Just another "brick" in the wall?

My son-in-law decided he didn't like the WPA2 I'd set up for my daughter's home PC and laptop wireless connections and set out to re-do things and to makes a long story short I think he bricked the router.

I brought hers home the other night to see if I can get it going again. It's a Linksys WRT54GS, very similar to our 54GL. Ours works perfectly. Doing an ipconfig with ours hooked up, one gets a default gateway address of 192.168.1.1 which one would expect. Connecting hers in its place, there is no gateway address at all. Manually configuring the TCP/IP to the Linksys default prompts Windows to announce that the computer has an Internet connection but I still can't get access to the router - and, obviously, I can't get online and there is virtually no packet download activity. I've tried both Linksys reset methods to no avail.

Anything else I can try to get into this router, or is it past hope?

Just hook up a wire connection and try to reset the router back to factory specs.

Just the one computer only hooked to it.

Yeah, that's where I left things. Disconnected the second wired computer and turned off the wireless laptops. To clarify - I can't even get the webpage access to come up, I get an Error 404 or an invalid address message. It's like a house with all the doors and windows boarded up, no way to get into it and reset it. Pushing the external reset button is ineffective as noted above.

File 13 time.

Dumpster fodder.

Before chucking it, see if this is any help:

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials...le.php/3618616

Interesting link, Nick, been trying a few of those things to no avail. Gonna pop the thing apart and try shorting the pins next I think.

Before I do, though...is there a command or series of commands I can use in XP's cmd window to make the computer do a ping of consecutive IP adresses within a given range? There seems to be activity here (although one unsettling thing is the #1 port being lit with nothing plugged into it :eek:) so - just maybe - MISIL only changed the IP address by accident.

Another alternative would be to install some software that detects active TCP/IP connections and reports their IP addresses. Google "IP address sniffer"

Try refreshing the TCP/IP info from the router...

Type CMD @ the run prompt,enter 'winipcfg' then click RELEASE ALL then RENEW ALL and you SHOULD BE OK....

Good luck!

winipcfg - that for 98 and does not exist W2K, XP, and newer.

Got it solved! That link of Nick's pointed me in the right direction. I put the router in place of mine in our network, and after trying an IP sniffer to no avail decided to try the router-startup route. I entered ping -t 192.168.1.1 in a command window (the -t switch repeats the ping indefinitely), power-cycled the router and hoped for a millisecond's worth of opportunity. Danged if I didn't get it, too! When I got communication established, I logged in and changed the router's IP address back to default before you could say "bricklayer."

So, back to normal and I'm gonna give the router to her for Christmas.:D

Now that is a trick worth remembering. :D :D :D

For sure....I did a double-take when the results changed from "timed out" to "reply from..."

Just a quick update....everything was jake with the router until I brought it back to my daughter's house and reconnected it. Nothing! It was as if I never worked on it. Doing some basic troubleshooting, I eliminated any proprietary networking software on her Sony laptop and verified the router was in good working order. Apparently, more than the default IP address had been changed or the firmware had gotten buggy. I've flashed the router firmware to the most recent version and will try again today to reconnect at her house.

I came across this helpful link while researching a Linux alternative for this router. In addition to the -t trick, there's a tip for detecting a completely unknown and changed/random IP address! Bookmarked!

NICE!

Excellent link, thanks :) :)

Well, end of story....that router is thick as a brick. (Y'all would never guess my musical leanings, would ya....:D) On the umpteenth test of this router before bringing it back to my daughter's place it started doing its thing again, and this time the #1 port's indicator light remained on even when disconnecting the power and connection became impossible again. I popped the housing apart and removed the PC board to find what looked like dried juice or soda on the section holding the flash and memory chips. Enough said.:o

It sounds like the bits and bytes had a party that got out of hand :( :(

Not quite, I surprised myself today. Figured I might as well test some of the many methods online for unbricking a Linksys 54GS. I actually got successful pings again, and this time uploaded the DD-WRT firmware completely wiping the buggy Linsksys stuff. I couldn't get the web-based Linksys GUI, so I used TFTP in a command prompt to do the deed. If this works out, I can cure her other problem of poor reception at one end of the house - I boosted XMIT power from 28mW to 60mW.

Back to real-time real-life testing for a few days to make sure the router releases and renews connections.