Lives Down to my Linksys Expectations

I live in a two story single family home. Nothing fancy. However, my computers have , well, sprawled. Luckily my Linksys WAP54G covers the primary areas of the home where I use my Sony VAIO laptop, Apple Mac G5 and where my wife uses her Apple Powerbook. That is until recently when we added a deck.

Due to the construction of the home, there wasn't any easy way to move our Access Point (AP) to a location which would sufficiently cover both the primary indoor locations as well as the new deck area.

Enter the Linksys Wireless-G WRE54G Repeater.

According to Linksys, this little baby can be placed anywhere within your AP coverage area and then be used to expand that coverage area (as a repeater). Even better, the unit does not require any physical media connection to your existing network.

This was exactly what we were looking for. It's new - so alas there were not e-pinion reviews. Oh well, we thought we would give it a shot. Too bad we didn't remember our last Linksys purchase, a wireless USB adapter that never could quite connect right, because so far this unit has lived up to that very same experience.

Out of the box the unit looks very slick. It's basically a small unit, slightly larger than two packs of cigarettes, with an antenna on top and an automatic setup button on one side. A power connector completes the package.

Setup is (reportedly) easy.
1) Plug the unit into a power supply
2) Push the shiny candy like button (couldn't resist)

-or if your current AP is running WEP-

1) Plug the unit into a power supply
2) Place the CD-ROM in a Windows box which is already connected to your existing AP
3) Run the setup utility.

Uh-huh. The same "easy" instructions we got with our last Linksys purchase (the USB wireless antenna). And, both setup utilities had the same outcome.

Setup started great. It prompted me for the default administrative password. I entered it. (Play cheesey 'you loose' gameshow music here). After a couple seconds I received an error dialog:

Access Violation at address 0048FC7E in module 'Setup.exe'. Write Address 694C6461.

Now, I could probably go through the trouble of going to the Linksys site and looking these error codes up - but I suspect, as is the case in most error codes I come across - they won't be locatable on the site.

But, the setup utility drops me back at the password prompt. Perhaps I entered it incorrectly I muse to myself. I type the password again, hit Enter and the utility continues.

I make it all the way through the configuration utility only to have it return the following dialog:

"Error: WRE54G cannot associate with this AP in Repeater mode"

I stop, compose myself and try the entire procedure again - and I get the exact same results.

It's now nearing midnight, and if I have learned anything in the computer industry it's:

1) Never try to fix a problem when you are tired.
2) Never try to fix a problem when you are frustrated.

So, I am both tired and frustrated. I will attempt connecting this later this weekend when I am refreshed and ready to go. Perhaps I need a firmware upgrade on my access point, or perhaps I just need to step away.

But, this is beginning to look exactly like my last Linksys purchase (the USB wireless antenna for my wifes HP - which has never connected to the AP).

Things advertised as being 'this easy' shouldn't be this hard.

Update

After visiting the Linksys site, some of my suspicions were confirmed, my current WAP54G required a firmware upgrade. Applying the upgrade was easy, finding it was difficult. First, I had to figure out what Hardware version of the WAP54G I had. After cerfing around a-bit I discovered that if you have no hardware version ID on your unit, then you had hardware version 1.0.

Then I had to get ahold of Linksys help (live chat) and request a copy of the 2.07 upgrade. Version 2.07 is the minimum firmware version that the WRE54G will support when acting as a repeater for the WAP54G. The problem is that the only upgrade on the Linksys site was version 2.08, which would only work if you were already running version 2.07. Since I had version 2.06.....

Starting to feel the frustration?

I finally got the 2.07 patch from a very friendly support agent, downloaded it, applied it and began the WRE54G setup all over again.

This time, I got the exact same results as above (errors et all) all the way to the end. But, now I got the "Congratulations" dialog along with a notice that my unit was now properly configured.

Whew!

So I go back upstairs, to the room where I have the wireless repeater sitting, I log into my Macintosh G5, fire-up my WAP locator and discover that the WRE54G is providing my the exact same signal strength as the WAP54G downstairs - both bouncing between 30-35.

I relocate the WRE54G to the kitchen. Now the kitchen is where the deck extends from. My wife takes her laptop outside and tries to connect. While she is able to connect to the network (which she was not able to do before) the link is sporadic running from a power level of the low 30's to 0. In this configuration, the WRE54G has about a 30 foot, clean line of site shot to the WAP54G and is 1 wall and 8 feet from the laptop.

So, apparently the unit can be easily installed if you have the proper firmware on your AP (a requirement not identified on the packaging). But as to the quality of the signal that it repeats? Well, I cannot say that I am all that impressed with it at this point. It does repeat the signal, and it does provide my wife with the ability to sit on the deck and connect. So ... success.

I wouldn't expect that she will be playing Unreal out there any time soon, but she is able to cerf and check e-mail.

For now, I have taken it back to the upstairs room where we both spend most of our time. I have repositioned the unit between our two computers, practically at ceiling level and the results are:

COMPUTER..........|..........AP SIG..........|..........REPEATER SIG
Wife's laptop:......|..........30's..............|..........50's-70's
My G5 desktop:...|.......40's-50's........|..........40's-50's

I am feeling better about this unit, so I will increase my rating of it slightly. If future tweaking (channels, location etc) can get the unit to provide a better signal outside (requires going through 1 wall), then I will provide another update.

That being said, I have to add that firmware upgrades always make me just a bit nervous. Too many times I have been bit by "Oh, yeah, sorry we didn't tell you but you have to face East and bow three times before applying this patch your unit will turn into a paperweight."

Not that firmware upgrades are difficult, and I have a bit of experience in the computer field. But, basically they either go without a hitch, or don't work at all. So, frankly, if I had known in advance this setup would have required a firmware upgrade, I probably would have thought twice about it, then just installed HyperWap, or Freya or some other hack that provides me the ability to up the transmit power of my WAP54G from the base 28mw set by Linksys. Some of these hacks provide the ability to boost the power by 900%! But then at that output, I'd be bleeding dirty WEP all up and down the neighborhood.