Will DD-WRT fix dropped connectivity every 2 days on my WRT54G?

[Stattlich]

Yeah, so the title and summary... sums it up pretty well. Will a DD-WRT (?) upgrade solve this problem or do I have a hardware issue? I bought this unit a few months ago as a refurb from Fry's. Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[radioouman]

ARe you running one of the release candidates of DD-WRT or the lastest stable version? For stability I recommend v23 SP3 but for features I recommend v24 RC5 (not 6!)

EDIT: Oops... I misread the topic.... nevermind,.

 

[JackMDS]

You will not Know until you try.

You can avoid the suspense by buying a good SOHO Appliance Router for few hundred $$$.

Or you ease up the heavy p2p.

 

[zig3695]

i was using DDWRT on my wrtsl54g but i switched to tomato- its even better then ddwrt imo

 

[Madwand1]

Even if it doesn't directly solve the problem, it might give you a workaround through its scheduled re-boot feature.

 

[Garster]

DD-WRT fixed my WRT54GS wireless router, i was rebooting it almost daily. You need to check the verson # on the router if using DD-WRT, V5 and up require a striped down firmware because of less available memory on the newer routers. It will also give you many more options to fine tune your network

 

[GregGreen]

Originally posted by: zig3695
i was using DDWRT on my wrtsl54g but i switched to tomato- its even better then ddwrt imo

Agreed. Was running DD-WRT on my Buffalo router but it still needed to be rebooted daily so I switched to tomato and now have many months of uptime. Only at 1 month now though, had to unplug it when I moved some stuff around :/

 

[Madwand1]

Note: Most WRT54G and WRT54GS (not WRT54GL) sold in stores right now are the v5.0+ variety and will not work with Tomato.

http://www.polarcloud.com/toma...#what_will_this_run_on

 

[Stattlich]

Thanks for all the responses, folks- I hadn't even heard of Tomato yet. Sounds like there's a chance, but I'm at work and don't know my router version off-hand. Will check it out tonight and play around with this more over the weekend.

Jack- I'd love to have a nice Cisco SoHo rig for a few hundred bucks and have seen a few that caught my eye. But for just a basic wireless-G network for my wife and I at home, it's a little overkill. The WRT54G is great (if it would stay up) for what we need at this time. Our personal IT budget is in replacing her old HP desktop with a new HP mobile workstation this Spring anyway.

 

[JackMDS]

Stattlich I was just kidding a little.

My experience shows that flashing few of the WRT54L models (by now there 8 of them) with either DD-WRT or the Tomato does not fix the Router it just adds features. However some times in some models it does provide relief. That is why I said that there is No way to know unless you try.

Actually with most of the Entry Level Router is a good idea to switch them Off every day for few minutes. They tend to accumulate garbage in their puny memory, switching them off for few minutes cleans up the memory.

 

[Stattlich]

Thanks, Jack.

Well, it turns out I've got v.5 of this model which nobody supports 3rd party yet and I've checked them all (Tomato, DD-WRT, FreeWRT, HyperWRT (official), HyperWRT Thibor, OpenWRT, Tarifa and X-Wrt ). Now it's time to decide whether my wife and I have the patience to unplug the power to this thing on a daily basis to keep it operational or get a slick new model. Our iPhones could use a tad more range in our new home anyway. Hrmm...

Thank you all for your advice- if I had an older version than 5, I would have given this a shot.

 

[Madwand1]

DD-WRT support v5 and higher, but only in limited "micro" builds.

Another option is to get a programmable power timer, and program it to power cycle the router overnight at some time. I've got one built into a power bar which could do this.

 

[Eos]

You might be able to sell your v5 router and get one that supports 3rd party firmware. The idea to restart it using a timer is good.

Here is my uptime on a WRT54GL, not including a restart 50 days into this period to test Charter's idea that the router and modem were slowing down my usenet access:

uptime

HEAVY p2p usage as well. Over 2tb of transfer in the last 7 months on this connection.

 

[radioouman]

Originally posted by: eos
You might be able to sell your v5 router and get one that supports 3rd party firmware. The idea to restart it using a timer is good.

Here is my uptime on a WRT54GL, not including a restart 50 days into this period to test Charter's idea that the router and modem were slowing down my usenet access:

uptime

HEAVY p2p usage as well. Over 2tb of transfer in the last 7 months on this connection.

That's typical of mine too. I have the WRT54GL with DD-WRT v23 SP2 and I never have to touch the thing, and I am almost always downloading torrents.

 

[simpsons]

some had troble with downloading torrent and slow down on internet. is it true with wrt54GL (put it as hard wired)

 

[rasczak]

OP, do you have anything stacked on top of your router? anything that could be causing it to overheat? If so you may want to give it more breathing room.