Just started this evening. Affecting Android phone and Windows 7 netbook. I've power-cycled it. Wired connectivity is fine.

Symptoms: discovers network; connects then immediately disconnects or fails to connect at all. WiFi analyser on the phone shows that the signal strength apparently drops at the instant the Win7 netbook attempts to connect. Signal then returns.

Similarly, Wifi analyser doesn't show any nearby APs on the same channel.

Any ideas?

I have one of the earlier WRT54G units (before they started dropping the RAM size and eventually coming out with the separate GL version).

Mine just started becoming flaky one day and more noticably with my wife's Dell Windows 7 machine (which also had 802.11n). My older XP laptop at the time didn't seem to care (802.11a/b/g) so much. I didn't investigate much and ended up simply replacing it with a proper 802.11n unit. I do still run it for one device I have that will not properly work as 802.11n since I force the new router to be n only.

Not sure that really helps you all that much though.

I found that my WRT54G running either Tomato or DD-WRT was very channel dependant - I would get all manner of flakiness on some channels and decent reliability on others. Is your WRT54G set to 'Auto' channel? It might have switched to one which is flaky. I'd recommend setting a specific channel manually.

Also, I found issues with Broadcom based wireless APs such as the WRT54G and Intel 2200BG clients (the old original 'Centrino' wireless card). But that doesn't really explain why things used to work okay and now don't, unless you now have one on your network or something.

I like that explanation. Otherwise I'd probably say the router is having hardware issues. I've seen the WRT54GL's go bad (I've installed dozens of them over the years), but at least they're cheap to replace. I think they're going for about $50 on Amazon over here in the US. I find it hilarious that Linksys/Cisco is keeping the model around.

I love it because it's the clearest example in the consumer electronics world of consumer demand dictating the products a company makes. I mean how many router models has Linksys/Cisco put out since the WRT54GL? But they continue to carry it in stores and online. The model still gets voted as the favorite router on sites like Newegg and Amazon, so they're not going to stop carrying it. But at the same time, for some reason they refuse to recognize the reason people love it, otherwise they would have released the current equivalent router with all the latest features.

Nope. Set to channel 11. I suspect hardware problems. Gonna get the A&A-recommended Technicolor router later in the month. I'll be sad to see the back of Tomato, but I'll be getting IPv6. Win.

I recently replaced my WRT54G running Tomato as well.

Got a Netgear WNDR3700, has gigabit, USB, dual stream 802.11n and simultaneous 802.11g. I like it quite a lot and OpenWRT Backfire is pretty polished too, the web interface makes it all fairly easy like Tomato.

Recommended.

I picked one up this morning. The web UI's not quite as slick as Tomato (probably because it exposes a lot more options), but it was pretty easy to configure (apart from needing to use failsafe recovery at one point -- my fault), and it seems to be working fine.

Because of it, I've managed to decommission the WRT54GL, a Netgear GS108 switch and the Netgear ADSL router that I've been using as a wireless AP. Win.

Nice!

How does the UI of OpenWRT compare to DDWRT? I've always stuck with the outdated Tomato because the interface is so great, but its support for newer devices is nonexistant, and the folks at Tomato USB seem completely uninterested in clarity when it comes to product support.

Here's my deal: a WRT54GL and Tomato 1.28 is perfect. The install process couldn't be simpler, the UI is fantastic, and I've had zero compatibility issues. Why can't I find the same experience with a modern router and updated firmware?

Sorry, I know this is pretty much repeating what I said above, but I deal with this a whole lot, and I'm looking for a new go-to router/firmware combo...

I use a very similar (and modern) Netgear WNR3500 here, with the same familiar Tomato interface. In this case, it's Toastman's latest TomatoUSB variant.

Tomato isn't just for WRT54GLs.

Is the installation process as smooth? I ask because I've followed the instructions on their site for other, reportedly compatible routers, and the process was very dicey. Not nearly as seamless as the old Tomato.

I know it's not just for GLs, but nothing else has worked so well since. Just look at the compatibility page for TomatoUSB. That looks like a bit of a mess to me.

*edit*
yup, just looked at the TomatoUSB site, and even they say to flash DD-WRT first. Two questions there: 1) what version? And 2) if I already have DD-WRT on there, why keep going?

I don't remember what I did originally to get Tomato on there. Probably flashed DD-WRT micro and then TomatoUSB over that.

I did just finish rebuilding from latest source code and upgrading to the new image, but that was just point-and-click in the Tomato GUI.

Tomato vs. DD-WRT? It comes down to taste, I suppose. Tomato is powerful with a simpler GUI, and great QoS. DD-WRT has multiple SSID capability and a horribly complex web GUI with somewhat more capability than TomatoUSB.

Cheers

That's why I prefer Tomato. The interface is far better than the others, and I've used the QoS before to great effect. DD-WRT doesn't offer anything I really want, so I stick with Tomato. I'm just saying, I wish the process were still as smooth as it used to be. I really do think that's why the WRT54GL remains one of the most popular routers, because it's so easy to deal with in this regard.

Yeah, I appear to have flashed this exact DD-WRT mini load onto the WNR3500L initially, and then used that to flash TomatoUSB:

dd-wrt.v24-14896_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L.chk

Oh, wait.. If I had to guess, then the DD-WRT mini load above was actually then followed by a Tomato mini load, before finally flashing the main TomatoUSB:

tomato-K26-1.28.9054MIPSR2-beta-Mini.trx

Not sure why it was so complex, but I was religiously following directions from somewhere -- very reminiscent of DD-WRT installs, and very un-Tomato like. But it only needed doing once that way, and subsequent Tomato upgrades are simple web-GUI affairs.

Cheers

Does Tomato give you per internal IP address traffic graphing ?

The "Toastman TomatoUSB" load I'm using does.

EDIT: it's under the "IP Traffic" menu heading, with Real-Time, Last 24 Hours, Transfer Rates, Daily, and Monthly views. The first two views are real-time graphs, the rest are in tabular form.

Mark, how is the range on the WNR3500L given that it has internal antennas?

Dunno. We have a small-ish house by some standards, and the WNR3500L has no difficulty covering it all, despite a non-optimal mounting position. It does cover better than the WRT54GL that it replaced. We use only Wireless-G devices here, btw.

I would expect a similar unit that does have external antennas (eg. the ASUS RT-N16) to do much better, but don't have any direct experience with such.

Cheers

I've used the RT-N16 with Tomato and it seems to perform well, though it's just as awkward to flash as that WNR3500L seems to be

I didn't have an A/B comparison, though. I set up a bunch of the N16's in a building downtown to cover the place in WiFi. They had some tough materials to get through, but they seemed to get pretty decent coverage.

Picked up a Netgear WNDR3700 today, unfortunately not support by Tomato but for the price, $0, I can't complain

I finally have a reason to put free WNDR3700 that I got into service, I need desire it's gigabit ports.

Installing OpenWRT on it was beyond my skill set / patience level, I did find that it is supported by Gargoyle, which is based upon OpenWRT. So I'll how that goes.