| Cisco Linksys WRV54G Wireless-G VPN Router |
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Model: WRV54G
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 70
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
An Internet connection-sharing Router, Switch, and Access Point with built-in VPN endpoint capability and advanced security features
Jump start your small business network by connecting both Wireless-G (802.11g) PCs, and local wired PCs
Securely connect up to 50 remote or traveling users to your office network via VPN
Advanced Security: Wireless data encryption (WEP), 802.1X authentication and authorization support, SPI Firewall and Internet Access filtering
The Virtual Private Network (VPN) function creates encrypted "tunnels" through the Internet so up to 50 remote or traveling users can securely connect to your office network from off-site, or users in your branch office can connect to a corporate network |
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| Description: |
| The LINKSYS Wireless-G VPN Broadband Router incorporates four essential networking functions in one high powered box: Industrial strength wireless 802.1x authentication & authorization Can serve as a DHCP Server Powerful SPI firewall protects your PC against intruders MAC & IP address filtering Easy setup with browser-based configuration utility Make this flexible router the centerpiece of your office network! |
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| User Reviews (70 total): |
Page 1 2 3 4 of Total 4 Pages
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Who designed this??, January 30, 2008
By user (San Francisco, CA United States)
Linksys has a well-deserved reputation for solid inexpensive equipment, but this router is a breathtakingly inept piece of junk. The person who tried to install it at my office was a certified IT hardware consultant with over 30 years' experience; after nine billable hours he conceded that he couldn't configure the VPN side, even with the help of Linksys technical support. Between his time, and pulling my office network down for a day, this misbegotten experiment cost me over $2,000. Don't go near it, IT DOESN'T WORK.
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Troubles with Linksys WRV54G Wireless, December 22, 2007
By user (Petersburg Alaska)
After numeruos calls to Linksys, the router still will not come up properly in the wireless mode. They are recommending resetting it again, then reinstalling my configuration. I'm still trying to find the time to do this added step.
This is the third router of this model that i've tried, all with setup problems in the wireless/security mode.
I have to admit, they answer their phone and do try to help, but after three hours on the phone, this item seems to have some problems. I have not checked their Website for help from peers. Perhaps someone knows somthing their tech folks don't.
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What a junk!!, October 31, 2007
By user (Texas)
I got this product because of VPN feature. Well, that's a myth. Some said it worked for them but not for mose of reviewers here nor for forums out there. QuickVPN needs lots of support. And Linksys needs to replace support people from India. I'm sure it will function just right for wireless router but not for VPN feature. Yes, it works for me as a router ok. But I could've picked up $40 router to do that job. If you are looking for VPN, look some place else. I'm returning this WRV54G and WRT54G together.
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M ost features work, October 1, 2007
By user
The product was easy to set up and was in operation in our small office in under an hour. However, the VPN functionality is unusable. I spent countless hours on the phone with LINKSYS tech support and was never able to set up a user based VPN session either using PPT or the QuickLink software that comes with the router. The buzz on the internet is that a windows machine that has at some point or another run any type of VPN software will never be able to connect. I don't know if that is true, but I returned one of these already and plan to return the other as soon as I replace it with a competing product. So, if you don't plan to use the VPN functionality this is a great box. If you do, buy something else.
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Useless VPN feature, July 2, 2007
By user (San Jose, Costa Rica)
I already have 2 Linksys wireless routers and they work great (a no-brainer, like every electronic should be on its basic funtionality).
With this unit I can't make it even FIND the device when trying to configure it for the VPN feature (which is the only reason I bought it for).
I suggest Linksys to have JUST ONE of their engineers to post a troubleshooting guide (a serious one) for this product.
I don't mind spending on a good product, but I also don't like spending a lot of money for a product that gives you the same as a cheaper one (happens all the time).
I hope I find a VPN Router that satisfies my needs. This one goes to the trash!
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Very poor support from Linksys, November 24, 2006
By user (NJ)
I had an issue with my VoIP device connecting after the unit was installed for about 2 months.. I contact Linksys and after a number of interactions they acknowledged that the unit was defective. They sent me a refurbished unit (putting a hold on my credit card for 50% more than I paid for the original new unit and threaten to bill me if the unit wasn't returned within 5 days) That unit didn't work either. I contacted Linksys support and they asked me to contact their support number again.. They said that they would have a "senior" support tech speak to me then.. I noted that I had spent many hours working through this issue and had assumed that their senior support personnel had been involved. They responded that it was only a level 1 support person who had guided me through the initial troubleshooting and replacement.. I could not waste anymore time and I will not buy another Linksys product (I have bought Linksys products exclusively for the last 9 years.) I purchased another vendors product..
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A lot of extremes from Linksys, November 7, 2006
By user
We have been using this router for 1-1/2 years now and the hardware is flawless.
The setup requires someone with and IT background.
We could not upgrade the firmware above version 2.38.6 or the Quickvpn software would not function.
As for the Quickvpn software, Linksys needs to support it better.
