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Have you ever got your WRT54G to work with a mac?

  • Yes (Wirelessly)

    Votes: 118 83.7%
  • Yes (Wired)

    Votes: 7 5.0%
  • No

    Votes: 5 3.5%
  • never had one

    Votes: 11 7.8%

  • Total voters
    141

DJ OJ

macrumors regular
Original poster
Recently our perfectly mac compatible netgear router broke. To replace it my dad bought a linksys WRT54G router. We could not figure out how to get my Mac Mini to connect to the internet. It kept saying something like "airport could connect to the router, but not the internet because it does not have an IP *******" or something like that. When we finally got an IP *******, we still could not connect to the internet. The reason why, was because the IP ******* was false!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We followed instructions from the Linksys forums to fix this. We had to reset the router. It screwed up every other PC in the house. We tried wired internet. Same problem. Finally, I got home from school and I plugged the big yellow cable into my mac and into the Vonage ***** adapter router thing and the internet finallllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy worked! Have you ever got you WRT54G to work with a mac? Wirelessly? If you have please share how.
 

FocusAndEarnIt

macrumors 601
May 29, 2005
4,622
1,058
V5+ have been crappy with both Windows and Macs, IMO.

Other than that, I have 5 running on the network at the moment. The V5 I have is running as a switch.
 

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
I use 2 of them, one of them since they like first came out. I've never had an issue with any of them, they're awesome! Unlike NETGEAR, which every wifi router I've had from them broke in a year or so.

I have one hooked up as a router with DHCP and the other one is just a switch with wireless and dhcp disabled.

How did I get it to work with Macs? Well, the one that runs as a router, I just plugged it in and it works fine. Of course I renamed it from "linksys" as well.
 

iBookG4user

macrumors 604
Jun 27, 2006
6,595
2
Seattle, WA
Yeah, I have a WRT54G and after spending 3+ hours on the phone with verizon and linksys I finally got it to work. Something like releasing the IP address from the router or something like that. Works perfectly with no software or hardware cracks.
 

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
iBookG4user said:
Yeah, I have a WRT54G and after spending 3+ hours on the phone with verizon and linksys I finally got it to work. Something like releasing the IP address from the router or something like that. Works perfectly with no software or hardware cracks.

Well, with Verizon DSL you're going to have trouble, because their DSL modems are routers as well, so you have 2 DHCP servers running and assigning addresses. You have to disable DHCP on one of them, or just get a hub or something instead of a router.
 

iBookG4user

macrumors 604
Jun 27, 2006
6,595
2
Seattle, WA
ITASOR said:
Well, with Verizon DSL you're going to have trouble, because their DSL modems are routers as well, so you have 2 DHCP servers running and assigning addresses. You have to disable DHCP on one of them, or just get a hub or something instead of a router.
The modem was just a regular modem, before they started combining modems and routers so there is only one DHCP server.
 

ddekker

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2006
222
0
Michigan
wrt54g

I use one at home with a couple macs... we use one at work with a few macs.. pretty sure the router brand make no difference... 802.11g if a standard, not really a brand thing, I have heard of people having a hard time getting an apple on it with WEP turned on, try it without WEP or anything and see what happens... is it that it works on a PC and not the apple? I use mine on apple..PC..Tivo.. and all work well I used it both with and without WEP.. I have run into many a strange problem with my switch over to mac... read some of my trials on my site listed below

DD
 

purelithium

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2006
355
0
Kingston, Canada
Where's the "Yes - Both wireless and wired" option?

Mine works great. Try goin into the "status" section of the router and have it disconnect from the DSL and then reconnect, that should renew the IP of the router.
 

generik

macrumors 601
Aug 5, 2005
4,116
1
Minitrue
ITASOR said:
I use 2 of them, one of them since they like first came out. I've never had an issue with any of them, they're awesome! Unlike NETGEAR, which every wifi router I've had from them broke in a year or so.

I have one hooked up as a router with DHCP and the other one is just a switch with wireless and dhcp disabled.

How did I get it to work with Macs? Well, the one that runs as a router, I just plugged it in and it works fine. Of course I renamed it from "linksys" as well.
The WRT54G is definitely compatible with your Mac, and considering the sheer amount of support (third party or otherwise) for it, I'd blame OSX first than the router.
 

mduser63

macrumors 68040
Nov 9, 2004
3,042
31
Salt Lake City, UT
This is being posted through a brand new Linksys WRT54GL (the version that still runs Linux for firmware) that I just hooked up on Thursday. It has never had a PC connected to it, but both wired and wireless connections have worked just fine with all my Macs. I've had WPA2 with a 63 digit key on from the beginning. I've had no trouble whatsoever....

Before I moved, I was using an Actiontec combo DSL modem/wireless router with WEP. No problems with any of the four Macs on that network either.

Double check and play around with settings, then if that doesn't work, try either loading alternative firmware onto it, or returning it for a WRT54GL.
 

Sayer

macrumors 6502a
Jan 4, 2002
981
0
Austin, TX
I have found, after setting up mixed wired/wireless routers to cable modem/dsl that it takes a few resets/reboots of all connected devices before everything *just* works.

