Linksys WRT54GL - Forgetting settings?

[Zico]

I've got a Linksys WRT54GL (running latest stock Linksys firmware) installed at one of my father's rented houses.

The tenants called us last week and said that they had been without the internet for about 2 weeks (don't know why they didn't call sooner ).

I went round and had to re-apply the ISP username and password which it seemed to have forgotten. I also had to use the default admin/admin to log into the router (which I had changed at the very beginning of buying the router a few years ago - and also forgot to change before I left ).

I have had another call again today to say that they have no internet again (this time I can't go round to check) but I suspect that it may have forgotten/lost the settings yet again.

Is there any reason why the router would lose settings?

I am planning to put Tomato firmware back on again (had it on ages ago but took it off when the previous tenants couldn't seem to connect wirelessly at the time) when I get hold of the router.

 

[bremen1874]

I had a batch of Linksys routers that would just randomly reset themselves. If they did it twice I scrapped them. For the costs involved it wasn’t worth spending much time on them.

It's worth putting some sort of tamper seal over the reset button so you can tell if someone has been playing.

 

[Zico]

I don't believe that the tenants would be resetting it themselves.

If it's still within warranty (I bought two around the same time and one had a 2yr warranty, the other had 3yr) I may see if it's worth sending it back for repair/replacement.

 

[BloodyL]

For a moment I wondered whether your tenants are power-rangers (Do they turn everything off at the socket when not in use) but then I remembered that the wrt54gl saves its data in NVRAM so doesn't need a backup battery.

In that case my bets are on stuff already covered, dump the default linksys firmware for tomato and make sure that reset button isn't getting fouled somehow.