The windows "hosts" file needs to be updated and security firewall settings must be set correctly.
Once done, the system works well.
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Has to be one of the worst products on the market!, October 26, 2006
By user
This router has to be one of the worst made products on the market, and has the poor customer service. This router was defective out of the box, took 3 weeks of communication with Linksys's customer service before I finally just returned it and build my own router with the same functions.
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Are There Two Versions of This Router???, January 20, 2006
By user (ohio)
I have one of these routers and it's the best home router I think I have ever owned or setup. It's been rock stable since I bought it 2 years ago, never had to reboot, and it was easy to configure and has worked brilliantly with both my powerbook and centrino laptop. I've seen other reviews that share my experience and I think that they must have made two or more versions of this router at the same time because it's about the only thing that explains the extreme differences in experience from one reviewer to the next. Knowing that so many people had so much trouble I'd be reluctant to recommend it, but mine has been very good.
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BUYER BEWARE...CISCO JUNK, January 15, 2006
By user (Tokyo, Japan)
This MAY be a good product for the occasional user. However, if your small business depends on this, you are dead. This baby will crash, crash, crash on you...even with the latest firmware. Nice idea to build a wireless router that supports VPN tunnels, but in reality, it just does not work. Look at the other reviews and think. Why does everybody say stay away? There must be something wrong if this many people complain. I live in Japan, and the Japanese retailers have already pulled it from the shelves due to the number of complaints. This is the SECOND time mine has locked up today. It WILL be replaced.
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Flawless operation, December 22, 2005
By user
I head up a network team for a large medical center and bought this for my own use. Although it ran fine from the get-go, I did one firmware upgrade (an easy, menu-driven 5 minute operation) and it has been flawless. There are also 3rd party versions of code out there which add on a ton of functionality, but you'll lose your support from Linksys. Selected this unit because it can be used as an end-node vpn (vpn from your remote laptop to your home pc, for example). Only dig against it is that it does not have dual antennas to eliminate multipath.
Buy it again? Sure.
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I'm glad my boss is willing to take risks, October 14, 2005
By user (Arizona, USA)
So, I was really against this product. The reviews were terrible for it. But there was a couple of reviews which claimed that the product did ok with the new firmware release. So... my boss was wanted VPN, wireless so he decided to get this router anyway despite the reviews. I was against this.
So...I got it, installed it. The vpn server was easy as sin to setup. As long as you have a static ip address, and know a little bit about networking you should be fine. The vpn at first had non - reliable connectivity. However, that turned out to be our ISP (satellite connection), and since we've got a new ISP (DSL) everything works perfect. The vpn is great, easy and having wireless is nice too. I had the vpn server downloading things for 3 hours without any connectivity issues.
This router is being used for a small business of about ten machines under it. Just FYI. Works great. Hasn't died yet (1 month)
Hope this helps. Oh, latest firmware a must.
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DO NOT BUY!!, October 9, 2005
By user
This is the worst networking product ever! Constantly crashed and VPN does not work. How could they get away with selling this POS?
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Bad Reviews But I Bought It Anyway, September 21, 2005
By user (Cypress, TX)
I read all the review I could find on this product and most were bad. A few recent ones were better. The first problem I encountered was the power on button did not function correctly. I had to press, press harder, shake the device, and finally turn it upside down while pressing to power it on. I was never able to power it down with the on/off button. The wireless AP worked fine but it would not function with an ethernet cable. I thought it was me (though I've unboxed and setup 25+ wireless, wire only, routers, swithes, etc. without problems. After several hours of trying different approaches I looked at documentation, knowledge base articles and found one that indicated if the device power light blinked continuously the device was defective. That was the end of it and I returned it for credit. I do not recommend this device to anyone.
T. Ragan - Cypress, TX
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Using latest firmware seems to make a huge difference, August 17, 2005
By user (Sammamish,WA)
I've had this unit since late 2003 and had planned to use in a new apartment. I didn't end up needing it until the middle of 2004 and so I didn't follow issues related to thie product at all. I had played around with it and it appeared to work so I figured everything was OK. Once I needed it for real though I had the same issue that so many others had where the DHCP server wouldn't respond anymore and I couldn't even get logged into the router's management console via a web browser. I tried updating the firmware but nothing helped. I needed a system that worked and so I put this router back in the box and didn't use it for the last year.
This wasn't a cheap unit and so I figured I'd give it another try. I already have a firewall and access point but I hate to just let this unit collect dust. I found firmware version 2.37 of on the Linksys website and installed it and reconfigured the unit since the configuration was reset to factory default as part of the firmware updgrade. If you have a working setup already write them down or print them out from your web-browser. I had the unit running for 3 days and it wasn't showing the DHCP problem anymore and I was always able to get into the management console.
I had already gotten a firewall appliance and access point back when I was having issues with this unit so I don't really need the router now even through it's working quite well after the firmware upgrade. My sister got DSL and so I gave it to her for free and told her to keep it as long as she had no problems with it. So far it's been running for a couple of weeks and it's not showing any of the problems I saw. I figured it would be OK as my own 3 day test of the unit didn't show the same problems either.
