I have a linksys BEFW11S4 Ver 4 router running Firmware 1.52.03 with "obtain IP automatically" connection type that is giving me a lot of problems.
I'm running winXP on this computer with a wired ethernet connection to the router. 2 other computer/xbox are wired to the router, and there are a couple other other (windows) laptops that would like to connect using the wireless functionality.
I have no experience with routers and I've never tried to set one up before. This is a router I got used (off of freecycle) from somebody who assures me it was working fine before and I believe them.
The problems I've had are as follows. At first I couldn't access the router to configure it (using the default "admin" password), so I pressed the "reset" button for 30 seconds. Then I was able to configure the router.
That first day, the router would hang after about 30 minutes and would need to be power cycled. In the week since then, it hangs less frequently but still needs to be power cycled several times a day. Every so often I'll get a message on one of the wired computers that there's an "IP address conflict," and I lose the connection for about a minute and then it'll come back on its own.
In addition, the wireless connection is even less reliable. The wireless connection hangs every few minutes and then reconnects a few minutes later. This does not require a reboot of the router (power cycle does *not* help as far as I can tell) but does require a lot of patience to deal with the constantly dropped signal. Also, even when connected, the wireless connection seems really slow compared to the wired and to other wireless connections on the same laptop.
So... I guess here are my questions:
Do other people have these problems and have suggestions for fixing them?
I've done some reading on this forum that describes similar problems with 1.52.02 FW, with recommendations to go back to 1.45 FW. Should I try using the old 1.45 FW? Or does 1.52.03 fix the problems of 1.52.02 and I should stick with the newer FW? (I'm tempted to try the older FW but I've never updated FW before and am nervous about messing it up and making it unusable.)
Is there any way I can figure out what's causing it to hang and to drop the wireless, via log files or something? I've just now configured the router to keep logs, (administration->logs->enabled). I can see incoming and outgoing IPs and Ports, but I honestly don't know what that means or if it will help me figure out why it's crashing.
thanks!
-Karen
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