WRT54GS signal strength -- upgrade vs settings

I have a WRT54GS version 1 router with firmware v. 2.07.1.  I've had it for a long time, but I have never been thrilled with its signal strength. Of course, I defined a unique SSID for my network, and I use channel 7 instead of the default channel.
Even when I lived in an apartment, I could only get 50-75% signal strength to my Linksys 802.11b adapter that I use for my TiVo.  Now across my house I get about the same.
It seems to me that there are two good options for trying to improve the signal strength:
1. Upgrade to an 802.11g adapter and make my network all-G instead of b/g.
2. Mess around with setttings in the router.
3. Upgrade the firmware.
I'm definitely going to do #1, and I don't have much faith that #2 will help much--though I'd like to hear others' thoughts on that.
The firmware is quite old, and I'd like to upgrade it, but I'm a little bit afraid of messing something up (esp. since this version of the firmware doesn't seem to have the "save configuration" option).  
Should I be afraid to upgrade the firmware?  If anything should go wrong (knock wood), are there ways of recovering?
Thanks for any input.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Try upgrading the firmware i would suggest. There is no harm in upgrading the firmware.
Your current firmware is 2.07.1. Thats quite old. The latest firmware is 4.71.4.
You can download the firmware here.
Click here for instructions on upgrading the firmware.
For instructions on wireless security, try this link.
The Setup for WRT54GS is almost same as mentioned here.
You need to reset the router after the firmware is upgraded. You will loose all the settings once the router is reset. You can open the setup page and configure the settings again. It might take some time but its worth the effort. Trust me, firmware upgrade will not do any harm to the outer but instead boost the performance.
C | EH
linksyshelp.blogspot.com

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