Lately my SMC2804WBR has started to play up a bit (arbitrarily causing loss of connectivity), so this weekend I finally got around to replacing it. Mrs Elbeno was complaining of having to power cycle it 2 or 3 times a day.
Where wireless broadband routers are concerned, experience has taught me that once you get a working setup, you should not fiddle any more. And that pretty much all routers are flaky… it’s all down to getting stable firmware. Back in the UK I had an older SMC model that I kept relatively stable for a few years, which was why I bought SMC again when I moved to the US. However, I had prepared for this day when I knew the router would eventually fail. About 6 months ago I did my research and trawled through the local electronics stores looking for a Linksys WRT54G with the right serial number.
So after a visit to OpenWRT.org and some settings-tweaking for the last hour (and leaving my cable modem off for a while so that it would forget the MAC address of the machine using it – why oh why do they do that?), I am now connected to the Intertubes through a proper linux box. Yay! The SMC used to get very hot, particularly when stressing it (e.g. bittorrenting wirelessly). I have higher hopes for the new box, in part because I have much better control over it. Time will tell.