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Netgear WGR614 Wireless 802.11g Router

Netgear WGR614 Wireless 802.11g Router

List Price: $84.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: If you dont speak "habib" don't call support.
Review: Easy to set up initially but kept dropping the connection. Called support, couldn't understand much but ended up downloading updated firmware. Disconnection problem solved but haven't seen the router operate at over 11 mbps since then. Great, paid for (g) but only usable as (b). Some time when I have the energy I will call India and try again. Until then (b) will have to do. I understand that all products (netgear or not ) have their flaws, ( WHY ME ? )

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Router works - Be Patient!!!
Review: I live in a house built in 1939 - no grounded lines except the kitchen. This was my answer for computing anywhere in my home, and it works splendidly. it was tough to set up, but I think that was because of my laptop problems. I got on the 1-800 help line with NetGear and stayed on hold for forever, like 30-40 minutes (you are calling a help center in India) and one guy was helpful, whereas another guy had me so mad I was ready to send the equipment back to NetGear. After I called back and stuck with it until it worked, it has worked like a dream ever since. It ended up that I needed to push in the "reset" button on the back and hold it and start over - then it worked perfectly, and has ever since. The connection is very fast and there is no noticeable difference from cable connection time.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Inadequate technical support
Review: Installed the product. Seemed to install and work fine at first, but then discovered sensitivity to the start up and shut down sequence of machines.

Have called technical support twice. Get a rude message about high call volume followed by automatically being hung up on both times.

Don't buy if you really need the product to work in a reasonable timeframe.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sensitive to positioning
Review: I've had the the WGR614 for about a month or so now, and was pretty disappointed with the wireless performance. My work area is ~30 feet from the router, and I'd get mediocre signal strength ratings (50-60%), low transmit rates, and frequent dropped connections. 30 feet.

Then I realized that I had a steel filing cabinet in the line-of-sight between the router and my chair. I put the router on top of the filing cabinet, rather than behind it, and many problems were solved. I'm now getting 95% signal strength and link quality, at 36mbps, rather than 60% signal ratings and 12 mpbs.

My other gripe with the wireless side of the router is that antenna isn't removable, so you can't replace it with a better one.

The router side of the unit seems to be OK, but I have some concerns about it - for instance, it merrily routes IP addresses in the 10.X.X.X range, which, strictly speaking, it should drop. This can actually be convenient for small business or home use; you can cobble together a DMZ-style area by using two routers - I've got a Cisco 675 between me and the public Internet, with one machine and Internet side of the WGR614 connected to the 675, and then the rest of the network on the private side of the WGR614.

Works great.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Finally Stablized the Connection!
Review: ok... I have spent many hours trying to figure out how to stabilize the connection. After being connected, the connection would drop after x minutes and not return unless I reset the wireless settings by clicking "Apply" using the Netgear html interface. I checked out all the forums and did not find anything that would help. I was ready to give up and return the item. But Thank God I finally found the solution.

Originally, I thought it was interference with my 2.4 ghz Panasonic phone but that wasn't it... Here's the solution and I hope this helps those who seem to be experiencing the same thing:

1. Update the firmware (not sure if this is really necessary but I did this after reading this on some forums)
2. Change channels. You have options 1 to 11. Mine works great on Channel 7 and it doesn't seem to interfere with my 2.4 ghz Panasonic cordless phone. Experiment and see which channel gives you the best signal and stable connection.
3. Place the router (if possible) in the center of the area that you will be working in to maximize the signal. I currently have the router at the end of my house and want to move it somewhere to the center to improve signal strength.
4. In the advanced settings for LAN IP set-up (and this is the one that solved the majority of my connection problems), you must reserve a dedicated ip address for each computer on the wireless LAN by using the "Address Reservation" option. Before I did this, I would sometimes get the message "IP address conflict with xx.xx.xx.xx" on each PC that I had connected to the router with the WG311 wireless PCI card. Basically, both computers were fighting for the same IP address and causing the connection to crash. So the problem was eliminated when I assigned dedicated IP addresses for each computer.

I give this router only 4 stars because this stuff should have been clearly stated in the manual. Now everything works fine and I get very few disconnects (notice how I didn't state zero disconnects). Anyway, ta da! Netgear should pay me for this. Seriously. p.s. There's been many price drops on this router recently so shop around.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: this thing doesn't work!!!
Review: The set-up seemed to go smoothly, but after using it a week I have had nothing but problems. Just out of the blue it will stop working, then I have to connect directly to the router to try and fix the problem and sometimes it would start working again and sometimes it wouldn't. I've spent more time trying to get it to work than I have actually using it.

It looks cool, but I would rather have a product that works. This is my first experience with Netgear and I will think seriously before buying any other products of theirs.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Poor support
Review: I bought this unit along with two WG511 PC Cards for two machines. It was relatively easy to install and initially worked fine. After less than one day, one of the machines lost it's connection. I phoned customer support, and got through to a guy in India after waiting for approximately 1 hour on my third atttempt. He said he didn't know what was wrong and suggested that I contact Microsoft. Through searching the internet I have found that others have encountered similar problems but have not yet found a solution.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Signal Drops -->so often it's almost unusable
Review: I carefully researched my new wireless home network, read all the reviews, talked to IT friends, and settled on the Netgear "G" product. It has an attractive industrial design, was moderately easy to set up, and was priced well on Amazon.com. After using it a short time though I am totally frustrated!! The signal drops off with great regularity. All the lights indicate it is still working fine, and my hard wire connection to the cable modem works great, but no signal emits from the wireless router. I thought, maybe it needs an updated software patch. After downloading the latest driver from Netgear, it still does the same ... thing! You have to power it down and restart it to get it to work again. The signal it does put out is so weak it's impossible to get a clean enough signal to enable 128bit encryption. (I'm only trying to span 30ft). I don't know if this is the best you can expect from wireless networking, but I'm not impressed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Product! Super Easy Setup!
Review: This is the best wireless product I have ever used. I have two Netgear 54G PCMCIA cards and this router and I have been completely impressed with all of them! I had them setup in 5 minutes and they have worked wonderfully since then! I have even had a long range of connection with them also! This Wireless Router is definately worth the money! A+! 5 Stars!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Netgear WGR614 is flawed
Review: I purchased the Netgear WGR614 mainly because of its ability to limit access to the wireless network via a MAC address along with using Wep encryption. I wanted more security. My old SMC Barricade Router only used Wep encryption, but had a solid wireless connection. The Netgear router installs very easily as do most routers now days and the hard wire ports work fine, but the wireless connection would drop every 10 to 15 seconds at only 20 ft away. I tried downloading the latest firmware, but to no avail. Needless to say, the connectivity issue was unacceptable and I gave it away.


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