| Linksys Compact Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54GC |
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Model: WRT54GC
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 186
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
All-in-one Internet-sharing Router, 4-port Switch, and Wireless-G (802.11g) Access Point
Shares a single Internet connection and other resources with Ethernet wired and Wireless-G and B devices
Compact form factor fits in anywhere
High security: Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2 Personal), wireless MAC address filtering, powerful SPI firewall
Compatible with Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, or XP |
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| Description: |
| The WRT54G Wireless-G Broadband Router puts you onboard for the newest wireless networking standard. Wireless-G is 54Mbps wireless networking that's almost five times as fast as the widely deployed Wireless-B (802.11b) products found in homes & businesses. They can interoperate with existing 802.11b equipment, making them more flexible thanother networks. The built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 connects 4 PCs directly and lets you daisy-chain out to more hubs and switches for as big a network as you need. To protect your data and privacy, the Wireless-G Broadband Router can encode all wireless transmissions using 128-bit WEP encryption. The powerful Stateful Packet Inspection firewall will defend against most Internet attacks. |
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| User Reviews (186 total): |
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Excellent wireless Router, December 17, 2006
By user (USA)
Excellent Router, with a very good signal strength cover at least my 2000qf apartment without needing an external antenna. i believe this is the best for this price range.
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Linksys sucks!!, December 14, 2006
By user
I WOULD GIVE NEGATIVE STAR IF I COULD.
This is the worst router I ever uesd. The first day I got it, it broke down. It stop working every few seconds! Yes, every few seconds. You even can not surf the internet, since it disconnected constantly. And when disconnecting, you even can not connect to the router.
Nothing good except it is small ang ugly!
TRUST ME! DO NOT BUY IT!
AND I WILL NOT BUY ANY LINKSYS PRODUCT AGAIN.
THEIR SERVICE SUCKS TOO.
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Another piece of Linksys garbage..., December 10, 2006
By user (VA)
In theory, this would be an excellent router if they would fix the existing issues.
Wifi signal strength is not too great. If you buy the router buying an antenna is a must, but then again it seems this router is more designed for being portable and not to feed internet to your whole house. There are MANY MANY existing issues which have not been resolved in firmware upgrades, even Linksys site has the issues listed yet has not put out a new firmware in well over a year. Yet they recently put out a firmware for Britain which fixed the issue with connections being dropped. Even then, this router randomly drops connections after a few hours, VPN through this router is nearly impossibly if you need to use your connection for more than 10 minutes. And what takes the cake is that a simple firmware update bricks the router, amazing. Between this and the rest of the Linksys routers I've owned, I'd say Linksys is going downhill with the crap they're pushing out. Coming from someone who used to swear by Linksys, thats pretty bad.
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Signal Issues, November 25, 2006
By user (Twin Cities, MN)
I purchased this to replace an older "B" standard router and ended up returning it because the range wasn't very good. I had the router upstairs and was getting poor or no signal downstairs. I never had any signal problems with my old router. This product might be ok if you live in an apartment or one story house. It is compact and looks good.
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Very compact and excellent router !!, November 23, 2006
By user (Boston, MA USA)
This is one of the most compact routers available. It also doesn't have an external antenna, but that doesn't mean that its range is less.
The performance so far has been amazing...I have connected Vonage, a wireless laptop and a desktop PC to this router and have never had any troubles wrt configuration, speed or security. I have a Uniden 2.4GHz cordless phone and this router doesn't even interfere with the phone.
Overall a feature rich and top performer...!
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just soso, November 10, 2006
By user (East Lansing, MI USA)
signal is not prominent, but if your room is not large, it is OK. not good for p2p sharing.
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Wired/wireless combo works well, November 4, 2006
By user
The Wireless-G router is the one I use at home. At the time I picked it up, it seemed like the perfect combination of a wired router and a wireless router for connecting to cable or DSL. Set up (including pulling out my old hub, router, and wireless) took less than 10 minutes and best of all everything worked for me the first time. Now I have 1 device to replace the clutter I had in the corner under my desk for years and years. If you can get the model with SRX400 speed and range expansion, that's the best one. The range boost is huge over the standard model.
