Linksys WRT54GL good enough for 100Mb?


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I am in the U.K and used to own a WRT54GL which I sold when I got a ADSL line.

I am now back on 100Mb cable with Virgin but they now supply a 'Super' hub which combines the Modem and Router. The Super Hub looks wonderful but it performs like a piece of crap (flaky wireless & temperamental WOL), even with the latest firmware.

Fortunately it has a 'modem only' mode so I can add a router. I was thinking of buying back an WRT54GL but I am not sure it will handle the 100Mb WAN to LAN that I regularly download at. Even running the CPU at 250Mhz like I used to.

I am not that bothered about Wifi speeds. I just need something that does WOL reliably (which the Superhub doesn't or I would persevere with it) and can handle 100Mb WAN to LAN without being a bottleneck.

If the WRT54GL can't cut it are there any recommendations for something that's good value for money that will?

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The WRT54G range have 5 ports on the back, 4 of them are switch ports, and a WAN slot. They are all the same switch, just the WAN is on a different VLAN. The ports are only rated at 100Mb, so I doubt you'd be able to utilise your Internet speed, and internal network speed.

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Install DD-WRT and it'll handle that fine. You'll never get full 100MB over VMedia anyway so you'll likely be running it at like 95% of capacity.

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the WRT54 series can only do 30-40Mbps routing thruput so you'll need something with a little more umph anyways. The E4200 or E3000 or equivalent from other companies (Netgear WNDR3700 or Asus RT56U and such) are capable of doing 200Mbps+ routing (e4200 700Mbps Rt56U does 1100Mbps!!!) which will be able to handle the 100mbps WAN speeds to your LAN.

Remember, from WAN to LAN is routing, from LAN to LAN is switching. Therefore it doesn't matter that the LAN ports are 100Mbps, routing happens via software and via the CPU in the router so you'll never get that from such a old router.

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Yup exactly what Shotta stated, but want to throw in that it is a bit more than just pure routing -- you have got NAT going on there as well which is a hit on the actual throughput between wan and lan. Not to mention any extra firewall features you might have enabled other than just stateful packet inspection.

Here is a decent database to lookup what a router can do from wan to lan http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view

Keep in mind just because a router has gig interfaces does not mean it can even route 100mbit from wan to lan. But one thing you will know for sure is if it does not have gig, your never actually going to see 100.. Even with pure switching you don't see actual 100mbit on a 100mbit interface -- high 90's sure, but not actual 100 ;) To see actual 100 you need interface higher, ie 1000.

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