What are the disadvantages (if any) of accessing the internet through two or more "chained" routers?

"The amount of lag is too small to notice. I have 3 routers chained together in my house and don't have any problems. Your DD-WRT firewall will still function and protect you.

The only thing you didn't mention explicitly was whether or not you disabled the DHCP on the modem/router. I would think you want your DD-WRT to handle the managment of IP addresses. Either way, you'll need to turn off one of the two so you don't get conflicts."

There is nothing wrong with this setup. As a matter of fact using two routers in this way is a good way to protect your LAN from a potentially more dangerous network. Your bandwidth will not be affected in any noticeable way.

"Guess how many routers are chained from your computer to SU servers? (you can get an answer with traceroute).

Just another one will not hurt that much."

"You could have as many routers as you want internally. As long as the default route of each segment leads to the next router and ultimately the internet, you're fine. And if someone breaks in the fist router, he won't be able to get further until he hits the next router. This doe snot mean that it is a recommended setup for a more secure network,as it needs more monitoring, perhaps. However, this lets you setup multiple wireless networks, for example. If you want to increase the security, I would suggest:

Set each segment IP network to be different from 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x. Use something like 192.168.45.x, for example.
Set the router's own IP address to something other than x.x.x.1. Use something like 192.168.45.254 for example.

JF"

This is a perfectly fine configuration. I have my home network configured with an inner and outer router (not counting the cable modem). This is a recommended configuration for some purposes. There is some good discussion here, at GRC.com