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Excellent Compact Router, November 2, 2006
By user (New Jersey, USA)
My mother recently got DSL in her house. However, she only received a DSL modem from her ISP. Single connection to DSL. I live over 300 miles away. I sometimes travel to her area to call on customers. I use her house as place to work out of while in town. This small router was perfect to set up a wireless connection in her house. I also need something compact to travel with if I want to set up a wireless connection in a hotel room or in a conference room that is only hard wired. Haven't tried this yet however. This was very easy to install. I am typing this downstairs at her house now on my wireless connection while the Linksys is upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Strong wireless signal. Works great. I am very please with its size, appearance, and performance. I am not using the optional antenna. I don't think I will ever need it.
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Good router for its purpose, October 30, 2006
By user (South Dakota)
I have used this router for 1 month. And here are my thoughts. I had 3 computers connected to it. One is wired and the other two are wireless. Range for this router is limited, but it is expected. However, range can be increased if one uses an antenna.
I like this router. And it is affordable. Even though it is not the fastest router. I do not think it was its primary purpose. I think this router will be great for people who travel a lot.
Its has a great compact size for what it is supposed to do. And this router is full featured. DHCP static tables, port triggering, port forwarding. For example, i ran torrents on this thing without it freezing. some full size routers are not even capable of this. other routers i have used would at least require a reboot after a day or so of torrent usage but this thing putters along, not great, but pretty darn good.
so as a compact travel router with robust functions you cant go wrong. in my opinion it is better than the other compact linksys router has since that one does not have a switch for wired computers.
look if this is going to be your standalone home router. well i think you could do better. for the same price i also bought a no name mimo and its works just as well as the linksys but has much much better range.
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Easy to use and works very well, October 12, 2006
By user (Brazil)
I bought one and found it very easy to install and use.
The covered range is not a problem for me because I have a small space, but consider buying the high gain antenna if you have a bigger space.
It works better than my friend's ones.
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Everything I wanted., September 7, 2006
By user (rural Florida, USA)
Though I am an IT pro, I have never worked with WiFi. I had 3 problems setting up: 1) I couldn't access the setup utility in the router with it connected to another router, as I'd intended; 2) After that, I couldn't reach the Internet; 3) After that, I couldn't connect from my WiFi laptop.
1) was solved with a call to Linksys tech support, and a change of plan. The first person did not hesitate to connect me with a more knowledgeable person, when the problem exceeded him. That's rare! I decided not to chain the routers, just replace the old one. Solved.
2) was solved by another call to tech support and a download of an automated setup tool, which is also available on the Web site. Easy as pie!
3) was my own "Doh!" factor. I was filtering wireless access by MAC address, and had entered the address for the laptop's Ethernet adapter instead of the wireless adapter. Well, it's the first PC I've ever owned with two LAN adapters, after all!
SUMMARY: I stumbled over my own feet more than I should, and Linksys was there to pick me up. Getting faster wireless data rate than I'd expected and I can even work outside the house!
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Lasts one week - BAD FIRMWARE, August 27, 2006
By user (San Jos, Costa Rica)
I had a Belkink wireless and sell it to buy this one... bad choice... only four days I could use it. I've downloaded the latest firmware from Linksys webpage and didn't work.. the router freezes and is not working.
DO NOT UPGRADE THE FIRMWARE
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Disappointing, August 26, 2006
By user (Washington, DC)
I have had this unit for more than one year in two different locations and it has been more of a headache than it is worth. It will continuously drop its connections with every device ever connected to it (be it a laptop, PDA, or Tivo) and occassionally just stops working altogether (wired and wireless). The speed performance is also extremely disappointing - it is simply too slow for anything other than normal web surfing (which can become frustrating as the connection drops and reconnects at intervals ranging from one minute to an hour - undoubtedly disconnecting while making a small download or filling out a web form). Service calls to Linksys and firmware updates have been unsuccessful in solving the problem. While my problems with the router may be caused by the large number of other wireless networks in my apartment complex, it is, nonetheless, very frustrating - there are definitely more robust models on the market, and the small size of the unit doesn't make up for its poor performance.
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Failed me in Apartment and House, August 13, 2006
By user (Atlanta, GA)
Very poor range and barely makes it through more than a single wall. Configuration pages are buggy as well.
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Surprised with the advanced config and abilities of tiny router, August 7, 2006
By user (Los Angeles, CA USA)
I am very impressed with the WRT54GC - its a very compact wireless router which sports four additional wired ports. The advanced abilities of the configuration panel are impressive - various wireless security modalities, filtering, timed access, etc. The strength of the internal antennae appears fine for one or two room access; however, with purchasing the HGA7S you can boost it for an entire normal sized home. I use it also with the Linksys Range Booster and love the coverage overall. My only complaint is one echoed here - the technical support is horrible and often moronic - this appears to be the only flaw in my entire Linksys experience.
