Rating: Summary: firmware nightmares, surreal tech support Review: Firstly I have had my home networked sicne I had ISDN ten years ago. I am quite familiar with all the technical aspects as I have aldso had routers and hardware firewalls for some time.The firmware on this unit is problematic, the firmware "upgrade" is even worse. Do not bother calling tech support unless you are willing to have someone wo doesn't know a much at all reading off a scripted card insult your intelligence. To top that off range is quite poor. I would wait til the next generation of this product or for them to work out the many bugs. It seems like a good price but if you have to spend hours on the phone with bad tech support it wouldn't be worth it if it were free.
Rating: Summary: Poor Quality Hardware Review: I own the MR814v2 802.11b router. That is a very stable product, so I figured since I had a WG311 wireless card in my desktop I'd buy another Netgear router for 802.11g. Many of the reviews here were favorable, so I bought on the basis of that. This product is simply not stable, at least for me. It has to be rebooted constantly. For sure it cannot hold a wireless connection more than 24 hours. I upgraded to the latest firmware, which at the time of writing is 4.1.11. No help whatsoever. I checked on-line, and sure enough many many people have reported similar problems with it (broadbandreports.com). I tried disabling the 108Mb features, but that also didn't help. So in the end, I'm just returning it after a frustrating weekend.
Rating: Summary: Great Router Review: Set up easy. Read all reviews, and bought with some reservations as several negative reviews indicated problems. However, I believe Netgear has them fixed with the version shipping now. Excellent out of box set up, configured both WEP and WAP, settled on using WEP. Use a Netgear 511 wireless card and get 54MBPS thoughout house, about 24-48 outside. Distance of 50+ feet. I have an old house, lathe and plaster walls, hardwood construction and still great reception. Also, have the router in the basement, between an old brick chimney and the furnace. Still, great reception. Recommend!
Rating: Summary: Second Time's A Charm! Review: After ordering Netgear "802.11g" wireless router which worked only five hours, I returned it and upgraded to the WGT624 Super G. What a difference. Installed completely within 20 minutes including the wireless card on my laptop, and everything ran perfectly. Before you hook up anything, put the installation cd in your computer and then follow the instructions. This one simple step makes everything work. Also, the ethernet cord they give you is way too short. You will need to purchase two 14' ethernet cords so you can locate the router away from your processor: one for your DSL modem and the other for the router. This is my first time at writing a review. But after reading so many of the negatives on NetGear, I decided to post my opinion. My second time at using this product was a charm!
Rating: Summary: Good...but not without problems Review: I purchased my WGT624 v2 from amazon.com. As soon as I pulled it out of the box it was constantly rebooting (dropping me off the internet both wired and wireless). I was able to fix it though and I will tell you how and what happened. When I had this problem out of the box, I called for netgears free 90 day support. They were horrible! They answered the phone without a long wait, but they knew very little about this product. They gave me an RMA and I received the new router. Unpakced the replacement and same problem. Updated firmward to latest, and followed all the troubleshooting on the netgear site and I still coudln't fix it. Just when I was ready to return it to amazon I found out how to fix the problem. There is a setting on the router for preamable and it is set to auto by default. Auto is supposed to detect if the card(s) support short preamable (short is usually only useful when there is a lot of interference from other wireless devices in and around the home and most cards don't even support it). I changed the setting from auto to long and that fixed the reboot problems. I have gone around to as many forums as possible to try and post the solution so that others can cure themselves of this problem. It works great now that I found out what the problem was. This is not a router for a novice computer user. If you are a novice I suggest you get a linksys product. This netgear has a lot of features for the price though, and this is just a stupid problem with the firmware. Hrd2k
Rating: Summary: If you like frequent router reboots & dropped connections... Review: then this router is for you. Google it and you will find multiple forums with ample posts about this router and its problems--wish I 'd read them before I bought it. In spite of numerous attempts to configure it per instructions and updating the firmware (which the almost unintelligible Indian tech support urge you not to do after waiting on hold for 20 minutes), still problems. It seems to drop connections most during online gaming.
My opinion is, keep looking for a router and do a forum search before you buy
Rating: Summary: Keeps on stalling after every 10 mins Review: Technical support did not help much, the Router keeps on stalling and needs to be rebooted every 10 Minutes.
I upgraded the firmware too but didnt help much.
I dont know what to do with this router now.
Rating: Summary: Pure junk Review: It set up well and work well for a brief period of time. Quickly though it began to fail until it gave up completely. This is pure junk!
Rating: Summary: Waste of money Review: I am tired of endless rebooting.
I have only one wish: to get rid of this junk as
fast as possible.
Rating: Summary: How to make this Router Work Review: First, let me preface, like many have posted, the unit can reboot continously. However, this can be FIXED and the unit is rock stable afterwards. The solution: Update the firmware. Unfortunately, the automatic "check for firmware updates" menu function does not do this correctly.
Go to Netgear's website and download firmware V4.2.6_1.0.1. After downloading, manually update the router from the "Router Upgrade" menu.
The link to the firmware is:
http://kbserver.netgear.com/support_details.asp?dnldID=900
Prior to the upgrade, under heavy load (ie. Bittorrent), the unit would reboot continously and lock up after 6 hours. Since the upgrade, the router now has handled 6+ days of a continous heavy load (300k down, 50k up) without as much as a hiccup.
As for the router itself, it is beautiful and functions perfectly. It has a small footprint than almost every other router available and hosts every conceivable option necessary. The only function it does not have is QoS (quality of service), but I have never encountered a situation where it would be necessary. I've had VoIP for over a year now and not once has heavy downloading affected my phone quality.
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