Linksys WRT:To flash or not to flash...

[Shinare]

I just upgraded the network last weekend with a Linksys WRT and was wondering if anyone here has had any experiance flashing it with 3rd party images. I dont really need the signal boost which is what initially caught my eye. But are there other features you get with these 3rd party firmwares that you dont get with Linksys' own worth talking about?

Is it true you have to mod in an 80mm fan to cool them once you flash?

 

[InlineFive]

You flash any 3rd party firmware like the normal firmware from Linksys.

 

[Shinare]

Not really wonding how, but if I should do it. Not sure there would be very much benifit other than the signal increase which I dont need. And if I have to mod in a 80mm fan, then thats too much work, and I doubt it woul be taken back if anythign happened to it.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

if you do get hacked firmware, get sveasoft.

you don't have to mod it with a fan. that's only if you set the power higher than 100 or so because it'll be unstable and the packets will become corrupted. i have mine set to 48-50 and its great. other than the signal boost, you get the QoS which can prioritize different protocols (gnutella, ftp, http, bit torrent, etc) so it'll increase efficiency. mainly so your uploads (like bit torrent) won't interfere with other activities like web surfing or VOIP as much.

one of them has chilispot so you can set different accounts for people to log in to along with it being timed so it can terminate. you can have a hotspot and charge people for access.

besides that, its just a lot of stuff that network nerds would like, like static dhcp (you can reserve an ip address to your mac address), telnet/ssh access, vpn server, i think iptables, and other stuff.

 

[0roo0roo]

no fan

 

[Davegod75]

i'd wait for the the public [final] release of alchemy(sveasoft) ...look for it here http://slashdot.org/~TheIndividual/journal/

you don't need a fan

 

[madthumbs]

I'm using alchemy (free) with no problems. Signal boost helps my connection a bit. Tried HyperWRT or something like that.. had frequent router reboots as someone else reported.

 

[JvD]

If you load a new firmware into the WRT54G/GS do I have to manually configure all settings again or do the stay untuched? The increased signal strength, does it have an greate impact? Examples?
If so, I might want to try that firmware.

 

[madthumbs]

I have the wrt54g, didn't have to change settings, but I know it's advised to switch to default settings before flashing then set it all back up again.

I got a ~20% speed gain by raising xmit power from 28 to 64. I've read caution about raising it above that can cause overheating but haven't noticed any heat issue personally. Signal strength meter showed just above halfway mark in either case.

There are a lot of other excellent features including more port forwarding slots, and others I can't remember off hand.

 

[JvD]

Thanks, Ill try the latest alchemy firmware. *exited*

 

[beatle]

I tried Alchemy, Satori and HyperWRT yesterday. All of them would cause my connection to drop from IRC and AIM every few minutes. I'm hoping it was my inability to set something up properly. Linksys' new firmware has QoS, but no static dhcp.

 

[skyking]

alchemy's current beta release, pre7a, has a ton of features not found in stock firmware.
There are too many to list, but if you have a v1.0 or v2.0, you can set up port based vlans, and also seperate the wireless traffic from those vlans. It does not work in the v2.2 router, I tried it.
One fo the flakier aspects of the hardware/firmware in the early routers was the failure of the dhcp server. It would just arbritrarily quit reponding to requests, and the clients would run home to the old 169.254 address. Ironically, any machine that had a static IP was fine, all the other parts kept working.
The latest alchemy firmware addressed that with a restart routine.

 

[JackMDS]

The question is what feature do I actually going to use and it is only available by Flashing.

Many people Flash because it is consider as ??cool?? and actually do not need any of the additions.

:sun: