I mentioned last week that my modem/router was playing up and that I was going to attempt to fix it. It seems (so far!) that it has been a success, so I've written a small tutorial for those wanting to try it as well. Thanks to "revs per min" on whirlpool for helping me out with locating the faulty capacitor. This is for the "v2" wag54g, v1 and v3's have a different layout.

This should fix the problem of ethernet ports dropping out and/or being limited to 10mbps.

For parts, you just need to head into dick smiths, or jaycar and pick up a 33uF 16v electrolytic capacitor. They should be only a few cents each, and you only need 1, but you might like to get a couple just in case.

You'll also need a soldering iron, solder, a pair of good pliers and a screwdriver.

1. First step is to take about your modem, they're very easy to get into - start by locating the front rubber "feet" and pop them out to reveil 2 screws - take the screws out.
   
2. Pull off the front panel (with a bit of wriggling).
   
3. Slide the lower board out from the top cover, being careful of the wire leading to the aerial. You can remove the arial connector just by popping it off.
   
4. There is a single screw you need to remove which holds the main board onto it's plastic tray.

Now to the fun part...

The capacitor that we're going to replace is marked in red below:



To remove, I found the best way is to simply pry it from the board using a pair of pliers (leaving the legs still in place).
Use your soldering iron to heat the points on the bottom of the board, and a pair of pliers to "pull" the legs on the otherside out once hot enough.

Be careful not to overheat the surrounding components. This is a little tricky, and the solder is quite hard to melt on these particular joints.



Once you have the capacitor+legs removed, trim the legs on your replacement capacitor down, as they only need a few mm to be seated in place. Make sure that you take note of which way to mount it, the grey bar (with "arrows") should face the same way as the one which you removed. Heat the solder joints on the bottom of the board and try to push your new capacitor into the mounting holes, it might take some fiddling around.

After that is done, hopefully you'll have yourself a fully working wag54g again! You can see from my example below, the replaced capacitor is slightly taller than the others.