Caroline's Jackson Pollack

BUMPED: Linksys WMB54G Wireless Music Bridge - A Piece?

UPDATE: I pulled the power on the thing after giving a hard reset, and then followed the directions of a couple of various posts around the internets. See below the original post...[Warning: tech speak coming below] In short, throw away the instructions, and don't use the CD that it came with.

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And by 'piece' you know what I mean. I have been struggling with this thing since we bought it. It's a great idea: a bridge from your PC music to your audio system that does not have any issues with digital rights management issues - meaning, you dont break copyright, cause HOW it transmits the audio does not affect whether you have iTunes or anything else that may be proprietary (like mlb gameday audio) since it simply shunts the audio through the router instead of through your audio driver on your audio card on your PC.

But it's been a nightmare to operate, and now it simply is not working. It's rediculous. And I'm not the first person to think so.

If anybody has any experience in this area, it'd be a great help.

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HOW TO MAKE IT WORK:

Go to the linksys website, and download the latest driver here. DONT install it yet. Plug in the bridge directly to your router in an emply ethernet connection - DONT plug it into your PC directly - you can still find it inside your internal network. DONT allow your DHCP-enabled router to assign it an IP dynamically - DO force a reassign of the static IP the default .210. DO use the MAC address that is on the status html page and NOT what is on the bottom of the thing - that is the MAC address for the RJ45 connector and NOT the wireless MAC addy - and DO add it to your MAC filter. MANUALLY assign all the details needed - static IP, subnet mask, and gateway. manually input all your details for your wireless network. DO change your password. DO keep applying all the changes as they come. When done, unplug the bridge from the hard connection and wait about a minute for it to find the wireless network. DO ping your bridge to make sure that it's connected. NOW, INSTALL the driver and ONLY the driver - DO NOT USE the utility. Once installed (it hangs at 40% and 70%, but not for as long as at 40%), turn on the bridge utility and see if it can switch between your PC and the bridge. DO make sure that you're not playing audio when you turn on the utility. At this point, it should work. I've tried it once tonite; we'll see about tomorrow.