Hawking HWREG1 Wireless-G Range Extender
February 25th, 2008
Occasionally I see fit to throw a bone to the frantic Googlers out there looking for tech support answers. Here’s an easy one for anyone who forked out on this wifi range extender that they sell in Maplin and is currently finding it completely unusable. The firmware that it comes with quite simply does not work. In my case, the unit stays connected for a few minutes at most before requiring a reboot. Upgrading to this firmware did the trick OK.
I can’t believe a product could be released that is so obviously broken. I’ve seen lots of dodgy firmware versions for routers in the past that will choke up due to syn floods or viruses or whatever, but out here on a quiet private network in the middle of the country side there is no excuse for keeling over, straight out of the box. Got to say though, this has been rock solid since upgrading.
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February 26th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Thanks for the tip James! I’m forsaking the ethernet umbilical in the house I’m currently moving into, and relegating T to The Room With The Shitty Signal, so if the 7db gain dlinks don’t make the grade I’ll be looking for something like this. Now I don’t have to spend a pedantic fortnight researching it.
adam
February 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I have a 7db omni like that in the other house and it is pretty good for covering the house, not sure if it’s the exact same one. The problem is linking these two houses (~70m apart and separated by a big hedge). I tried everything to make the signal stronger, lots of different hardware, hacked Linksys with HyperWRT firmware and higher gain antennas, trimming the hedge, and still did not have a solid connection. I was checking the site survey in the second house on the HWREG1 all along, and didn’t realise that this is what was actually failing. So now I have a big 12db directional antenna linking the two houses, which is probably major overkill, but it is rock solid.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I already have one of those antennae plugged into the router, but I seem to have trouble with wireless in general, the upstairs-downstairs problem usually. New house has the attic converted, so that’ll be fun.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Hey Jame,
I have the same Hawkings extender with the same problem - needing to reset every few minutes.
I have a Dell laptop and can’t seem to get the IP addresses in agreement to allow the web page based config interface to work, and I believe I need that to update the firmware.
Any tips?
So far tech support from Hawkings hasn’t been very helpful.
Thanks,
David
PS I play a bit of irish music and build musical instruments. Just shipped an octave dulci to Ireland.