Router went haywire

[Snoopdogie187]

Hi, I'm not looking for any help fixing the rouer, I already did that,

I have a Linksys WRT54GS router, It has always had passwords on both the router itself and the wireless. It has been running fine since October, like not a problem unless the cable was down. It has had the original firmware that came with it,and it is about a year old.

I knew there was a new firmware but I was going with the method of if its not broke don't fix it.

I am just being careful right now, its a college campus, a lot of college students would have access to the wireless signal.

The problem that happened was the router seem to have been reset (default SSID, password (no password on wireless),etc.) Also the Eithernet ports didn't work and it only wored wirlessly.

I used he reset button, and the reset factor defualts in the router settings.

In the end I had to update the firmware and put all the settings back in order to get it to work. It seems to be back to 100% now luckly.

At first I was thinking the router was dead, but really I want to know, what could have caused this? Just the routers files became courput over time (maybe power issue?) Any way yo prevent it in the future? those questions.

Also want to ask about 3rd party firmwares. I know that only the GL is based off of linux, but there is a mini version that they have for these.
Has anyone tried it out before? is it better? Which is the best, etc.

Sorry if this is confussing, or hard to understand, but thank ou for al your help in advance.