Problems using wrt54g

Jock

Jock

Jock

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Darlington
So i finally got hold of a wireless router as my wife has been asking for one for some time.

Now i dont know if im being thick or not but im a bit stumped. My last router simply had a connection that ran to the phone line and another to the computer.

With this one its telling me to connect to a modem, then the computer, so does that mean i need to buy a modem too? Thing is the internet connection on the rear will only take a proper ethernet connection whereas the last router the slot was smaller and it used a simple phone line connection, so i'm not sure how to connect it all together.

If anyone could help it would be great.
 
did you buy an Adsl router or a router?

If you have virgin (cable) then you just need a router but if you get your internet from someone like BT then you need an ADSL modem/Router!

Just googled the model and it's a router!
 
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I've no idea if its adsl or not, how can i find out. All i know is i told people i needed a wireless router because my wife wants to connect to the internet on her laptop and they recommended i get a wrt54g so i did.

We dont have cable, its just a normal bt line.
 
yeah ya got a cable router.i take it ya have BT :O

take it back to the shop and see if they will swap.

so ya need as said an

ADSL modem router.

you have BT i suppose
 
With your BT was it a one port router or 4 port (did it have one Network port?) i think you can connect the single network port on you BT router to the WAN port ot the wrt54g. I could be wrong as i have never used BT.
 
Got it off o ebay so cant really send it back unfortunately.

As another option then can i set it up in tandem with my current wired router which works fine, so i just use the wireless side of it? Or is it the wrong type for that too?
 
Well gave it a quick shot but i dont have a clue what i'm doing and it didnt work. I'll maybe need to rake around google see if i can get a guide or something.

Is the WAN connection, the one labelled internet?
 
Yeha thats the one, you may have to enter some settings so that it can be used with your BT modem. Im sure its possible but i dont know the settings/setup you have to do for it to work woth BT, either serach google, or wait for a more experienced person on here :p
 
theres a few things you might need to do to get this working:

1) on any PC connected to your BT router, press the win-key and R on the keyboard to open the run command. in there type cmd and press enter. in the black screen that opens (command prompt) type ipconfig /all . This will list all your current network settings. find one that says default gateway and jot this down. should look like 192.168.0.1 or similar.

2) just plug an ethernet cable in from your PC to one of the 4 ports of the wrt54g (NOT the wan port). You don't need anything else connected (bar power obviously)

3) on your PC open a web browser and type in either http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1, one of these will prompt you for a username and password which I believe should be username: <leave blank> password: admin

4) you'll need to disable DHCP. I'm not sure what option it's under as it's been a while since i've seen this router's firmware. DHCP is what assigns an IP to each of your PC's that connect to it, with this disabled on the wrt54g it will force the BT router to assign IP's instead and avoid any conflicts.

5) You might need to change the routers IP address depending on what IP address your BT router is using. The Default Gateway address you jotted down in step 1 is the IP of your BT router, so you need to make sure the wrt54g is set to something different (if the BT is 192.168.0.1 then set the wrt54g to 192.168.0.2 etc). Again not sure where this option is but I would imagine under basic setup or similar? You may need to restart the router after doing this.

NOTE: once you change this address you'll need to log into it by using http://192.168.0.2 or what ever you set it to instead.

6) Now you can connect the ethernet port of your BT wired router to one of the 4 ports of the wrt54g (NOT the WAN port)

That should get the wrt54g working on your network using your BT router as the main connection to the internet. From there you should be able to setup the wireless on the wrt54g easily by using the web-based interface (navigate to http://<insert IP address>)

Hope this helps :)
 
Thanks very much for the info, I'll give it a try tommorow and let you know how i get on but having read through that i think i should be able to do it.

My existing router is another linksys although one that doesnt do wireless, not a bt but i dont imagone that changes anything from your guide so i'll give it a bash.

Thanks very much.
 
Can you not load DD-WRT on it and set it in access point mode then simply plug it into your existing router?
 
Maybe a stupid question but how would you go about installing dd-wrt onto a router. Because if its as simple as plugging it into my existing router, i'm all for that. Without using that, ive found some instructions online but they look a bit complicated especially when i'm unsure what i'm doing.
 
you just need to download hte dd-wrt firmware for your router, log into the routers config page and then select update firmware. you then browse your PC to the dd-wrt bin file and flash it
 
Is it a new router the WRt54g ?

If its new then take it back and exchange it for an adsl one. There are 2 types of routers. Cable and ADSL - Cable being for Virgin and ADSL being for just about everyone else..

Pointless having 2 routers when you can just take it back and exchange it for an ADSL one..
 
There are two ways to tackle this...

Non technical way.
Buy a ADSL router (comes with internal ADSL modem -this is what you're missing)
Sell the WRT54G on


Technical way
Buy an AM200 ADSL modem (linksys make it) and connect that up to your router after configuring the modem. -Downside to this, it uses two plugs, so more power.


Tbh, I'd just go with the single unit option
 
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