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Linksys WET54G Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge

Linksys WET54G Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge

List Price: $264.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Power issues
Review: I have had 2 out of 5 of my WET54G bridges fail for no apparent reason. The power light just blinks on those, and the Linksys Support just says to send them in. I also had a Linksys BEFW11S4 start doing similar things. It is not my power's fault since they were all plugged in in 4 completely different locations/buildings when they failed. Linksys has some work to do to make these more stable/steady.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If I could give it no stars, I would.
Review: I have had my WET54G a total of 7 months and have had nothing but problems with it since I got it. At first they were minor, such as having to reset the device every couple of days, but things steadily got worse. Now the unit cannot even see the access point positioned less than ten feet way from it. I contacted their customer support. They had me reset and unplug the device in every possible combination imaginable (I am assuming they were trying to get the firmware to work). I ended up RMA'ing the unit only to receive another unit that is having the same problem. Get this: you have to pay the shipping to send the broken unit back! So I get to pay for shipping twice. With the money that I have spent on this unit, I could of had an electrician run a hard line.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very unreliable!
Review: I have to join the chorus of negative reviews of this product. I bought the WET54G and the WRT54G to replace a non-standard (RadioLan) wireless connection. My first suspicion that this might not be a quality product was when I noticed the Ethernet plug wouldn't lock into place. I thought the install was straightforward, and I was initially please with the speed and reliability, but after several days of continuous use the connection began to get fairly flaky, and finally the unit couldn't detect ANY of the numerous wireless networks that suround me. In the meantime, my Apple iBook sitting 3 feet away had no problem setting up a reliable link to the WRT54g. I have more money then time, and didn't want to hassle with customer support, so I foolishly bought a 2nd unit, thinking perhaps I had just picked up a lemon. Same symptoms: an initial honyemoon, increasing unreliability, and finally total failure. I STRONGLY advise against this item.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Set-up for X-Box or anything else is tricky.
Review: I never got the CD-ROM that came with my WET54G to work, recomend it be used as a coaster. Go directly to 192.168.1.226 to configure it. Make sure to keep track of the "X" and "II" switch on the back. I didn't have any problems accessing the WET54G when hooked directly to my PC or to my WRT54G and going to the IP address directly, the Linksys software (on supplied CD-ROM)never did find my WET54G even when hooked directly to my PC. Note: My PC is hard-wired to the WRT54G, always configure the WET54G using wire, even after you have it up and running. Mine now bridges X-Box to the WRT54G and works very well. Also Note: I had to disable all my SECURITY on my WRT54G until I got past the basic configuration. Add security back into your net 1 piece at a time (i.e. SSID broadcast, WEP, MAC filtering, and etc.) until all is up to the level you need it to be.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Set-up for X-Box or anything else is tricky.
Review: I never got the CD-ROM that came with my WET54G to work, recomend it be used as a coaster. Go directly to 192.168.1.226 to configure it. Make sure to keep track of the "X" and "II" switch on the back. I didn't have any problems accessing the WET54G when hooked directly to my PC or to my WRT54G and going to the IP address directly, the Linksys software (on supplied CD-ROM)never did find my WET54G even when hooked directly to my PC. Note: My PC is hard-wired to the WRT54G, always configure the WET54G using wire, even after you have it up and running. Mine now bridges X-Box to the WRT54G and works very well. Also Note: I had to disable all my SECURITY on my WRT54G until I got past the basic configuration. Add security back into your net 1 piece at a time (i.e. SSID broadcast, WEP, MAC filtering, and etc.) until all is up to the level you need it to be.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Doesn't work with X-box live
Review: I purchased this for the sole purpose of connecting my X-box. The setup was a breeze, but the connection is not strong enough for x-box live game play.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Finally got it working, but ,,,,
Review: I really needed a wireless "G" Bridge to boost a signal where hard-wiring was not an option. I couldn't wait for Linksys to come out with a "g" signal booster. If you can wire or wait, do so. If you can't, here are some things I did to make this buggy thing work. You need to be pretty tech savvy to get the job done.

I was hooking up the bridge to a wireless Linksys G access point ("wap").

To setup the bridge, I attached it to my Linksys G router. I initially got a System Error/IP Conflict message that made my network unusable. Tech support was not much help. I ended up attaching it to my network via a low-tech hub (I removed the hub later). The error went away and I could start programming.

I set the WAP, bridge, and router to the same SSID. Tech support gave inconsistent advice on this.

I put the WAP and router on different wireless channels. Tech support gave inconsistent advice on this as well.

On the WAP and every other wireless device OTHER THAN the router, I filtered out the MAC address of the bridge. This way, the bridge would only pick up the wireless signal from the router. If you have multiple access points on your network and need for the bridge to pick up the signal from an access point closer than the router, you would apply filter to the router too -- basically every wireless transmitter EXCEPT the one you want the bridge to pick up.

Once the setup was complete, I connected the bridge and the WAP (filtered, of course) to each other using the ethernet cable. I moved the bridge and its attached WAP to their final destinations and plugged them into their AC power. At this point, I abandoned the hub I used for setup. Please note, the bridge needed to be fairly close to the unfiltered transmitting device in order for it to work consistently. The attached WAP can go anywhere its cable will reach.

At this point, every thing "pinged," but not consistently. My last move was to play around with the channels of the unfiltered transmitting device until I found one that worked best.

One last pointer, this configuration required endless unplugging/repowering of the WAP and bridge. If things aren't working, be sure to try repowering before throwing in the towel

I nearly lot my mind doing this project. If my blood, sweat, and tears over this helps you then perhaps it wasn't a complete waste.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Connection Very Slow
Review: I replaced two WET11 bridges with two WET54Gs. One is connected directly to a PC running Win2000; the other is connected to a network hub which in turn is connected to two PCs, one running Win2000 and other Red Hat Linux. On all PCs, the connection (both LAN and WAN) is extremely slow. I used to get close to 7 Mbps (LAN) and 1.2~1.5 Mbps (WAN through Comcast), but they're both under 500 Kbps now! I set up the bridges using the included CD-ROM, pretty much identically to the old WET11s. If this is the best the product can do, I must say I am highly disappointed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Works Great! Setup a bit confusing.
Review: I was able to get the bridge up and running with my Sony Playstation 2 in about an hour. The documentation was a little misleading and tells you to use the setup utility to configure the bridge. Since my router is using WEP encryption on key 3 I couldn't use the setup utility since it only allows you to specify encryption on key 1. I recommend using the admin web interface utility to set up the bridge. Then things becmoe very easy. I have not had any connection problems with this like I have seen in the other reviews. One down side is that the is no new firmware update for the WET54G to allow for WPA security, which is currently available for the WRT54g (wireless router) and the WPC54g (wireless notebook card).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: 54 means 20
Review: I'm returning my WET54g. 802.11g is kind of a scam - they claim it can do 54Mbps, but in reality the maximum you can do is 20Mbps; 14Mbps if you also have 802.11b devices on the same wireless network. The WET54g itself is an OK 802.11g device, but I had more connection flakiness with it than I expected. Mostly I was disappointed that 802.11g isn't nearly as fast as the advertising claims.


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