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View Full Version : [WL500g] Hell?



Toink
14-06-2004, 21:09
After numerous attempts and driving 100km everytime forth and back to the place where I put this thing I'm desperate, so I thought let's give it a try here.....Maybe anyone of you can be of any assistance.

A month ago I bought a WL500g for my uncle. I chose for asus because I'm familiar with their products and reputation and I really wanted something that works the first time and it should be of good quality. But even more it should be good because my uncle lives 100kms away from me. Every time it doesn't work I have to drive over there and see what's wrong.

They got connected to ADSL from Planet Internet. A light subscription of 25 euro per month. All worked excellent until I started with the WL500g. After having everything set up I'm trying to reboot the WL500, but even rebooting seems to much for the thing. After waiting several minutes I decided to unplug the powercord and put it back in. The settings were still there and the router booted again. All right then... no problem. Let's give it a go. Everything worked fine. Until I was gone 1 day! The WL500g crashes frequently and then you don't get an IP anymore and you can't connect to the internet anymore. This counts for the notebook as well as their regular pc, both new machines and connected wireless. The ADSLmodem is still working and after rebooting the WL500g is up and running again.

This has been happening for the past two weeks now: I'm fed up with it so I went over there yesterday to fix things. I downloaded the latest firmware and installed it. I turned all options like security etc off: Just plain factory settings. Still the damn thing is not able to reboot, even though, sometimes it can. Very strange. There's no logic in that. However, I've been on the internet all day so I packed my stuff and went home.

Today: "you have one new e-mail"... Oh no... don't tell me: Yup, it's not working again. So now I'm at this point where I've completely had it with this machine. What's wrong with it? I'm going to collect it over there and swap it for another brand. I'll take the Asus for my private collection so I can toy with it because it seems that is the only thing it was made for... or?? Maybe one of you people can shed some light on this situation?

So now I have these two problems:

1) What am I going to put there? Max 100 euros and no special options: Just sharing internet and a good wireless range (again a big drawback for the Asus, it doesn't seem to perform any better than any other cheap brand like Sweex, sitecom, Edimax << something I totally not expected!)

2) What am I supposed to do with this Asus to get it to work properly? My uncle can't wait any longer so this one is going to be mine but also here, it has to work.

Add info: The pc/laptop is not the problem: They both don't get an IP anymore and no connection. The both have clean WinXP pro+SP1 installs. It's not the modem either: After a router-restart everything is up and running again.

Please, any help?

Antiloop
15-06-2004, 00:31
eh.. maybe you have a defective one ?
we still have 0% defective wl500gs at my work.. i haven't seen any device doing that before

and you're not total clear in your post, did you turn off al things or did you perform a factory default ?

Toink
15-06-2004, 20:23
I went to factory default settings. I'll try another brand and see what happens to it then...

Antiloop
15-06-2004, 20:51
and does the device crash ? (like that it hangs) or does it reboot at moment of 'crashing'

and for the wireless stuff, did you try to setup it according my WEP tutorial (can be found in HowTo Talk) already ?

and which wireless cards are you using in the pc';s ?

Toink
18-06-2004, 10:12
At first I wanted to use WEP and so I used your tutorial. After it had crashed again I removed WEP to see if it would make any difference. The laptop has a intel 2100 wireless adapter (integrated) and the pc uses a Belkin 54Mbit PCI Wireless Card.

Yes! It crashes, I wish it would reboot, than it would not even be such an issue.

Oh... and I could not get WEP to work as well: http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/913021/ Only tried in on the laptop... did not have a wireless pci card at the time.

Arawn
26-06-2004, 23:32
Hi!

I would like to report a similar event with a new WL-500g.
I sold a new 500g to a aquaintance of mine, after the good experience I have with my own. He's experienced enough to set it up himself, so I left him to that.
Next day he calls me reporting problems with the router. Wouldn't pick up the lease from the ISP (cable modem, Motorola SB4200, same as mine, but different ISP), and as soon he rebooted the router, it would stop answering through the LAN ports (didn't check if same happened through wireless, I concentrated in solving the problem through wired mode). He had to unplug the router to get it to answer again.
He left me the router to test it myself.
The problems described above were really happening. Couldn't get it to lease from my ISP, no matter what I did. Checked firmware, and it was the latest, 1.7.x.x (not sure of the version that came installed, mine was 1.6.4.9). Changed something in the configuration (Quick Setup), saved and rebooted, and it did stop responding, no pinging at all. One thing I noticed was that the WLAN LED went off.
Now the strange part: even with 5 secs on the Reset button, I didn't notice any change on the behaviour of the router and the LEDs. Wouldn't respond at all. Only way to get it to respond would be to unplug the power cord, wait a few minutes, and power it again. A few minutes were really necessary, cause just a few secs wouldn't do at all.
I was about to return the router, didn't want to try to mess with a firmware change. But I decided to do it. Downgraded to 1.6.5.3, but same behaviour (to be honest, didn't tested thoroughly with that firmware). Made my mind to return the router, and upgraded the firmware to 1.7.5.6, which was the highest firmware available on ASUS download site.
Decided to make a final test, plugged it cascading to my 500g, and see if it would pick up a lease. To my surprise it did. Decided then to try getting a lease from my ISP. Turned off the modem (necessary to get a new lease), plugged it on again, waited a couple mins after it connected, then powered the router. After a min or so, it picked a lease! Changed something (Quick Setup again) in the configuration, restarted the router, it restarted OK. Went online, etc, rebooted again, worked fine. It seems to be working OK now...

Well, my guess was that something in the NVRAM was messed up. Don't know really what happened. Just a couple days ago I found these forums, and haven't explored them much. Then I saw this thread.

Any comments?

Thx, Arawn.