Great news, glad you got it working again mate.
âŚI believe youâre the one skimming. You still never responded to my post earlier. Wifi interference is sometimes intermittent, depending on the devices currently operating in your vicinity. It also can cause slow connections, just like you noted here:
And as previously stated multiple times, devices near your router can cause interference:
So yes, we read your topic, but no, you didnât read our responses. Ten bucks says youâll experience this again soon, unless you fix the root cause. Still willing to help, minus the accusations of not helping.
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You said the wired connections were working fine; that is why I thought this was a wireless problem, donât just assume I skimmed.
See, this makes it sound as if when the problem occurs, only wireless connections are affected.
The link you posted is about cloning MAC addresses to the router, which would affect wired devices.
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Glad that it works, just want to say that âcrashingâ and âsees LAN, canât access Internetâ are two very different things. The way you described it made it sound as if the router was catastrophically failing the minute anything wifi related interacts with it.
In the future, try to avoid using vague words and phrases like âiPhone makes it crashâ or âbarely worksâ. we can only give good advice when we have a good description of the problem.
Buying a new router is proper advice. We canât guarantee how long yours will work. Itâs a miracle itâs still working at all tbh. Most routers do not last longer than 5-7 years.
Donât ever buy $50 routers. Those always end up being bad. A router is an investment, not a random cost. You buy good hardware, it lasts you a while and will support you until it dies You buy shit hardware, it dies in months.
Also most routers come with 1-3 years warranty so even if it fails youll get another for free. you were the one who lost $50 by not replacing the dead one
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that becuase only wireless connections were affected
where?
So.⌠according to what you said, when this problem occurs:
Wired devices - can reach the internet, other wired devices, and wireless devices
Wireless devices - can reach only other wireless devices and wired devices
is that correct?
yeah
I could literally type in my desktops internal ip and get the supermicro login screen , but couldnât simply ping google.com from a wireless device
This statement is extremely vague. wifi devices donât crash each other unless one is having catastrophic hardware failure.
Another example of vagueness
This one sentence would avoid all issues. âiPhonesâ and "crashing are completely different
Yeah, Iâve got no clue, but I would bet that changing that MAC address is not going to do much, since that would only affect your connection to the ISP.
If you can reach your desktopâs webserver but not Google while that same desktop can reach Google, I am out of ideas. That sounds like some crazy routing table problem that you wonât be able to fix â not without installing DD-WRT, OpenWRT, or some other custom firmware, if at all.
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but i did fix it
I just did what the link said and it fixed it. its been working for years prior with only the occasional problem cropping up every few months. Iâm just getting sick of having to ask for help every few months and getting âbuy a new routerâ responses and then having to just google like hell the problem myself.
Iâd be less pissed if I couldnât fix it and had to buy a new one. But every time I fix the thing it just goes to show how even a total idiot like me can figure out the problem and fix it without having to waste money on a new one.
@emosun Iâm glad you resolved the issue. I have seen consumer class and even small business class routers have their configs reset randomly, usually due to an electrical issue of some kind. Never had just a few settings change though. They just go back to their defaults.
I will say that although your wrt54g seems to be running now, I would consider investing in a new router sooner than later. I have this same box with DD-WRT installed that I used up until 3 years ago or so. I replaced it after upgrading my internet speeds and hitting a bottleneck. This was only a 30/5 connection. I donât know what your internet speeds are supposed to be, but there is a good chance that your wireless devices arenât getting that full speed (or even your wired devices). The â54gâ part of the model refers to the 54Mbps maximum bandwidth that the wireless G standard can offer. And that is under perfect conditions that you would only get in a lab in some top secret government facility somewhere. Also networking equipment will start to do strange things and require frequent power cycles or resets before they outright die. If I was a betting man, I would say your router isnât long for this world. By all means run it into the ground if you wish, but you may be sacrificing performance you are paying for from your ISP in exchange.
I know technical issues can be frustrating, but try and keep your frustration targeted at the machines and not the people who are trying to help you. We humans need to stick together during the machine uprising. 
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that would mean alot if this wasnât also part of the thread
I have to agree with @torpcoms on this. The link you posted wouldnt ever 100% solve your issue. It might fix it temporarily, but thats only because the routers starting fresh.
that link you posted is very poorly explained. What the link was describing was essentially a DHCP related issue, but DHCP affects both wired AND wireless at the same time (unless manually configured otherwise), so if wireless fails, wired would fail too. MAC addresses dont have much to do with not being able to access the internet on wifi, Plug and Play has nothing to do with internet access at all and the instructions in the link that say âchange IP to 192.168.2.1â wouldnt actually help you get online either.
Also theres no âwrong wayâ to reset a router. Once you reset it, it automatically sets itself up for a âplug and playâ experience, meaning that everything you need is already enabled and you can connect to the web by plugging on a few cables. Im not talking about the plug and play setting, thats something completely different. There should be no need to do even half the stuff in the link.
Thats our honest advice. Some of the folks who replied in the thread work with routers and network stuff for a living. Youâre asking us what is essentially the equivalent of âhow do i keep my 30 year old dog alive as long as i canâ.
If this is a reoccurring problem, then it means that googling and following instructions isnt fixing the fundamental core issue in the router and that youre only treating its symptoms. youre basically fixing a cracked window with dollar store tape. Im not even trying to be rude, but youâre just prolonging the inevitable at this point. That routers absolutely on its last legs, even if you dont want to believe it.
As iâve said earlier, buying a proper router isnt a waste of money. buying $50 dollar routers is definitely a waste, but buying proper branded $100-$150 routers is not even close to a waste. Its an investment. Your router use to cost about $120 US when it was new bacnk in 2005, and its lasted you over a decade. New $120 routers are very good devices and their reliability is only getting better.
Use your temporarily functioning router to go to amazon or some other computer store (as long as it isnt best buy) and find a proper router for the future. People here would gladly recommend good models of consumer routers what should last you for years to come. Im just telling you the truth, you wont get any benefit out of maintaining that aging router.
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What @NetBandit said might not be acceptable to you, but his advice is valid. If I walked into a clientâs networking and saw a WRT54G, I would recommend replacing it next time they were thinking about maintenance expenses. If there was any weird router related issues, I would replace it on the spot. Granted, these are businesses Iâm dealing with, but this isnât the first issue you have had with the router. It will only get worse. Networking equipment is not something you should have to troubleshoot on a regular basis, much less every month. For a home user especially, it is a âset it and forget itâ deal. You should expect your router to go months without a reset if not more, which Iâm sure yours used to do without a problem for years.
Instead of getting your feelings hurt, go buy a router. Any other advice is a waste of time. Donât tell me you donât have the $30 to get another router.
He did buy one for $50, which apparently died months later. no idea which model. Im not sure why he didnt use the included warranty, but id say its better to aim for the $100 mark if hes aiming for 5-10 years of service from it. especially at the consumer level, those $30 routers arent something id want in my house
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Doesnât everything have a 1 year warranty at least? Did he try to get a replacement? Why are any of us even bothering with this guy anymore. He knows what to do. All heâs doing is crying like a hurt puppy instead of doing what needs to be done.
I agree with @RotaryWombat on the router selection. Anything below the ~$100 range is going to fail prematurely or not have decent performance. If you are interested @emosun, I could give you a few models I would recommend that are rock solid and easy to setup and manage.
save it for when this one stops working. course I have a stack of these on a shelf in storage so I suppose save it for when the stack finally dies. lol