Cisco-Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $14.88 You Save: $85.11 (85%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster
Customer Review: Poor Customer Service, Great aftermarket products
Summary: 5 Stars
having played with several "super g" routers from various manufactures recently, this is probably the best of the bunch (see my review on netgear wgt624 and it's flakiness).
i would agree the customer service is abysmal and offshoring has made things go from bad to worse.
however the best part (at least for me) and for which i recommend this router is the number of aftermarket firmwares available. Linksys' firmware was based on GPL code and so they had to release the source code. take a look at Openwrt, or Wifi-box or (my personal favorite) Sveasoft. they are all excellent. replace the stock Linksys firmware with these and you've got yourself an extremely powerful box.
however installing a third party firmware won't get you any Linksys support but i figure it is better to participate and ask questions in various internet forums than deal with clueless customer support reps. also playing with firmware is not for the fainthearted and it does require some amount of technical skills.
anyways that's my 2 cents. i guess this router may not be for everyone (especially the group who want to open the box and have "everything just work"). but for the more technologically inclined, this is a great little toy to play with and to have several cool features (like BGP, OSPF, bandwiddth shaper etc.) which one can only get in enterprise routers and never in a sub-$100 router
Customer Review: flawless installation
Summary: 5 Stars
I have bought many things through Amazon, yet this is the first review I have ever written. I am computer illiterate and didn't even know what a router was until a few days ago when I purchased a laptop to go along with my desktop, and I wanted to use the wireless feature. I had read so many horrible installation reviews on this site, that I was prepared for a horrible experience, but my nature is to always plow through and I decided to get the router. They have a installation cd that comes with the router and I began following the instructions, but when I got to a few items that they wanted input--such as my network name and my WEP, I had no idea what they were talking about. So I stopped and called tech support and spoke to a guy in about 20 seconds who referred me to their installation website that explained in much more detail (but still simplistically) for me to finish my step by step installation. It literally took about 5 minutes to complete the installation, and the instructions were redundantly clear. The router works great--powers my laptop out to my patio (about 50') when the signal begins to lose strength. I don't know how much further it will go. So, again, I would rate the installation of this product as about as easy as it could be. I don't know why so many people have been complaining, but for me, who knows next to nothing computerish, I found this easier than any recipe to follow.Customer Review: U dont need a GS,a WRT54G will do
Summary: 5 Stars
hi, after reading all the reviews and finally buying the product here is my opinion, in case u are not going to use a linksys pcima card on your latop or a linksys pci card on a desktop with Speed booster enabled dont buy the WRT54GS as its of no use ,you might as well save the money and buy the WRT54G i had read another review give here about the same thing, i should have followed his advice,its basically pointless to buy the WRT54GS unless u r using a linksys speed booster proprietry card on the other end.
as for the product itself its great, excellent it meet my expectaions setup/configuring it was super easy,although range was a problem if u have no obstacles it works as advertised 100m i.e if u have a line of sight. if u have walls in between your signals is going to drop 20 percent with each wall suggest you take that into consideration, even the placement of the router in your house is important. it did not cover my entire house. so i ended up buying the linksys range expander, which was a nightmare to configure until i read a review given on this site for linksys range expander,once it was working the thing worked like a charm.
over all the product is excellent,no wall mount though although i feel i should have bought the linksys SRX enabled router as it s advertised to have a better range it could have a solved so many problems i faced.
Customer Review: No Problems, Smooth Sailing.
Summary: 5 Stars
I was able to get this plugged in and on with no bumps in the road whatsoever. The key though, I think, is to not use the installation cd. You don't really need it. Just look at the user guides online if you ahve any difficulty.
Some tips:
Change your router's password immediately, and make sure that you write it down.
After you have gotten a connection to your broadband, or ethernet, look at the "Status" page in the router setup pages. Find the addresses listed next to "DNS 1" and "DNS 2", write them down, and then click the "Setup" page. Type the two addresses into the corresponding fields under the "Network Setup" heading on the "Setup" page. This just makes things run really smoothly, I guess. It was a tip that was given to me, and it worked like a charm.
If you want to be able to change settings in the router more easily, make sure to click "Enable" under the "Remote Router Access" heading on the "Administration" page. This will allow you to change settings from a computer that isn't connected by wire to the router. Make sure that you change the password from the default though, otherwise anyone will be able to get in and change settings.
High gain antennae make a bit of difference in signal strength too.
Customer Review: Great g card but Customer Services drops the ball
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, I purchased my card (WPC54GS) and the router to match (WRT54GS) last Sunday for my work computer and after a week I finally got it to work no thanks to customer service at Linksys. There only help was to tell me the card was broken and I had to reinstall my operating system after 4 hours on the phone with them trying the same thing over and over again. But I'm sure that if you have windows XP or 2000 you wont have any problems but, my company gave me a great laptop but with windows 98SE which for those of you who have moved on to XP as I did with my home PC remember what a piece it was. If any of you purchase this card with 98SE and get stuck you can e-mail me at GEO1277@comcast.net and I can help you get it up and running. But as far as the product goes it gets great reception and as long as one of the antennas is pointed in the direction you are using the laptop or pc you can go through 3 well built floors and at least 100ft that I know of from my experience. Oh one more down side to this card if you have Windows 98SE you can't use the SpeedBooster unless you are using XP or 2000 just some info that I think was left out on this website but will be on the box when you get the card or router. I would give the Router 5 stars the Card 4 Stars and the customer service negative 5 stars.