Specifically the order I usually set up the router is as follows:

Get your DSL account info if you need to re-enter it after resetting the cable/DSL modem.

Plug in an Ethernet cable from a computer to the router.

Power on the router.

Load the admin web page in a web browser (Linksys is http://192.168.1.1, D-Link uses http://192.168.0.1). Linksys doesn't have a user name, just a password while the D-Link has "admin" as the username and no password (just press enter) - go figure.

Then I go into the Admin screens (or setup) for the LAN via the router and make sure it looks okay. I always turn off remote admin/wireless admin.

Next CHANGE the admin password on the router!!! Make sure you right it down as you may need to re-enter it several more times.

UNPLUG the cable/DSL modem from power. Typically the modems attach themselves to a particular Ethernet MAC address and require "rebooting" to attach to a different MAC address.

Next I plug in the router into the cable modem/DSL with an Ethernet cable. Power on the modem. You may need to "release IP" or "DHCP renew lease" on the *router* if you don't get a new IP assigned to the router after a few seconds.

On the Mac, open the System Preferences and go to Network. Click on the Ethernet item in the list and click "Configure..." to check it's settings. You may need to click on the TCP/IP tab and click "Renew DHCP Lease" to get a new non 168.* or 10.* IP address (self-assigned addresses usually start with these numbers). Your IP address should be 192.168.x.x generally.

Now open any web site in the browser and see if you are on the Internet.

If so, go back to the router setup and check the WLAN (Wireless-LAN) settings. If you are using a mixed Mac/PC environment you may not be able to use any security setting above WEP because of the PeeCees or really old Macs. Always use WPA or WPA2 if you can.

Set a passphrase DIFFERENT than the admin password for your wireless network.

Set a wireless network name (SSID) to something unique (typ. one word, no punctuation). Broadcast SSID should be on at first so your wireless computers can show you if they "see" the network or not. After initial setup you can turn SSID broadcast off on the router.

Go to the wireless computers and see if the network shows up (in Mac OS X you can pop open the AirPort menu item and see if your network name is there, if not close the menu and re-open it). On windows you do whatever you do to "see" wireless networks with whatever software you installed.

Connect to the wireless (or select the same security setting as set on the router i.e. WPA2 Personal), enter the password and see if you connect. Lastly try to get on the Internet via web browser (easiest).

NOTE: you may need to reset the router or modem by pulling the power and plugging it back in if you cant get an IP address other than 168.* or 10.* on any computer or can't get onto the Internet, respectively.

IF you need to reset the admin password on the router you typically unplug the power to the router and press and HOLD the reset button for several seconds, then power back on and log in with the default user name and/or password for your router. Don't forget to RESET security settings, esp. for wireless such as remote admin, if you do need to reset the admin password on the router.
 

danfluidmind

macrumors newbie
Oct 19, 2006
3
0
IMPORTANT! READ THIS IF YOU USE A MAC WITH LINKSYS WRT54G!

If you are using a Mac with a LinkSys WRT54G router, DO NOT UPGRADE to the 1.01.0 firmware! That firmware version has a bug in its DHCP server and will not assign IP addresses to Macs. If you have already upgraded to that version and are having this problem, you can DOWNGRADE to version 1.00.9. Take a look at this thread at the LinkSys forums:

http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/b...eless_Routers&message.id=10106&query.id=45076

And here's where you can get the 1.00.9 firmware (if it's still there):

ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/wrt54gv5_v6_fw_1.00.9_US_code.zip

Other than that bug, the WRT54G is an awfully nice router and works swimmingly with Macs.

Good luck.

--Dan
 

SBik2

macrumors 6502a
Jul 14, 2006
732
1
/private/var/root
i got mine to work but i had to turn off WEP... It works flawlessly with a desktop(the wired connection), 2 pc laptops(wireless) and finally my mac(wireless).. But....... once it a while itll lose its connection and i have to go upstairs and reset the router
 

iBookG4user

macrumors 604
Jun 27, 2006
6,595
2
Seattle, WA
I have to reset my linksys router everyday now, and I just had to go through a headache to get my MBP to work with the router when it just suddenly stopped working. When I move out, I'm going to just get an Airport router to avoid these headaches.
 

ddekker

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2006
222
0
Michigan
SBik2 said:
i got mine to work but i had to turn off WEP... It works flawlessly with a desktop(the wired connection), 2 pc laptops(wireless) and finally my mac(wireless).. But....... once it a while itll lose its connection and i have to go upstairs and reset the router


strange, I run the same thing and zero troubles, yet my bos runs the identical thing and he had to turn WEP off and use mac address filtering... all his (and my) PC's work either way... also I had a buddy over with his brand new macbook and it hooked up to my router fine but somehow lost connection like 5 times sitting next to two of us on the couch... he on an intel mac the other two of us on a PPC mac.. is there anything behind that? not sure... the intel mac guy also runs a linksys on his home network but never had a problem, but he also doesn't run WEP...

my two cent
 
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