Need help getting Linksys WRT54G & eircom Netopia routers to connect wirelessly!

aidan_dunne

Howdy folks, hoping some of the wireless gurus in here might be able to help me with this one!

Here's the setup:

Main PC (we'll call Rig1, for arguments sake) has eircom's Netopia broadband modem/wireless router attached via ethernet cable. All is working fine and dandy there.

Second PC (Rig2) in another room has a Linksys WRT54G wireless router attached via ethernet cable as well.

What I'm trying to do (and has me pulling my hair out in frustration at this stage! :mad: ) is get the Linksys router to connect wirelessly to the Netopia one so I can also use the broadband on Rig2.

I've tried loads of different things at this stage and I just can't get the Linksys router to connect wirelessly with the Netopia and it's driving me mad. I set the Linksys router using the same SSID as the Netopia one, put them on the same channel, enabled DHCP, set the Linksys as a router instead as a gateway as suggested on the settings page, made sure it has the same WPA Pre-Shared Key as the Netopia one. From what I can see, I *should* have it all setup properly and it should be finding the Netopia router no problem and then be able to use the broadband connection but it's not. There must be something I'm missing or doing wrong.

My laptop with in-built wireless connects perfectly to the Netopia router and can use the broadband connection no bother so it's not the Netopia's settings. As far as I can see, it's an issue with the way the Linksys router on Rig2 is setup that it can't connect wirelessly to the Netopia. How should I go about doing this or what settings am I missing or have I overlooked? Or is it just a case that the Linksys can't wirelessly connect to another router and access broadband that way and that it needs to be the main router, connected directly to the broadband modem, and then shares out the connection to other wireless devices?

Please help as this is driving me crazy at the stage.

P.S. Before anyone mentions it, there isn't an issue with wireless range or strength either. It's in range with nothing solid to get in the way. It just won't connect to the Netopia router wirelessly because of some setting I must have wrong somewhere, I reckon.

arseagon

To connect to the Netopia, you would have to be able to set the Linksys wireless settings to client mode. After looking at the Linksys settings I don't believe this is possible on the WRT54G however I've never used one of them so maybe others on here know if it can operate in that mode. Would you not be better off to get a wireless card for the 2nd Pc and use that?

dub45

aidan_dunne wrote:

Howdy folks, hoping some of the wireless gurus in here might be able to help me with this one!
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, How should I go about doing this or what settings am I missing or have I overlooked? Or is it just a case that the Linksys can't wirelessly connect to another router and access broadband that way and that it needs to be the main router, connected directly to the broadband modem, and then shares out the connection to other wireless devices?

Please help as this is driving me crazy at the stage.

.

The answer to the question above is Yes the linksys is just not designed for what you want it to do. Sell the linksys and buy a wireless card for the other pc and save your sanity!!

Smellyirishman

If you're stuck with the WRT54G then it is possible to do this with third party firmware, although I can't remember where you can get it atm.

dub45

Smellyirishman wrote:

If you're stuck with the WRT54G then it is possible to do this with third party firmware, although I can't remember where you can get it atm.

Maybe this might help?

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3562391

Smellyirishman

That'll do.

*hugs his WRT54G*

koloughlin

If you put the openwrt firmware on your router (it's a bit of work, but well worth the effort) you can put it in client mode http://wiki.openwrt.org/ClientModeHowto and http://wiki.openwrt.org/WirelessBridgeWithWPAHowto

Like the previous posters said

stanley1

Or you could go here, lightweight and highly adaptable.

http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato

stanley1

whichever firmware you choose make sure you do a hard reset on router via pinhole on back before you apply bin file.

aidan_dunne

Thanks for all the replies, folks. Alot of reading and playing around with firmwares and stuff ahead of me there, from the looks of things!

Been messing around with this again all evening and, sure enough, as I suspected in the begining it can't do what I want it to do straight out of the box, as dub45 said. Seems the only way to get it working as a client or whatever is by messing with the firmware and then setting it up that way as ye all suggested.

As for the option of buying a wireless network card, well, guess what? I actually have a Linksys WMP54G wireless network card (bought the 2 together at the same time) that I took out of Rig1 as I had no real use for it anymore in the machine seeing as I have the Netopia wired to it now (I've had it disabled since I got the broadband in anyway).

Now, here's the thing. I threw it into Rig2, installed it, configured it to connect to the Netopia router so I could use the broadband and everything seemed to work okay. "At last! Thank f**k for that!", I thought to myself! However, things are never as easy as that, are they? :rolleyes:

Now Rig2 keeps rebooting at random intervals. I thought at first there might have been a conflict with the 10/100 network card already installed in the machine so I disabled that. No joy. Tried booting the machine with the wireless card disabled, and then enabled it after a few minutes once the machine was fully booted and loaded. It seemed to be okay, I was surfing the net on the machine at a grand speed but then the same thing happened after about 10 minutes, the PC just rebooted all on it's own! :mad:

I've tried a few different other things with it at this stage and I'm starting to think that it's actually down to the 'Monitor' software the Linksys CD installs (you know, that green icon thingy in the taskbar) that's causing these random reboots. Or could it be I was unlucky and just got a dodgy card from Komplett? Anyone else ever have any similar problems with one of these cards or with that 'Monitor' thing (By the way, this is on a Win2K machine)? I'm surprised because I did a fair bit of research and reading up on this Linksys gear before I bought and it seemed as if it was some of the best, if not the best, wireless stuff around so that's why I paid the extra money for "the good stuff", so to speak!

