WRT54G - Puzzled

All,
I recently moved from a location where my router (wrt54g v2) was on the
second floor and computer on the first floor to a location where the router
and computer (uses wpc54g v1.1) are both in the basement, 12 ft from one
another, and only separated by one wooden wall; they are the only two
devices on the wireless network. Unlike the last installation, this is "G"
only - in my last house, I had a "B" device on the network as well.
All drivers/firmware are updated to latest. Updated the router from
1.42.2 to 2.02.4 after the move. I also changed the router's settings to
reflect the "G" only configuration (turned CTS off).
Here, unlike the old house, the devices settle at 18Mbps, pretty much
regardless of what the signal strength is (usually good), which tends to be
much better than the old house, where, even during "low" conditions, it
would be at 48 or 54 Mbps. It actually seems that autonegotiation is only
working one way - down; once it gets down, it does not seem to try to go
back up again. Any ideas as to why they settle on such a low speed? Is
there a know issue with the latest firmware, or does turning off "B" support
or not having a "B" device actually degrade the other links? Thanks in
advance.

Joe

The newest version of the firmware for the WRT54G is v2.04.4 that replaces
v2.04.3 that was released only a week earlier but led to a severe reduction
in range (v2.04.4 was released only a day after it was made, which is really
fast for Linksys). However, I do not recall any of the v2.02.x revisions
having that problem.

Have you tried moving the router upstairs? Maybe it's something about the
basement. You would not need to connect it to the internet via the WAN port
to find out if it works better there.

Do you have any other wireless devices (phone, intercom, etc.)?

Do any of your neighbors have wireless devices? Cordless phones are a major
pain since range is a major selling point and they can do a good job at
interfering with 802.11b/g networks. I still don't understand why consumer
802.11b/g wireless devices do not boast about their range -- only their
throughput.

I've got a v1.0 WRT54G running v2.04.4 and a v1.1 WPC54G. I'm using XP SP2
and everything seems to work properly. My main problem is that there are,
at times, around 6 other wireless networks in range and, every now and then,
all of them (including my router that is only a few feet away!) disappear
except for one called "default" that comes in strong. I suspect that it
must be one of those non-compliant 802.11g devices.

-Yves

"Joseph Sullivan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:2WJTc.145645$(E-Mail Removed)...
> All,
> I recently moved from a location where my router (wrt54g v2) was on the
> second floor and computer on the first floor to a location where the
> router
> and computer (uses wpc54g v1.1) are both in the basement, 12 ft from one
> another, and only separated by one wooden wall; they are the only two
> devices on the wireless network. Unlike the last installation, this is
> "G"
> only - in my last house, I had a "B" device on the network as well.
> All drivers/firmware are updated to latest. Updated the router from
> 1.42.2 to 2.02.4 after the move. I also changed the router's settings to
> reflect the "G" only configuration (turned CTS off).
> Here, unlike the old house, the devices settle at 18Mbps, pretty much
> regardless of what the signal strength is (usually good), which tends to
> be
> much better than the old house, where, even during "low" conditions, it
> would be at 48 or 54 Mbps. It actually seems that autonegotiation is only
> working one way - down; once it gets down, it does not seem to try to go
> back up again. Any ideas as to why they settle on such a low speed? Is
> there a know issue with the latest firmware, or does turning off "B"
> support
> or not having a "B" device actually degrade the other links? Thanks in
> advance.
>
> Joe
>
>