Thinkpads Forum

As the subject line states, I'm looking for any recommendations and experience with an 802.11g wireless ethernet bridge. I've finally been pushed into upgrading my wireless network to the "g" system. No "pre-n" or "n" for me yet. I am aware of the following pieces of gear but have not fully checked out all of their features:

Linksys WET54G
Linksys WGA54G
D-Link DWL-G810
Netgear WGE101
Motorola WE800G

Usage will be to connect both an ethernet-capable VEO Observer webcam and a Swann DVR4-Net system for remote video access. I will probably continue to run the "b" network in order to keep the "g" system from slowing down. With each system set on non-overlapping channels (1 and 6), I don't see any problems doing this.

The bridge needs to be completely transparent to power interruptions. That is to say, it should not have to be "turned on" after a power failure. I would assume that most any wireless ethernet bridge made today (and several years ago) would not have a "push-once-to-turn-on" power switch, but you never know. Bonus points will be awarded to those bridges which are powered by a 5VDC adapter (if you can tell me that).

Thanks!

Most bridges today will not have any kind of power switch. If they are plugged in they are on.
Good luck on the 5volt thing. Why do you want 5volt anyway? If it going to be in a remote location you could use "power over ethernet" to power it.
I have not used any of the bridges you listed but I have used a Linksys wap11 as a bridge. The main downfall of that unit it that you have to lock it and another access poingt together and nothing else can connect to either unit.
If you want the most full featured router/access point/bridge go get an older Linksys WTR54G or a WRT54GL and flash DD-WRT firmware on it. That will probably give you all the options you will need.

Carb,

Thanks for the notes.

The 5VDC "requirement" is so that I can power both the bridge AND my VEO camera with a single AC adapter. I envision constructing a special ethernet cable and doing a "homemade" POE; using one of the unused pairs of CAT5 wire and attaching coaxial power plugs on either end. This way there's only one cable, one wall wart and no other special interfaces or power conversion circuits required.

I will go with a router/AP/bridge combo (like the WRT54G) only if it's cheaper than a plain-old AP. I'd also would like to stay away from the updating of firmware since I just bricked a Netgear AP a few weeks ago .

rkawakami wrote:I'd also would like to stay away from the updating of firmware since I just bricked a Netgear AP a few weeks ago .

Sorry to hear you 'bricked' a router . . . That can't be fun. For what it's worth, I've flashed firmware (dd-wrt and tomato [a lovely piece of software, imho]) to a number of Linksys wrt54g/gs boxes and haven't bricked one yet. In fact, I've flashed mine about six or seven times--going from one firmware to another finding the perfect fit, and just plain old updating--and it's stable as ever (currently running tomato 1.06). Flashing firmware has a bad reputation for making bricks, but I find it to be an important part of keeping things running. You apply software updates to your computer, right? Updating the BIOS is pretty much the same as flashing firmware to a router--just wait until the process is finished (all the lights are finished flashing and the spinning things stop spinning ) and you should be fine. Of course, I've read about BIOS updates going wrong too . . . maybe I've just been lucky!

After saying all that, there's another forum you might be interested in: http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/. There's some knowledgeable discussion about the kind of things you're trying to do. Give them a try!

Paul

I was sure that I was careful in the entire procedure and waiting for everything to stabilize before disconnecting power but I couldn't get the Netgear WG602 access point to respond after that, so I put it on a shelf hoping for a miracle (or at least another way to re-flash it). It only cost $23 so I'm not too disappointed.

I've updated my Netgear RT314 router's firmware a couple of times without any problems so I didn't expect anything to go wrong. However I have not flashed many of my laptops to the latest firmware. In fact, I think out of the 30 or so systems I've purchased (about 9 600E/X, too many T2Xs to think about and a lone A31), I've only performed a BIOS update three times. It was mostly just to have the experience of doing one and not for any "problem" that was being solved. I'm a subscriber to the "if something is working fine, don't try to fix it" school of thought. The AP firmware upgrade was supposed to close a known backdoor. Looks like it shut another one on me .