I think I might just get one of the basic, cheap wireless cards from Marx Computers or something and put it into Rig2 and see if that works without causing any reboots, what do ye all think? For the sake of 30 quid or whatever just to try and see if I can get some sort of wireless reception but which, more importantly, doesn't mess up the computer or cause random reboots.

I'm just really píssed off with myself now after having spent all that extra money on the Linksys gear, thinking I was buying good stuff, only to end up getting bitten in the arse like this! lol.

TimTim

Put DD-WRT firmware on your wrt54g and when that is done

Login to the admin page -> Wireless -> Set the mode to: Client and fill in your wireless settings from the netopia and your done!

dub45

aidan_dunne wrote:

Thanks for all the replies, folks. Alot of reading and playing around with firmwares and stuff ahead of me there, from the looks of things!

...................................

I'm just really píssed off with myself now after having spent all that extra money on the Linksys gear, thinking I was buying good stuff, only to end up getting bitten in the arse like this! lol.

Well the basic reason for being bitten is that you bought a product not intended or sold for the purpose you wanted - its that simple!

Now as regards the wmp54g - constant shut downs sound like a driver problem. Have you got any messages at all from windows when the computer restarts after any of these shut downs?

Before spending any more money I would try a completely new install of the card. Uninstall the driver remove the card and do a completely fresh install - turn off temporarily any anti virus software you might have running during the install.

Have a look at the linksys product page here: http://www-ie.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=IE%2FLayout&cid=1138744842360&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=4236021035B28

It might have a more up to date driver than what you have also these reviews suggest that the card can be problematic but none report the probles you are having. http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Reviews.asp?ProductID=495

aidan_dunne

dub45 wrote:

Well the basic reason for being bitten is that you bought a product not intended or sold for the purpose you wanted - its that simple!

Well, originally I bought the router (around September or October 2005) because I had a couple of machines in one room right beside one another which I wanted to hook up to the network via CAT5 cables to the ethernet ports on the router (which I did) and also be able to let them share my dial-up connection wirelessly with my main rig (Rig1 mentioned above, which had the network card installed in it as I mentioned and was the gateway for the other machines) which is in my bedroom where the phone line is. I also had my laptop setup to share the dial-up connection wirelessly too so I could use it anywhere in the house as well. Apart from the occasional small problem, on the whole the setup worked pretty well.

I figured that if and when I finally got broadband (which I did a couple of months ago), I could then continue to do the same thing only this time utilising the wireless capability of the Linksys router to connect to the Netopia router and share the broadband with all the machines, just as I had been doing with the dial-up connection. Despite doing some research and looking at lots of reviews and things before buying it (the majority of which were highly in favour of the Linksys range, hence my reason for buying this brand), I didn't come across anything anywhere that mentioned the Linksys router couldn't be setup that way, as a client which could connect wirelessly to another router. I had seen similar setups working for other people with other routers, I assumed it would be pretty much the same with mine. Guess I was way off the mark, eh? :rolleyes:

Though, seeing as there is firmware out there and ways of setting up the router in order to make it capable to perform in this way (as posted by other users already in this thread) it shows that the router is capable of doing this but Linksys just don't include the option to have the router act this way in it's own firmware or they disable it in some way. I guess having seen other people's routers operating in a similar way, as I said, I thought Linksys would also have an option to setup this router the same way should I want to. I didn't know they disabled that facility.

dub45 wrote:

Now as regards the wmp54g - constant shut downs sound like a driver problem. Have you got any messages at all from windows when the computer restarts after any of these shut downs?

Before spending any more money I would try a completely new install of the card. Uninstall the driver remove the card and do a completely fresh install - turn off temporarily any anti virus software you might have running during the install.

Have a look at the linksys product page here: http://www-ie.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=IE%2FLayout&cid=1138744842360&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=4236021035B28

It might have a more up to date driver than what you have also these reviews suggest that the card can be problematic but none report the probles you are having. http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Reviews.asp?ProductID=495

Nope, no messages or blue screens or anything show up when the PC reboots...... and God knows I've been watching out for them, just in case! Screen just goes blank, PC reboots, Windows starts up as normal and, after that, it's anyone's guess when the thing will reboot again out of the blue. It can be within a few seconds of Windows loading, it can be 15 or 20 minutes (I don't think it's stayed on longer than about 20 minutes before rebooting, though). It seems completely random.

I've tried shutting down all programs that load into memory at startup so they don't load up, even did it one by one to try an eliminate if one in particular was causing it (like yourself, I thought maybe the anti-virus or firewall or some other program might have been causing a conflict or something). No joy. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling several times, taking the card in and out of it's slot, it's the same all the time.