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instrinsically flawed design and moronic tech support, July 19, 2006
By user (Bloomington, IN USA)
The title of this review sounds like a cliche, but it is all true.
After had some bad experiences with dlink wireless (DI524) router, I decided to go with linksys, which turned out to be even a bigger mistake. At least the dlink router is still sort of working while the linksys died the day after I purchased it. Here are the highlights:
1. the shipped firmware is version 1.2.05, which limits the PPPoE (your DSL) username to 22 characters. With companies like SBC, this may not be enough to hold your username (mine is 24). So the only way to solve it is to upgrade the firmware to 1.2.08 which specifically targets this issue.
2. The upgrade of firmware is very fragil. I was upgrading the firmware and then all of the sudden the connection from my computer to the router dropped. Then the orange light started to blink and I realized the firmware upgrade failed.
3. According to the user's manual, a firmware upgrade failure can be recovered by using the tftp program and following the PDF instructions that "came together with your downloaded firmware"... but there was no tftp.exe, nor any instructions. I finally found their tftp.exe from linksys FTP site, and tried, but it didn't work at all.
4. Linksys tech support is the worst. Most tech are foreigners and with heavy accents. the line is very busy and I was put on hold for 45 minutes before getting served. After the lady who answered the phone made me repeat my name, address and phone number and router model three times (she kept getting the numbers wrong), she started me with a census 2006 survey: Do you use DSL or cable modem, how many computers do you have, do they use windows etc. so I told her I am not here waiting for 40 minutes to do a survey.
5. After telling her what happened, she kept asking about my modem. Asking about the IP of my DSL modem. I told her, the modem is not even in the picture. it was just my computer and the router, and I didn't even have the modem connected, but she insisted that the information would help her diagnose the problem. so obviously she had no clue what was going on. So I told her why didn't she ask me about the year and make of my car.
6. Finally she gave up and started me on the the problem. She told me to poke the reset hole for 30 seconds (their manual says 8 seconds, go figure) which didn't make any difference. Then she asked me to ping the router (the user's manual had a troubleshooting section which briefly told me how to setup a static IP on my computer in order to tftp the firmware to it, I followed it, but didn't work). So i told her, the router was not functioning because ping gets request timed out all the time, but she told me to do that for 30 seconds, saying it might work...
7. 20 minutes after my phone was answered (so i have been on the line for an hour), she finally said, based on the information you gave me and the diagnosis I asked you to do, I believe your router is broken and you should have it exchanged. Oh, great piece of information! Why didn't I figure it out?
8. so I took it back to the store for a refund. Does anyone make a decent working home-use 802.11g router anymore? I thought cisco would be a better choice but obviously i was wrong...
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Works great, but quality control missed something, July 2, 2006
By user (Los Angeles, CA United States)
The router works great for what it is, a compact travel router. I use it at hotels to set up a wireless network.
I did notice that a corner of the product was not snapped into place, and i haven't been able to snap it in myself. I wish quality Control would have caught it. This does not affect performance.
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Not overly impressed, June 30, 2006
By user
The unit does what it's supposed to and for a non tech person it was easy enough to set up but there was some problems getting the correct configuration initiqally which was very frustrating. I had a standard ADSL modem supplied by the provider and then decided to "upgrade". I never had connection problems with the ADSL modem, now I get disconnected continuously and have to reconnect or reboot my PC. I would not recommend this product, there are a lot of good networking products out there, this is not one of them.
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Good wireless router, but wished it had stronger signal strength, June 29, 2006
By user (Rye NY)
Relatively easy to setup, but I did need to contact Tech support in order to get the default password - poor documentation I think. I have installed many wireless routers and I almost always have to contact tech support for assistance.
Anyway this router works well in my home network, but the signal strength seems weak, maybe I overlooked something or maybe I just need to contact tech support for guidance.
Also this router comes packed with a lot of functionality almosgt as much as those commercial Cisco router
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Quite good, June 27, 2006
By user
Pro:
- enough range to cover a 1400 sq/ft townhouse on 3 floors (no antenna)
- easy setup
- tons of options including MAC spoofing and filtering
- supports AES and TKIP encryption
- extremely reliable
Cons:
- WEP is hex only (I don't care as I use WPA)
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