Linksys Wrt54gs with speedbooster How to Encrypt and upgrade firmware?

Lady_K

Daughter in student house has the Linksys Wrt54gs Cable DSL with speedbooster router with NTL but they have not encrypted it yet. They want to encrypt it as they have one lad in the house that is not contributing to any bills not just the broadband so they want to set the wireless up before he comes back. They don't have instructions so is anyone familiar with this router that may be able to advise how to do it? At the moment theres just 1 other girl using it wirelessly from another room but another girl is going to share soon too

Also
My daughter has her laptop connected as the router is in her room, she hasnt dared disconnect it yet as they had a right struggle setting it up but she would like to bring her laptop home sometimes or use it wirelessly in the house. She hasnt even tested if her wireless card works yet is it easy to just swap between connected or wireless without problem?

One more thing
I think theres a firmware upgrade for this but could this mess things up if they upgrade? Will they have to reinstal everything if they instal the firmware upgrade or is it just a simple procedure?

albertross_2

The principles are listed here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=2471408&postcount=37

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=2471410&postcount=38

With a linksys, you can run the setup disk which prompts you for most things, or go to 192.168.1.1 to set it up manually.

(If it's in a student area, she has probably left herself open to prying eyes for the past few months.)

Lady_K

If they use the set up cd though, because the router is already installed and working can she miss out the installation bits for that part of the installation and just do the wireless bit? I thought if she put the disc in she would have to reinstal the whole lot. Is it easy?

Chippy_Minton

Lady_K wrote:

I think theres a firmware upgrade for this but could this mess things up if they upgrade? Will they have to reinstal everything if they instal the firmware upgrade or is it just a simple procedure?

No, it shouldn't affect any existing settings. Do the upgrade from a wired connection, not wireless.

Zahc

here you go.............

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/wifi/geek-to-live-set-up-a-home-wireless-network-162754.php

Just noticed it's for the apple, but the set up of the router is the same. Note links to security.