So if you have one of this units make sure you upgrade the firmware on it to version 2.37 which is latest version Linksys has on their website.
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It works fine, June 16, 2005
By user
I read the comments and I can not believe it.
I bought It in germany and have done an firmware update. After that it works fine without any problem.
VPN Setup was done in 2 minutes and the QuickVPN Client software is doing the rest. It couldn't be easyer. I already bought many linksys products and i love them all. WRV54G is working stable and fast withoug any problem since the last month.
Just the EU-Firmware Version had a little problem. After changing someting from the configuration, the router is doing a reboot. After that, the DNS Server isn't working any longer so you have to disconnect and reconnect the WAN connection in the webinerface and it works fine again... normaly you don't change the configuration often so you will have no problem.
I recommend this product. It's cheap, stron, fast and works fine!
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I hope this isn't a vision of what Linksys has in the future, May 16, 2005
By user (Austin, TX)
The WRV56G router & wireless features perform much like every other Linksys product that I have been happy with. However I purchased this item to setup a VPN and it has been nothing but problems. It was much easier to setup a VPN using Windows Server at my office then to do it with this "simple" router at home. Even using Linksys' QuickVPN is a waste of time since it is such a flaky and featureless program. Sometimes it connects sometimes it doesn't, no rhyme or reason. I will be returning this router. Linksys should pull this item from the market to prevent further damage to their otherwise good reputation. Come on Cisco (Linksys' parent company) you are the worlds leading manufacturer of networking how did you let this product out of QA? I am extremely disappointed.
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Another Unhappy User, March 27, 2005
By user (Severn, MD)
Setting up the router (replacing a BEFW11S4, which worked great) wasn't difficult, but it ended up disabling my outbound VPN which worked fine with the previous linksys router. After a few hours of net research, I finally found another reference to a "linksys Nightmare" that suggested forwarding UDP ports 500 and 4500, and TCP ports 50, 389, 709, and 5080. This resolved the problem and I thought I was golden. Sadly, I was never able to get the router to act as a VPN server, even using the Linksys QuickVPN client.
Two days later, the router stopped issuing DHCP addresses and even rejected administration login via 192.168.1.1 (the router internal address). Resetting the router fixed the problem, but two days later the same thing happened again. And two days later, again. I contacted their technical support using their online chat applet and she seemed remarkably dim (she had to ask me twice during our conversation which model number I had, even though it was in the original contact dialog info and recorded in our chat). Ultimately, her response was "it must be defective - return it to where you bought it for an exchange". That's when I decided to go out and read the reviews of this model (sadly, I trusted Linksys and hadn't bothered to do my research this time earlier) only to discover that this is a VERY common problem. Time to give Netgear a try.
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Nice idea spoiled by bad software, March 26, 2005
By user (San Jose, CA)
I previously used a WRT54G for my wireless devices and a BEFVP41 for VPN connectivity, but couldn't get them to do what I needed for broadcasts between the two LANs, so the WRV54G looked like just what I needed. When it's working, it does what I need, but I don't need the frequent partial or complete crashes. I have the rev. 2 hardware and the latest firmware, and have done everything that Linksys has suggested to fix the crashing, but still have to reboot it about once a week.
On top of the crashing, there's little annoyances like pulldowns items in menus that don't save values right, and an external log viewer that crashes regularly and runs only on Windoze.
I wish I'd just kept the BEFVP41 and gotten a plain access point like the WAP54G to do the same job and saved the hassles. I still hold out some hope that Cisco will update the firmware and fix many of the reliability issues, but I can't recommend the WRV54G before they do. The only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is because with a firmware fix it could still be a nice box.
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WRV54G and Linksys support nightmare, March 10, 2005
By user
I have been a compulsive buyer of every single Linksys product. Some months ago I also acquired the WRV54G despite the bad reviews posted on the Internet.
Not a single month goes by without having to reboot it due to varous types of crashes that disable the entire network. First the wireless links become unstable, then the router doesn't work for the wired network and finally it is dead, not even the configuration page is accesible anymore. With regards to the VPN feature, it works well IF you don't use the 192.168 and change it to 10.x, which, unfortunatelly I can't do due to some software which license doesn't allow me to change its ip or my coporate lan, which firewall forces me to use 192.168. But remember that even if you are pleased for its functionality it will crash anyway ones or twice per month.
Summing up, a huge dissapointment, a piece of electronic trash and the new format of the box doesn't fit the previous format that linksys used to have. Too expensive for nothing, I'm going back to the WRT54G and wait for a decent firmware which, after waiting for almost 8 months looks like they will discontinue it before ever fixing the issues (perhaps its a hardware issue!).
By the way, don't even waste your time calling the horrendous Linksys "customer support", they know less than you do and they will make sure to waste as much as possible of your time without any type of help.
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