New WRT54G V4 - works great, should a update firmware?

Will I gain anything or should I leave well enough alone.

Thanks
Larry

"Larry Webb" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:NLAof.45435$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Will I gain anything or should I leave well enough alone.
>
> Thanks
> Larry

I can give you an example. I have the same router. I bought it a couple of
months ago after destroying my WRT54g Ver. 1 (or was it 1.1?). I tried to
put the DD-WRT firmware on it and found that I should have read the
instructions more than once To keep a long story short, while trying to
short across the 2 pins needed to "debrick" the thing I accidently shorted a
diode nearby on the circuit board. I picked up the ver. 4 at Best Buy and
flashed it with the correct DD-WRT and boosted my power up to 60mw. I had
some dead spots before the power boost and now those zones can connect fine.
Maybe someone can step in here and clarify how much of a boost is safe and
legal. I'm really not sure.

alien

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:08:29 GMT, Larry Webb
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Will I gain anything or should I leave well enough alone.

Do you mean update with the Linksys firmware or with alternative
firmware? (Hint: avoid ambiguity).

If Linksys, there should be a release notes with the latest firmware
update describing what changes were made and what has been fixed.

If alternative firmware, look at the feature list and see if there's
anything you need or want. I found the built in hotspot software,
PPTP VPN, and improved QoS to be rather useful.

http://wrt-wiki.bsr-clan.de/index.ph...9#Feature_List

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 17:07:17 GMT, "alien" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I picked up the ver. 4 at Best Buy and
>flashed it with the correct DD-WRT and boosted my power up to 60mw. I had
>some dead spots before the power boost and now those zones can connect fine.
>Maybe someone can step in here and clarify how much of a boost is safe and
>legal. I'm really not sure.

Well, strictly speaking, absolutely no modifications to the router
circuitry or RF sections is legal according to the FCC Part 15
rules-n-regs. About all you can legally do is replace the antenna,
but only with one of either the same type with equal or lesser gain,
or one that the manufacturer has bothered to type certify. So much
for the legal angle.

More interesting is what happens when you crank up the power output. I
haven't run any tests with a WRT54G to see what the spectra looks like
at various power levels. There was a page where someone posted some
really horrible (no graticule) spectrum analyzer photos, but I can't
find it again. As I recall, the spectra stayed fairly reasonable up
to about 80mw (+20dBm). Any more and the spectra looked awful and
possibly/probably/maybe cause problems.

Incidentally, I prefer to solve coverage problems with antennas rather
than boosting the transmit power, but I recognize that it's difficult
to resist the temptation to use maximum power if available.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558