CC has the Buffalo WHR-G54S for $25AR...i'm currently running a v5 Linksys WRT54G with a DD-WRT micro build due to the small amount of memory...i would imagine I could sell the linksys for ~$25-30, so buying the buffalo would be a zero-cost venture (in my mind)...my question is for those of you who know more than i about this stuff - if it were you, would you rather run the buffalo or the linksys?

from DD-WRT wiki: Buffalo has 16MB RAM and 4MB flash memory while the Linksys i have has 8MB RAM and 2MB flash memory

this means i could, in theory, run other third-party firmware, which somewhat interests me...opinions?

4/25/2007 3:58:11 PM

sucks that you have a v5

4/25/2007 4:05:37 PM

^ agreed...gf's parents have a v4 and i desperately want to just switch them out without them noticing

also, is there any actual benefit to the linksys' two antennas versus the buffalo's one? i know that in DD-WRT you can choose which antenna sends and which receives, but i'm not finding anything online that actually claims the dual antennas improve range or reception

4/25/2007 4:07:17 PM

i enjoy the symmetric look of the twin antennae

Quote :

"agreed...gf's parents have a v4 and i desperately want to just switch them out without them noticing"

do it...they will never know

4/25/2007 4:10:07 PM

well...i don't really have unlimited access to their house after they go to sleep (and it's in an obvious place, so i'd have a difficult time swapping it out any other time)...i've asked her to let me in some time so i could, but i think she really enjoys seeing me jealous of a "silly toy" and won't do it

oh, and anyone have any experience with tomato (http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato)? i think i might give that a shot instead of dd-wrt, just for giggles...the micro build on the v5 i have doesn't allow me to scan for other networks, and that alone would be worth the change so i can just choose the least-used channel from the get-go

[Edited on April 25, 2007 at 4:27 PM. Reason : .]

4/25/2007 4:13:05 PM

You couldn't pay me to run DD-WRT on another product. It already screwed up the Linksys in my house, and it won't be touching the Buffalo we have now.

Also, the Buffalo has a lot more options than the WRT54G, so chances are you wouldn't even need to run that abortion of software on it anyway.

[Edited on April 25, 2007 at 4:34 PM. Reason : .]

4/25/2007 4:33:29 PM

How long ago did you try it? And how did it trash your router?

4/25/2007 4:42:30 PM

I use DD-WRT on my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, it's great and I've never had problems with it. In fact, the Buffalo are very easy to de-brick, so there's no risk.

Fwiw, the current Buffalo are getting much better reviews by the wireless home router community than Linksys.

4/25/2007 4:47:32 PM

i don't really have any complaints about the dd-wrt on the linksys as i don't even really NEED the advanced features of the non-micro builds and this one seems to be quite stable...but i think i'd probably rather have the buffalo running tomato...i went ahead and bought one online and i'll pick it up tonight...if no one buys the linksys by tomorrow, i may just return it

4/25/2007 4:50:03 PM

I haven't looked at Tomato in a long time ... looks lots improved and has some interesting features. Doubt I'll like it more than DD-WRT but I guess I'll tool around with it and see how it plays anyway.

4/25/2007 4:56:27 PM

Quote :

"How long ago did you try it? And how did it trash your router?"

We first installed the micro version about 4 months ago and ever since then it would need to be reset every night otherwise it became unuseable. When we moved and went to hook it up to the exact same modem it had been hooked up to before the move, it couldn't get a WAN IP. Tried upgrading and downgrading DD-WRT and it still didn't work.

To its credit though, it's working decent enough as a wireless bridge which is the only reason it's not out on 440 at the moment.

4/25/2007 6:34:39 PM

Despite having a Linksys WRT54G v4 before, I purchased the Buffalo yesterday (same deal at CC). I used the factory firmware so maybe that had something to do with it. But despite having QOS set up on it, it couldn't handle video game packets very well and the games would be choppy as a result. So I gave up and went wired with it. I'm hoping the Buffalo router will work better after I have flashed it with Tomato. Delivery time on Circuit City sucks though. Maybe I can switch to in-store pickup after the fact.

4/25/2007 10:20:44 PM

just gotta say that i like this buffalo a lot better than the linksys...aesthetically, while i don't care for the mac white scheme, i like the smaller footprint and single antenna much better...we'll see how well it does with the tomato firmware, but so far i'm pretty darn happy with it

4/26/2007 10:02:37 PM

D-Link DGL-4300 FTW!

