[vox-tech] Router annoyances (again!)

[Michael Wenk]

Ken Bloom wrote:
> Routers can be finicky, and frequently require magic incantations to
> make the internet work.

This is very very true.

> Your router is a WRT54G, and most of those support customized Linux
> firmware in some way or another. Tomoto is just one such distribution.
> I looked on the site for dd-wrt (http://dd-wrt.com/ another such
> distribution) and your router is supported, but there are special
> instructions
> http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_To_Flash_the_WRT54Gv8&oldid=26725 (the wiki page is currently vandalized, and I don't have a login to fix it, so you have to go to the history, which is what I've linked you to. Maybe, you'll fix it?)

In my experience, even switching firmware does not fix the problem. 
However, I have a netgear router, and he has linksys, so YMMV.

What ends up happening is:

1) It stops working.  No real reason.  You go into the router controls 
and soft restarts don't work.  The only way out is a power cycle.
2) I've tried new versions of firmware, both from the vendor, and also 
the alternatives: openwrt, dd-wrt, have not tried tomato because my 
router wasn't supported.  Sometimes this seems to help.  Sometimes not.
3) Overtime #1 happens more frequently.  Eventually I'm power cycling 
multiple times a day.
4) At #3, I usually get sick of it and spend money and get a new router 
and start the cycle over.
5) I let my ASUS WL-500g continue, and after a day or two of constantly 
power cycling it to get an hour or two of online time, it refused to 
come up at all.

I've also tried using the warranty, and I was told that it still worked 
and wasn't subject to warranty repair, and on the one that died, it died 
in month 14 of a 12 month warranty.

I'm on my 4th router now, seems to be going good, but I know after a 
time it will die.

I've given up, and I guess that's what I'd advise you to do.  I taught 
my gf to power cycle the router if the network goes down, and to direct 
her anger at the router itself.   And we budget 50-60$ for a new one 
every 16-20 months or so.

Mike