Up 180+ Days: Linksys WRTG54 with ddwrt

[roo_ster]

Howdy:

I have one of the earlier Linksys WRT54G routers that I uploaded with the linux-based ddrt firmware.

ddrt has many great features, most of which I do not take advantage of.  One advantage, however, is stability.


My wife was having problems getting on the net.  I looked at her laptop & did the usual stuff and then logged on to the router from a browser.

I saw the uptime and was mildly surprised.  Not only a the problem-free uptime (180+ days), but that we had not had a power loss.  (I have the cable modem & router on a surge prot, but not a UPS.)

Oh, well, I thought, that was a good run, but I ought to reboot.  So I did a software reboot.

No joy.  Still no connectivity.

So, I mosey to the room with the cable modem & router and guess what?  The 6 year old Motorola Surfboard cable modem is devoid of LEDs.  Had it finally given up the ghost?  I investigate & find the culprit: the plug had worked its way loose.

I really am impressed with both the WRT54G router and the Surfboard modem.  The Surfboard is, as stated, 6 YO.  This is my third WRT54G router (bought used 2+ years ago)...after I dropped my first one from 6' on to a hardwood floor ~4 years ago...and the second one died in a lightning strike ~2 yeas ago.

I have to cause to whine about my home networking equipment.

[Paddy]

I dunno.  I just hire somebody to do that.  I say 'Nerd.  Fix the computer'.   He waddles over and eventually gets it done.

[Manedwolf]

Huh? I've got a LinkSys wireless thing, and it's been on since late 2006, connected and all that.

It that not usually the case?

[Vodka7]

Huh? I've got a LinkSys wireless thing, and it's been on since late 2006, connected and all that.

It that not usually the case?

Half a year's uptime on a wireless router is very rare.  That means over 180 continuous days of never losing power, never having to soft reboot the router to update a setting, never having to pull the plug and put it back in to try and fix something, and never having a single crash.  It's super, duper rare for any router, let alone a consumer model, to be up that long.  It basically means that in the last half a year, jfruser has never had to fiddle with his router in even the smallest way.

Me, I've got a WRT54G v4 with dd-wrt, and despite it being rock stable, I rarely get over two, maybe three months uptime from it.  Power goes out, or I mess with settings, or I hard reboot it when I hard reboot my modem (also a Surfboard, the unit is reliable, wish I could say the same for Comcast.)

[Manedwolf]

Nope, it's never been rebooted. It's just there. I add new device mac address things to it via the web control panel, and my devices just find it.

[mtnbkr]

I've never had to reboot my Netgear wireless router either.  It just works.  Other than providing wireless access to my internet connection and port forwarding for my server (http and ssh), it doesn't do much though.

Then again, I've managed to get Windows servers and workstations to reach uptimes of a year or more.  Knowing what you're doing and picking the right hardware goes a long ways...

Chris

[roo_ster]

I attribute it to ddwrt.  When I ran these routers with the stock Linksys firware, I was fiddling/rebooting monthly.

The earlier WRT54Gs were solid hardware begging for quality firmware.

Nowadays, they have cheaped out on them, or so I hear.

[Harold Tuttle]

 i ran a mac server on os9 for 4 years with no downtime

[mfree]

"i ran a mac server on os9 for 4 years with no downtime"

Great. Now, tell it to shuffle packets, give it two extra network interfaces, one a noise-ridden 2.4ghz connection, make it fit in a box the size of a sandwich and make it $99, and we'll be all set

(I don't mean to be such an ass, but I couldn't resist. The mac's uptime is admirable but not really matched to the conversation)

[Gewehr98]

I know how you feel, Jfruser! The earlier WRT54G hardware (before the reduced memory v5.0 and later) just screamed for quality firmware.  Now there's DD-WRT and Tomato, and I'm tickled pink to have them.  My uptime with Tomato has been absolutely rock-solid since January, even with the output power of the wireless transmitter bumped up closer to 100 milliwatts. I previously had to reboot every 5 days due to a cache overflow code flaw in the original Linksys firmware, and even installed a digital timer to reboot overnight just to clear it out. The only hitch-in-the-gitalong these days is Charter's cable modem service - they seem to re-assign IP addresses to the modems on a regular basis, and/or the system goes down, forcing a reboot of the cable modem.  There's really nothing I can do about that, and I won't grouse too heavily, getting an average 4.5Mbps while paying for a 3Mbps connection.

I'd also recommend the D-Link DI-102 packet optimizer, especially if you're running a VoIP phone service, or online gaming, etc.  It's a tiny little silver box, but it just plain works!

As for power outages, that's what the little blue Blackout Buster UPS takes care of.