I got a wireless router this weekend as a late Christmas present.  I've had DSL for about 3 months, so this was obviously the next logical step. 

I'm pretty smart when it comes to techie things.  I'm not trying to brag; I have a lot of experience using computers and reading about geek things.  I spend about 28 hours a day on the internet.  Ok, maybe 25.  Either way, it's a lot.  So I expected this little installation to be no problem at all.  Plus, I know a bunch of non-techie people who have already done this, and it worked out great for them.  The people that sell wireless routers have to make them pretty simple to setup, otherwise people wouldn't buy them. 

So I got my new router out of the box and followed all the instructions on the CD.  They were pretty simple:  Plug some things in, press some buttons, eat some Ho Hos, wait for things to install.  Everything seemed to be going fine.  But uh oh, it didn't work.  I couldn't connect to the router to change its internal settings, which was the next step in the instructions.  So I tried it again, this time following every little detail to the T.  It said to wait 2 minutes before plugging in the router; I waited exactly 2 minutes.  Things were going ok, but then I had the same problem.  So I read through some help files on the CD and tried it a few more times.  Nothing.  I reset my computer and tried it again.  Nothing.  I reset my computer, unplugged the router and DSL modem, plugged everything in again in the right order, and tried it again.  Nothing.  Needless to say, I was a bit angry that I was unable to setup my wireless router.  So far in the course of my life, following directions has produced positive results.  I didn't understand why this would be an exception. 

As my last resort (though I obviously should have done this sooner), I Googled my problem.  I looked up something about the wireless router and the DSL modem.  It turns out I had to login to the modem's admin options and change a few things around, including changing something from "PPPoE" to "Bridged Ethernet".  I didn't even know I could login to the modem's admin options, let alone what those settings meant.  After I did that, I had to login to the router's admin options and enter my ISP username and password.  So after I made all these changes and tried a few things out, it finally worked. 

This whole process took about 3 hours.  What should have been a 10-minute plug-and-play operation took 3 hours of my Sunday afternoon, which meant missing some NFL playoffs.  How dare something get in the way of the playoffs. 

Conclusions:  My wireless router should have come with instructions for how to get around a DSL modem.  Maybe they could have a link in the instructions to some sort of troubleshooting website.  I was able to get all my information from the Broadband Reports forums.  But just the fact that I had to suffer through installation instructions that were doomed from the start shows that there's something wrong.  And once again, I'll claim that I'm not an idiot.  I know stuff.  I'm pretty tech-savvy.  So for these installation instructions to be insufficient for me, they had to be pretty bad. 

For the sake of reference, I have a Netgear WGR614 v6 wireless router and a Westell 6100 DSL modem with Verizon Online DSL service. 

Update (2006-10-19 9:06am):  It would be wise to write down (securely) usernames and passwords after changing them from the defaults (which is also wise).  Otherwise, you have to reset the device and go through this whole process again.  For a more specific reference, I used this page and the included links to solve all my problems.  Both times. #technology