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NETGEAR routers are crap

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 11:41 pm
by Benjamin
I recently purchased one with wireless and it's a joke.

This thing will randomly change your IP in the middle of a file transfer from another computer on a LAN (Even with static IP's set on both the PC and in the router with DHCP turned off), which isn't good when you have strict firewall access. It will randomly change all of your 192.168.1.xxx ip's to 10.0.0.xxx which isn't good when you have all of your LAN pc's setup for static IP's. It will randomly stop accepting connections from wireless devices when you have controlled access turned on, which forces you to power cycle it.

Ugh. Why don't companies make decent products any more. I tried calling customer service and ended up talking to some guy who said, "Oh we can't run our diagnostics because you didn't register it yet". What? I'm thinking dude, what diagnostics do you have to run? I set everything a certain way and your firmware randomly changes the settings... It's a bug! Apparently these netgear guys on the other end don't have the slightest clue how routers work, they only know how to use a windows based application that doesn't know how to diagnose the problem unless you run the wizard on the router to install it, which I can't do because of the way my network is set up.

Anyway, that's my first and last netgear purchase. This is just a fair warning if your ever at the store picking out a wireless router. Buy another brand.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:22 am
by JayBird
Might entire network is Netgear and it is great! Not a single problem.

Which model out of interest?

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:37 am
by iknownothing
I believe NETGEAR's standard IP adress is 10.0.0.1, perhaps changing it to 192.168.1.0 may fix it?

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:40 am
by TheMoose
Never had and probably never will have a problem with good ol' Linksys. Especially when even Netgear stuff just LOOKS horrible. It has no aesthetic taste whatsoever.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:29 am
by RobertGonzalez
I had a friend that had a Netgear problem once. I personally am sold on Linksys. Their products have rarely had issues for me, and they have lasted a long time for me.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:05 am
by Benjamin
iknownothing wrote:I believe NETGEAR's standard IP adress is 10.0.0.1, perhaps changing it to 192.168.1.0 may fix it?
I do, and a few hours later it changes them back. I'll throw up the model number later. I'm going to sell this on e-bay with the title, "WORST ROUTER EVER NO RESERVE!"

I can't believe these people are in business.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:53 am
by thiscatis
Phillips Wireless here and hasn't failed me once,
I can understand your frustration, my previous one was from Alcatel :evil:

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:56 pm
by s.dot
My friend recently has expressed anger towards netgear routers with me. :P

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:50 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
You might want to check the netgear site for new firmware. I do that all of the time. There was a new one for my netgear router. Just took a moment to dowload, install and reboot the router.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:38 pm
by Benjamin
That was the first thing I did the first time it started changing my IP's. I installed the latest version.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 5:11 pm
by Ollie Saunders
Netgear isn't so great. We're using a load of Draytek stuff at work at the moment, only recently installed but so far so good. But if you want it to work, properly, you can't beat Cisco, and no Linksys isn't the same.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 5:18 pm
by feyd
I haven't had any serious problems with Netgear products in general, but I haven't used any of their routers. My newest, an Apple Base Station Extreme, has worked very well since installation a few months ago. Absolutely no problems whatsoever.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 5:31 pm
by Benjamin
I'm not surprised that the Apple works well. I think the issues I'm having can be attributed to poor programming in the firmware, something that wouldn't fly with Apple. Even though the NETGEAR hardware may be good, what good is it if they don't write proper code to run it.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:27 pm
by The Phoenix
From a 4-port switch that handled my first ethernet (not 10base-T!) gaming session all the way up to running multi-million dollar sites, Netgear has been with me all along.

The only negative experience I've had with them was a single network card (gigE) didn't work with World Of Warcraft. Of course, neither did five other brands, so its hardly their fault. (Intel was the only one I could get working finally).

Different people have different experiences even with the same equipment. Mechanical parts aren't universally the same quality.. one power surge, one bad manufacturing error, and my paradise is your hell.

Personally, I love Netgear equipment. Sorry to hear about your difficulties with it. :(

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:14 pm
by Benjamin
You know, this damn thing changed all my 192.x.x.x addresses to 10.x.x.x addresses 3 times. So I said, fine, that's what you want to use....

I changed all the IP's on my computers to 10.x.x.x IP's. An hour later this router changes them back to 192.x.x.x addresses.

It's seriously weird, and way not cool because I have a lot of things to do and don't have time to reconfigure my entire network and firewall rules 4 times a day,

Anyway, this is model WGT624v3