Now a different Linksys problem

[jepeters]

If you were following from my posts the latter half of November, you know I had problems with some wireless routers in our school. We bought some new ones, and I thought I had everything working--at least things were fine for the first few days.

But now, all 3 of the Linksys Wrt54G routers that I configured need to be unplugged for a minute or so, and then plugged back in again in order for them to work. They went out on Wednesday, and we didn't have school since then, but I had to unplug them again today to get them going.

The laptop that I was working on tonight said that it was getting a strong signal, and it was even getting a legitimate IP address for out school. But it wouldn't connect to our domain server or the Internet. I unplugged the router and plugged it back in, and everything was fine. Also, these routers seem to be preventing us from getting a connection to any of the other routers that are normally within range. Once I unplug one of the bad routers, I can get connected to the next nearest router.

I must have set something up wrong when I configured the routers. It's the first time I've tried to do it, and I was just making an educated guess. Evidentally, I missed something. Any guesses as to what I need to change?

[mojo]

Are they set to the same or different SSID as the other access points? I'm assuming that they're all connected to the network with a LAN port, not an internet port, correct? One thing to think about is the ventilation the routers get. Perhaps they are overheating? Those are just my initial thoughts; this one could be tricky to get to the bottom of.

[jepeters]

all of them have the same SSID (including the old ones that are still working fine). Yes they are connected to one of the 4 lan ports, not the internet port. Ventilation is not a problem.

[mojo]

Well I'm still baffled as to why they stop working, but the reason they "prevent" you from connecting to the properly working APs is that the computer will connect to whatever AP has the strongest signal. Since they're all the same SSID (and they should be, don't change that) the computer assumes that they're the same network, and other than signal strength there's no reason to chose one over another.

Do the 3 routers you're having problems with all have the latest firmware from linksys?

[jepeters]

I didn't check firmware. Unless it's been upgraded very recently, they should be OK as we just bought them. I'll check the website just in case.