Fixing your Linkysys WRT55AG Router

I have had my Linksys WRT55AG router for a while now. It’s been a pain in the ass ever since I received it (randomly needing to be hardbooted about once a day or so, etc). One issue that I find especially peculiar, however, was when it stopped working all together. No connection showed up at all! So I began my excursion into fixing it and thankfully succeeded. I thought I would share how in the event someone else has this issue.

Issue 1) Your router is active, shows connections, internet, power, etc. but no actual connection shows up! (note that this for me lead to issue #2).

What to do?
Push in the reset button (with a paper clip) and hold it for 30 seconds. This will reset your firmware to the defaults. Commence resetup as you did the first time.
Issue 2) You have connectivity on your router but cannot access the internet, or, your router, while connected to your cable modem, is randomly rebooting every time your computer establishes a connection to it (ethernet or wireless).

What to do?
Unplug your cable modem from your router and unplug the power from the cable modem. Connect your router physically (via an ethernet cable) to a computer. Access your router’s admin panel by typing in “192.168.1.1″ into the url of either Firefox or Internet Explorer. Type in your username and password (defaults are nothing for the username and “admin” for the password). Then do the following in the admin panel:

• Goto the Setup tab
• Click Mac Address Clone
• Select “Enabled” from the drop down box
• Click “Clone My PC’s MAC”
• Click “Save Settings”

Now once the settings have been saved (you’ll know as you will have been taken back to the admin menu) unplug your router. Now plug your cable modems power back in, and plug the cable modem into your router (which still has no power). Once your cable modem is active again (has all the blinky lighty goodness) plug the power back into your router. Wait for the router to become active and viola. That all should have solved your problem. If not, then I’m not sure what to tell you, it fixed mine.