No wired connection available on Linksys WRT54G Router

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tr3v

234 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 5

Topic # 22615 2-Jun-2008 21:29

I am trying resolve a problem on a friends router (Linksys WRT54G). It works perfectly as an ADSL modem/router/wireless access point except that I can not get the wired connection to work. The LAN link lights never turn on, and a physically connected computer shows no activity either (lights on the NIC or otherwise).

I do not want to do a factory reset as I may not then be able to get a wireless connection (I think you have to have a wired connection to initially configure the router). Has anyone seen this type of problem before?

I suspect that it is a hardware fault (from a power spike or something). My only other thought is that it had some weird settings in the config (i.e. lots of incoming ports open, default admin user/password set), which may have been set by a virus(es) on a connected PC. However, the router may have been set up in this way intentionally a long time ago.

Any thoughts? Do viruses try to reconfigure gateways from the 'inside'?

Just to summarise, everything is now working OK, but there is no wired LAN connection.

kinetic

91 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 135055 2-Jun-2008 21:53

I haven't heard of a virus altering a router, and unless you have enabled the "remote management" function, in which case someone could have connected in and changed something, but in reality, that's pretty unlikely.

I know you said you didn't want to do a factory reset, but my recommendation would be to make sure you are running the latest version of the firmware, unfortunatly that effectivly resets everything back to factory.

But at the end of the day, if your router, once flashed or factory reset still doesn't have it's LAN ports working, then your router is faulty. (Plus with a WRT54G you can flash it with custom firmware like DD-WRT, which adds a heap of thing you can alter, even to the point of increasing your wireless signal output strength, it worked a treat on mine.)

see www.dd-wrt.com for more info on how to flash you router.

One thing to test first, have you tried a few different patch cables (sometimes if these are faulty you won't get the "connected" status.)
Also if you can, try connecting to a different "NIC", either on a laptop or pc, if you have a second PC, as it could be a faulty NIC.

Best of luck.

tr3v

234 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 5

Reply # 135070 2-Jun-2008 22:30

Many thanks for your reply. I did try different computers and cables, without success. I will check to see if there is any way of configuring the router via wifi after a factory reset. Otherwise, I will just leave it with the wireless network until he needs something wired.