Refurb WRT54GS Wrls G Sb Router No Rtns

by Cisco

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000UJHD24
• Item model number: WRT54GS-RM
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,092 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 18, 2006

Product Description

It is a 128-bit industrial-strength encryption

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Misstakes made, March 5, 2010

By 

Eugene Harry Harless - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Refurb WRT54GS Wrls G Sb Router No Rtns (Personal Computers)

Recently I sent to you a letter about The Router that I bought from Electronics [...].
I said that I had to send the first one back because it didn't work and that the one they sent to me for replacement was bad also. Well this was not so. I had made a mistake in setting it up, so I wish to apologize in writing the letter and telling you that they had a bad product. I should have my head examined I guess. Any way the router is good and more than likely, the other one was good also.

Eugene Harless

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best deals around... if you have technical skills, May 15, 2010

By 

W. A. Norris (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Refurb WRT54GS Wrls G Sb Router No Rtns (Personal Computers)

As others have said, this comes in a box with no instructions for getting started. It comes with a CD, but to be honest, I never took it out of its sleeve. If the idea of opening a command line box to get something done makes you break out in a sweat, DO NOT BUY THIS ROUTER. There are lots of other routers out there that will come with friendly instructions and easy setup. Go buy one of those, and it will make you much happier.

If you're still reading, here's the deal: the best way to use this is to load third-party firmware on board. This requires a little bit of work and a modest amount of risk, but really isn't that hard if you're willing to follow a set of instructions for flashing a BIOS.

My background: I've installed graphics cards and things like that before, and I'm comfortable with a command line. I can set up a home network, but don't have a clue how to do "real" networking with Cisco routers and things like that. I found the process of setting this up relatively straightforward.

I had heard of DD-WRT and some of the other Linux versions that run on these routers, but never tried them. I decided to try out DD-WRT, so my first step was just to search online -- "DD-WRT WRT54GS" worked just fine. The DD-WRT website has fairly straightforward instructions, tailored to individual revisions of the 54GS -- mine was version 7.2, which is what most or all of these refurb models are, I think. They should come with at least 16MB of RAM and 2MB of flash -- which is enough to run DD-WRT okay -- but mine came with 16MB of flash, which gives you extra space you can use various ways. Also, some apparently come with 128MB of RAM.

The installation basically involved connecting a web browser to the router, then uploading new firmware that's designed to overwrite the onboard "VxWorks" software and allow you to transfer a new OS image via the command line using TFTP. After that was done, it was easy to access the DD-WRT configuration website, which was friendly, but allowed for detailed control over settings. DISCLAIMER: any time you flash new operating software on a device, there's a risk of bricking it. If you aren't comfortable with this risk, don't buy this router.

With this or another Linux distribution, you potentially have a whole bunch of options that a basic router won't give you. You can set up anything from a DNS server (to resolve domain names faster), to an SSH or telnet server, to a VPN, to load balancing. You can set up fine-grained control over your firewall. You can try overclocking the processor for faster operation. It has dual antennas, and typically gives you great connects.

At the moment, mine is pinch hitting to connect a desktop PC in my kitchen to my wifi, so I didn't have to run ethernet cable. Setup for this purpose was simple and fairly well documented on the DD-WRT website.

Overall, this is a great price for a solid piece of hardware. If you want to have more control over your router than a typical low-end consumer model would allow, and you're not afraid of a DIY-style setup procedure, this may be the router for you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!, October 5, 2008

By 

S. Modaresi (Rancho Palos Verdes,CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Refurb WRT54GS Wrls G Sb Router No Rtns (Personal Computers)

I have several routers like U.S robotics,zixel,netgear&,,,,,,

This is a head of all of them.specially if you have a big house,this is for you,you can connect external antenna to this router too!