, and the logging on this unit falls short of my expectations.

Powering up the WAP54G while the logging utility is capturing yields two log entries stating that the syslogd and system have been started. Attaching to the network using a laptop equipped with a WPC54G yields an additional message stating there was a "Wireless PC connected" with the date and time - "Somebody" is connected, but who? (MAC address would be nice, but none given). As far as the logs are concerned, I've never seen any additional messages generated. Short of resetting the WAP54G, I've never seen another log entry gererated depsite the activity on my network. The logs entries captured by their loging utility are always four hours ahead of the correct date and time, and that ought to be addressed as well. Disconnecting and reconnecting (rebooting the laptop) does not generate any additional log entries. For MAC address filtering, you can specifically permit or prevent up to twenty MAC addresses. If you make your entries on that screen, and then refresh the page (either by logging off and then back on, or by resetting the WAP), the addresses remain, but the indication of whether you're permitting or preventing those addresses disappears. This might be cosmetic, but I'd still like to know what my devices are doing... Using XP Pro and setting up WEP took some trial and error - not as intuitive as I'd like.

If speed and convenience are what you're looking for, this unit will probably fit the bill. If you're interested in security and knowing what this device is actually doing at any given time, the logs are sure to keep you in the dark. If/when they release a firmware upgrade that addresses this issue, I think they will have a five star product.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: easy set-up, good connection at reasonable distance
Review: Put unfinalized standards and security aside for one second and this access point works awesome. It works throughout my average size house and gets signal (albiet weak) thoughout my yard. It was added to my existing wired network with full access to the internal network as well as the internet within 5 minutes. I will be turning on the WEP security later, but as long as it doesn't massively change performance this is a great product. Also, as long as you are within about 40 feet you can get flawless mp3 playback from a network machine.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I wish I'd waited.
Review: I purchased a WAP54G, two PCMCIA 54G cards and one PCI 54G card to replace/upgrade an Orinoco RG1000 that was damaged in shipping. As long as everything was set for 802.11g only (no backwards compatibility) with NO security, everything worked brilliantly. If you ever played with netstumbler, then you probably know how dangerous having a wireless setting with no security is. I am using the latest firmware and drivers as of June 11th, 2003. All my machines run Windows 2000; they are a Compaq NX9005 laptop, a Sony PCG-C1VN laptop and a homebuilt Athalon desktop. The laptops are typically in a place with 90% signal while the desktops gets closer to 80%. The problems I've encountered with Linksys's 54G products fall broadly into three categories.

Interface bugs with the AP config.
Connection problems with security settings.
PCI card flakeyness.

Interface problems.
1. Enabling WEP consistently erases the the SSID.
2. If you select MAC address filtering, apply and then go back into the config, MAC address filtering displays as not applied. It actually is, but displays incorrectly.
3. Logging only seems to work if MAC address filtering is selected and is inconsistent even then. An inconsistent log is a useless log.

Security problems.
First, let me define what I consider a good and secure setup.

WEP encryption, ideally with a fix for the weak key flaw.
Custom SSID.
SSID broadcasts disabled.
MAC address filtering (access list)

The moment I try to enable any of the above (even one at a time), except for address filtering, all bets are off. The clients will not reconnect immediately once their configs have been updated. Sometimes a reboot works, sometimes leaving the machine sit for 30 minutes works, several times the machines have sat for several days and then miraculously connected. Because the problem is inconsistent it is both difficult and frustrating to deal with.

PCI card problems.
This probably won't affect most people, but it's worth mentioning. Unlike most companies that use a unified driver for all their NICs, the 54G PCI card uses a completely different driver than the PCMCIA laptop cards. The interface is different, not all of the options are available and it seems to have more problems than the laptop cards. It is possible that this is because the PC has a slightly weaker signal, but at 80%, I suspect it's just buggy.

All in all, I guess I knew what I was getting into when I decided to buy a product before the standard was ready, so I shouldn't really complain. If I could switch back to my 11MB Orinoco AP, though, I'd do it in a heartbeat. It just worked.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I was up and running in less than 10 minutes at speeds equal to sitting directly on the network. Very impressive speed. Make sure you use WEP for security.


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