I've seen a few posts here recently talking about these. I wanted to see what they were just out of interest. I read the documentations, but I still haven't found answers to a few questions. I have a Linksys WRT54G v2.2 router, and it's connected to a non-branded modem which connects to the wall. I have a 1Mbit/512kbit connection. The router I have should, according to the documentation, work flawlessly with both of the custom firmware versions. I have the following problems with my current setup (stock Linksys firmware on the router): - If I connect more than one wireless device to it simultaneously, it'll start dropping connections all the time. Particularly with my PCI wireless card in this computer, that's why I'm using wired currently. - When I do P2P with torrents, I lose very much speed in internet browsing, particularly with other computers in the network. Before you say anything about patching tcpip.sys, I'll say I've done it already. No more 4226 errors in event viewer and speed improved greatly, but it's still slow. - When I'm running torrents, in the start I get decent speeds, but after a while the program starts loosing the connections and stop downloading from the seeds. And after a few hours it has lost nearly all connections and basically not downloading or seeding at all. - The router can't handle more than about 60 simultaneous connections without getting extremely slow. - Sometimes, with some files I'm downloading, it just stops at some point. Doesn't matter what I do but it will never finish that file. Not with another browser, neither with another computer on the same connection. - QoS does not work at all. All torrent things happen on well seeded torrents so there are no problems in the torrents themselves. So, basically, I'm asking if updating to either DD-WRT or OpenWRT would solve any of these problems. Also, I've not quite understood why to upgrade to either of them. Could somebody please enlighten me? And would updating in my case be worth it? And also: Which one should I use? I'm currently going towards DD-WRT as it was originally developed for this particular router. Thanks for reading this rather long post, and TIA for you input!
So, let me get this clear. All those problems you describe are with stock linksys firmware? And you're considering dd-wrt or openwrt to solve them? I'm a heavy DD-WRT user, i have several routers running it. I recommend anyone who has a supported router to use it. DD-WRT should solve all the problems you describe. The QoS works great on my WRT-350N. Not sure how effective it would be on a WRT54G as it is a much slower device. Just try it. You'll be amazed with all the new features it adds.
^ this, but try capping your maximum upload speed in your Torrent program too. It just needs to be capped to a little under your max, so if your max upload speed is 100kb/sec, cap it to 90kb/sec.
Yes, that is right. Wow, I think I will do it then! Well the thing is that I'm not even downloading fast at all. Only like 10kbps, even though there are tons of seeds, and other people get very high download speeds of the same torrent. ----- Okay then, the installation guide on the DD-WRT wiki says that I should upgrade to the latest Linksys firmware before upgrading to DD-WRT. Should I start with that then? Do I have to do any resets or such when upgrading to the newest Linksys one, or is it just "upgrade and done"? HMM, I never ever thought about saying this... but I'd rather have two ethernet ports on my mobo in this case! (one going to my modem for internet access and the other one to the router)
Yeah, but you're capping the upload , not download. you have to acknowledge requests so if your upstream pipe gets 'clogged' with torrent data you can't send ACK packets fast enough (sorry for the Ted Stevens explanation) to get more downstream packets. Yes, and then power off and on after the upgrade is finished to make sure it boots properly. Why? What's wrong with the internet connection being shared to you by the router as its intended to?
Hmm, I misread your post. Sorry about that. Your advice actually works! Feels a lot faster now when I limited my upload! EDIT: Man, now even all my torrents download as fast as with other people! OMG you're the man, thank you! I'm just wondering why I never thought about doing that myself. EDIT2: Meh, too early alert... Now it's back to the normal shite again... This is just what I mean, it finds a good connection sometimes, but in a minute it has dropped it already. Okay, thanks. Because my computer is in another room than the router, and updating to DD-WRT involves many resets and stuff so I'd rather have it here in this room. And also I still want internet access (through the modem) when I'm updating. So if I had two ethernet ports, one would have a 10 meter cable going to the modem, and the second one would have a shorter one to the router (when I'm updating). Currently the 10m cable is going to the router and a very short (20cm) cable goes from it to the modem. Now if I update when I only have one ethernet port, I'll have to constantly switch between the cables.
Using DD-WRT on a WRT54G V1.1 and QoS is poor. Internet is sometimes unusably slow when torrenting. The really annoying bit is that it's intermittent, sometimes it's okay, and other times its broke, so I haven't be able to trace the problem yet. I've got a really old version of DD-WRT though (v23 SP2).
Upgrade to V24 SP1. See if that helps. mm vr: Give DD-WRT a try. The device should reboot itself automatically. Don't think it matters what linksys firmware you're running now. Just flash the right image, give it time to do it's thing and you're done. Then visit it at http://192.168.1.1 and it will prompt you to set a password. I really see no reason why not to give it a go. Even if you're not happy with it, you can revert back to the linksys firmware simply by uploading the image in the same way.
I once tried to upgrade my linksys firmware to a custom one and it got bricked half-way through. If it goes wrong - be sure you understand that the router will be a big paper weight after. Just be sure the firmware works properly and its compatible...I had to shell out £80ish pounds for my netgear (im glad i did, the linksys was a piece of crap, dropped connections, slow speeds....just horrible) Anyways, I hope it works out for you mate,
Hmm I was thinking about the risks, but reading those guides there and replies here I thought it wasn't a too big risk and that it was possible to recover from a bad flash with relative ease. So that is not the case, is it?
I have never had any problems flashing any routers (4) with any firmware (openwrt and dd-wrt), just follow the instructions as written and it will be fine.
Well the instructions tell me to first flash to the newest Linksys firmware... And busterboo tells it's okay to go straight to DD-RWT.
Whatever you do, don't go from open-wrt to dd-wrt. You get to become an expert in debricking after that. Though I haven't had a router yet I couldn't get back to life.