4/26/2007 10:31:14 PM

I've been running Tomato on my WRT54GL for months and have never had an issue.

4/26/2007 11:49:41 PM

I love my WRT54G v2 w/ DD-WRT

4/27/2007 6:51:35 AM

^v2 Hardware ftw. I'm running a v2 with dd-wrt and it's one of the coolest things I've ever used.
And on the original topic, good luck with Tomato. Let us know how it goes and if it's any better than dd-wrt.

4/28/2007 2:49:17 PM

i really like the tomato firmware...it was ridiculously easy to upload to the buffalo (took all of 3 seconds and was completely automated)...i'm digging the built-in site survey, the real-time bandwidth graph, and the QOS features...does the "full" version of DD-WRT have these features? as i was running the micro build, the comparison may not be very accurate

i also like the clean interface of tomato...DD-WRT is "prettier", but this is A LOT easier to navigate...and damn if i don't love the ability to change my color scheme

4/28/2007 3:37:07 PM

Not sure about a graph, but it has the other two. I've used mine pretty easily to do client-bridge mode with decent reliability. I'm contemplating doing that, then using another wireless router as an AP for my laptop in the living room, and ditching cost of road runner until the shit gets a little more inline pricewise with the rest of the established world.


The only issues I've had with my ddwrt software is when I fire up a uTorrent, it seems to be sluggish to respond to http requests, even with a modest amount of traffic being pulled (50kb).

[Edited on April 28, 2007 at 6:38 PM. Reason : a]

4/28/2007 6:38:28 PM

Set up Tomato on the Buffalo last night. Flash was very easy and went smooth. Router works flawlessly and the wireless works better than my WRT54G with stock firmware. Finally wireless that works like its supposed to. All the features are there that I need and of course I like the throughput graphs.

5/1/2007 11:27:59 AM

i watched the little flash video of the graphs

that is cool

5/1/2007 11:30:45 AM

Hmm...this is making me consider switching to test this thing out...

5/1/2007 3:22:44 PM

^ you really should give it a shot...i, personally, never had any problems with dd-wrt, but i really like tomato better

5/1/2007 10:26:36 PM

Random question: When I run bittorrent for a while it eventually crashes my router. Would either of these options help out or is just unavoidable restating the router everyso often?

5/2/2007 9:46:49 AM

It could probably help. You could throttle the amount of bandwidth you allow your torrents to use. If you limit enough you can probably limit the number of router resets, but you will get longer download times. But I'm not a torrent person, so I don't have a lot of experience.

5/2/2007 11:16:10 AM

torrents just have the ability to overwhelm the router with the amount of data and the number of active connections

reduce the bandwidth and connections available to those services and youll be fine

i may switch just for the graphs

5/2/2007 11:37:26 AM

Yea I have already done that. When the router is up my internet is fine, but about every 24 or 48 hours I get crazy ping times. The only way to get it back to normal is resetting the router. So my real question is would a better router or different firmware prevent that?

5/2/2007 12:46:37 PM

is it possible to fry a router with too much torrenting? I think mine is busted!

5/2/2007 1:39:48 PM

DD-WRT on my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54

With an outdoor directional antenna FTW for internet anywhere at my house and down near my lake. LOL

5/3/2007 1:11:25 AM

My WRT-54g has never crashed because of too much torrenting. Since it's been on the battery backup, it's never crashed period (brown outs would kill it before).

5/3/2007 3:34:12 AM

coolio526: One of my v2 WRT54G's crashes from torrenting when I'm running any of the DD-WRT or Tomato versions on it. The only thing that doesn't crash it is the old v1.0 of Sveasoft Alchemy. My other v2 doesn't have that problem. Try this ver and see what happens: http://www.wrtrouters.com/firmware/wrt54g/Sveasoft/

5/3/2007 8:46:38 PM

unfortunately all I have is a old belkin router but if this would fix my problem I was thinking about picking one up

5/3/2007 9:57:03 PM

running utorrent with about 400kbps down right now...been running it ever since i got the router, actually, and i'm having absolutely no problems with it...also, there are 4 people connected to the network wirelessly

seriously, i ♥ this router and tomato

5/3/2007 10:34:36 PM