As you say, the only other thing possibly left is seeing if there's a newer driver available that might make it work, though I'm fairly sure it's the newest driver I have anyway but I will check the website tomorrow maybe when I get a chance. It's funny, though, the thing worked fine in my main rig which is running XP.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions anyway. Hopefully, as you say, it might just need a new driver or something. And I'm not going to ditch the router yet, either, I might give those firmwares and setups people here posted a go at some stage when I have more time.

Cheers folks! Night night!

dub45

aidan_dunne wrote:

Well, originally I bought the router (around September or October 2005) because I had a couple of machines in one room right beside one another which I wanted to hook up to the network via CAT5 cables to the ethernet ports on the router (which I did) and also be able to let them share my dial-up connection wirelessly with my main rig (Rig1 mentioned above, which had the network card installed in it as I mentioned and was the gateway for the other machines) which is in my bedroom where the phone line is. I also had my laptop setup to share the dial-up connection wirelessly too so I could use it anywhere in the house as well. Apart from the occasional small problem, on the whole the setup worked pretty well.

I figured that if and when I finally got broadband (which I did a couple of months ago), I could then continue to do the same thing only this time utilising the wireless capability of the Linksys router to connect to the Netopia router and share the broadband with all the machines, just as I had been doing with the dial-up connection. Despite doing some research and looking at lots of reviews and things before buying it (the majority of which were highly in favour of the Linksys range, hence my reason for buying this brand), I didn't come across anything anywhere that mentioned the Linksys router couldn't be setup that way, as a client which could connect wirelessly to another router. I had seen similar setups working for other people with other routers, I assumed it would be pretty much the same with mine. Guess I was way off the mark, eh? :rolleyes:

Though, seeing as there is firmware out there and ways of setting up the router in order to make it capable to perform in this way (as posted by other users already in this thread) it shows that the router is capable of doing this but Linksys just don't include the option to have the router act this way in it's own firmware or they disable it in some way. I guess having seen other people's routers operating in a similar way, as I said, I thought Linksys would also have an option to setup this router the same way should I want to. I didn't know they disabled that facility.

I doubt very much if you have seen other routers doing what you claim because as I said above they are not sold for this purpose nor is the linksys nor do Linksys 'disable' it - the third party software offers it as an option. CD players cant play lps for example but cd player manufacturers dont announce this. In fact products non abilities are not generally listed!

The linksys in question appears ironically enough to offer more versatility than most other routers but it is because of third party software - so you bought the right model but not because of its capabilities out of the box because of its potential:)

stanley1

Linksys drivers for this card are a bit ropey, I ended up using zero wireless configuration ie xp inbuilt drivers, works flawlessly.

humaxf1

hi stanley1,

If a wtr54g is flashed with tomato, can it be reverted back to linksys firmware?

Have you any experience of using tomato?

thx

stanley1

I have Tomato installed on a Linksys WRT54GL and a Buffalo WRT-HP-G54, both routers are working absolutely fine and i have had no need to reboot either in the past 4 months. Have a look at the link below, it mentions what versions of your router which are supported for Tomato 1.06.


http://www.polarcloud.com/tomatofaq

aidan_dunne

dub45 wrote:

I doubt very much if you have seen other routers doing what you claim because as I said above they are not sold for this purpose nor is the linksys nor do Linksys 'disable' it - the third party software offers it as an option. CD players cant play lps for example but cd player manufacturers dont announce this. In fact products non abilities are not generally listed!

The linksys in question appears ironically enough to offer more versatility than most other routers but it is because of third party software - so you bought the right model but not because of its capabilities out of the box because of its potential:)

Well, sorry to contradict you, but I have seen a router setup in the way I suggested! Saw a friend's setup once where he had an eircom Netopia wireless router in the kitchen connected directly into the phone line and his PC there. Upstairs his housemate had a D-Link, I think it was, wireless router into which he had his PC and a laptop connected via the ethernet ports on the router and it was wirelessly connected to the Netopia downstairs sharing the eircom broadband connection.

Having seen that setup I thought I'd be able to do the same with my Linksys gear without much effort but I guess not unless you start messing with firmwares and stuff.

I also would like an answer to Humax's question as to whether you can revert back to Linksys' firmware should you need to for some reason after flashing it with some of the other firmwares mentioned earlier. Just in case, you know? Cheers!

aidan_dunne

Just a quick update on this for those of you who may be interested! Downloaded some newer drivers this evening for the WMP54G wireless network card and all seems to be working fine now. No random reboots or any other weird problems to report, thank God. Seems the drivers that came on the installation CD weren't the best, shall we say, and the ones I downloaded were better.

I'm going to hold onto the router all the same (always good to have a backup, I suppose! ) and do some playing around with it and the firmwares some people suggested earlier in this thread when I get a chance sometime.

Just want to say a quick thanks to everybody who posted in this thread for all your comments, suggestions and advice. It was a huge help. Cheers!