I bought a Linksys WRT54G router in order to have Wifi access for my laptop at home. I was having a hard time installing this router, because I was not able to login at the web-interface of the router via my internet browser.

I suspected that the router I bought, was returned to the shop by another customer (also because the packaging was a little damaged) and that the password was altered. The standard username - password combination as described in the instructions was not working. Off course I was using the standard i.p. address, so I typed in my browser just: 192.168.1.1

I was about to return the router back to the shop, but I thought: there must be a reset button on the device and indeed there is at the back of the router. The only thing that's special about this reset button is that you'll have to press this button for at least 30 seconds when you power up the router. When you release the tiny reset button after 30 seconds, the router is reset back to factory defaults.

Now, I was able to normally access the router with the standard username and password as supplied by the factory.

Just recently, I was experimenting with the settings of the Linksys WRT54G and turned off the DHCP server (because I already had a DHCP server in my home network). The next day, my wife complained that she was not able to access the internet anymore on her wireless internet connection on her laptop. Unfortunately, I was also not able to access the router anymore via the wired connection. Once again, the reset trick solved the problem.

An acquaintance of me also has the same router and also had some trouble with it. I told him to reset it, and indeed his problem was also gone.

I only had to reconfigure my wireless connection settings. I recommend when you also use this router, to use security mode WPA personal or enterprise for your wifi connections and use a long WPA protection key. I use a 63 character key. You can easily generate a secure WPA key with the following online tool: yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/WPA_key/generator.php

WPA (or even WPA2) is more secure than WEP. However, you should be aware of the fact that some (older) network cards have trouble with WPA2 or WPA. In that case, just use WEP.

By the way, in case you have kids that have a Nintendo DS they can only connect when the router uses WEP security mode. At the moment WPA is not supported on the DS. My daughter has a DS, but I continue to use WPA because of the better security.

I also advice to enable wireless MAC filtering on the router and edit the MAC filter list. In this list you fill in the MAC addresses of the wireless network cards that are allowed to connect to the router. You can find this MAC address by typing the following command at the command prompt:

ipconfig /all

By the way, the command prompt can be reached by typing cmd in the windows run dialog (which is accessible from the start-menu or you can type the Windows key and the R key simultaneously). Make sure the MAC filtering is working properly. I do this by changing one character of the MAC address in the MAC filter list into a different character. After saving your settings you should have no access to the internet anymore. Now change the character back into the right character and you should have access again.

By using security mode WPA, a long WPA key and MAC filtering you'll establish a very secure wifi connection, so that only "known" computers can make use of your Linksys router.

The author is a professional software engineer and has over 10 years of software development experience.

For more information and the latest computer tips visit his site http://www.software-secrets.com.

Free Computer Tips, Tricks and Information. Software Tools and Downloads - Software Secrets - Your Software Guide. Be more productive and save time and money.

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