Our old workhorse Linksys BEFW11S4, which was already second-hand when we got it almost five years ago, seems to finally be on the way out. The ethernet ports still work fine, and my desktop computer and the Vonage phone attached to them still get our 9 megabit connection with no trouble, but the wireless capability seems to have died.
My wife’s laptop would not see our network, so i powered down the router and turned it back on, but still no luck. Then i realized that the WLAN Link light, which is the one that lights up when the wireless is on, will not come on no matter what i do. I’ve rebooted the whole system a few times, tried doing a hard reset on the router, and even downloaded and flashed the latest firmware update, all to no avail.
My first thought was to replace it with the similar-looking WRT54G, or the newer, sleeker WRT54G2.
I really don’t want to spend more than i have to, and our network needs are fairly basic. I really like our old Linksys because it is, for the most part, very easy to use. Setting up wireless and wireless security is easy (even if it is only WEP; any new router will have WPA), and port forwarding is a piece of cake. I need something that will work with the Vonage box, that has at least 2 ethernet ports, and that has wireless.
I’m not desperate for massive amounts of information here. I’ve done some reading, and it seems the two that i’ve listed above will both do the job. I just want to know if anyone has any warnings about them, or any recommendations regarding possible, similarly-priced alternatives.