NETGEAR WNR834B-100NAS Wireless N Router
by Netgear
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List Price: Our Price: $69.95 You Save: $15.04 (18%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $19.98 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of NETGEAR WNR834B-100NAS Wireless N Router
Customer Review: Great security, difficult set-up, especially for MACs
Summary: 3 Stars
The physical setup of the router - connecting the cables, plugging it in, and configuring it with a wired connection - is a breeze. I accomplished it in under 10 minutes. Then I spent the next 4 hours getting our wireless computers to connect.
One tip: Get everyone - wired and wireless - connected before you configure the security. In this way, all the networked computers will recognize the new router without any hindrances. Then go back into the setup program and configure the security.
We have several Windows PCs and one MAC. The MAC was the most difficult to connect. The box says MAC OS compatible, so I was quite put out when Netgear customer service told me to call Apple to resolve the problem.
Fortunately, I insisted on speaking with a supervisor. This individual stuck with me for the next hour and half until we got the MAC connected.
This is what worked for me, but YMMV. At lower level security - WEP and WPA1 - the MAC needs a dollar sign ($) entered preceding the password, like this: $password, when you connect it to the network. At the higher level WPA2 security, it does not take the dollar sign.
While I succeeded in connecting the MAC, the user reports that he is experiencing interruption of the wireless connection to a greater degree than previously experienced. The Windows PCs have not experienced any loss of performance.
I purchased Netgear mostly because, with the exception of the MAC, the PCs all have Netgear wireless ethernet cards. This is because we've had Netgear routers for years. However, on average the routers last about a year. Next year, should the occasion call for it, I'll risk another brand.
Customer Review: Fine for complete novice
Summary: 5 Stars
I switched from DSL to cable so bought the 'most advanced' router on the shelf: 11n, supposedly maximum range at up to 130 MB download. There're probably many features that I didn't study-up on: double firewalls, direct link to certain VPNs, ... I hear that routers can do a lot, but all I wanted was Interenet connectivity for my PCs.
After a major hassle with setting up the cable modem which was my ISP's problem, not the Netgear router, I plugged my PC into the router with an Ethernet cable, inserted the CD and was off! It got an IP address 'automatically,'I was able to set up the router in less than 5 minutes with WPA2 (stronger than WEP) security... and now, a month or so of using it constantly, no problems. (I worry a little about 'sharing bandwidth' with all the other folks on the same cable. DSL is dedicated but cable is variable, but so far, so good. "Sharing" is an attribute of cable modems -- nothing to do with the router. This router will support cable or DSL so I can switch back if I want.)
Another cable modem vs. DSL wrinkle: cable modems will only allow a single router to be connected. I was hoping to daisy-chain my other router (for VPN access) but can't do it. Not Netgear's problem. It has 4 ports on the back so I can directly connect an IP phone or printer or... up to 4 devices.
I had to get a refurbed 11n PC card for my ancient machine because it seems the Netgear did not 'fall back' enough for my old 11g card. That might have been a problem with old drivers for the 11g card. With the 11n card, I just had to point and click and was connected in less than 5 minutes, good connectivity, no drops... Happy!
Customer Review: Setup freezes. Frequent restarts.
Summary: 1 Stars
The NetGear RangeMax Next wifi router was a serious disappointment. You begin by inserting the CD which they say over and over. This CD loads a page in your browser; if that browser is Internet Explorer it pegs your CPU at 100% and generally freaks out. It doesn't technically "freeze," but it does slow your computer to a crawl and causes setup to never finish.
Moving into Firefox with the same URL, setup runs but in my case ultimately couldn't get me online. This isn't user error - my SMC Barricade I was upgrading from connected just fine to Comcast, who have an extremely simple Internet arrangement (no locked MAC address, no user/pass, no static IP - just connect to it). After I returned this Netgear I got a Linksys WRT54G instead and that connected in less than 5 minutes, as part of its setup process. The Netgear setup software is horribly broken.
Back to the Netgear process. I had to kill setup and browse to the configuration URL, 192.168.1.1. After serious reconfiguration of the Router I finally got it to connect to Comcast. This took over an hour, caused partly by the fact that every time you make a change to the Router's settings, you get a wait screen. The router completely shuts down, causing you to lose your connection. 30 seconds to a minute later it comes back. Then you can make your next change and sit around another minute.
Do not buy this router. The programmers writing this router software didn't waste their time making it work well for you. Don't waste your time or money on their shoddy product.
Customer Review: Good Deal for Netgear users at $70
Summary: 4 Stars
My 5-year old Netgear WGR614 wireless G-standard router was starting to drop connection with my cable modem so I shopped around, read the reviews and decided to stay with Netgear despite the mixed reviews. Two reasons to go with the Netgear WNR834B - first, if you are already using a Netgear G-standard router, the setup will not be an adventure and secondly it keeps standardization with other Netgear wireless equipment. For a new user, I can see where some frustration can occur as the install instructions don't always get you connected the first time. As other reviewers have noted, you have to have your computer connected to your modem when you do the initial setup.
Pros: Easy to connect - at least for a previous Netgear user; noticeable, but not overwhelming boost to G-standard throughput. I have not tried it for N-standard WiFi connection yet. Depending on your personal tastes, the standing box design is clean. Has 4-ethernet connections, which I use on a mixed wire/wireless network in my house. Automatically defaults to WPA security standard.
Cons: Can be challenging for first time Netgear user if everything doesn't work smoothly on the first install. That is why I only give the router a 4-star rating.
Bottom Line - good buy for $70 and any current Netgear user should find it an easy upgrade from an older G/B standard router.
Customer Review: Whatever happened to Netgear?
Summary: 1 Stars
Netgear used to be my preferred vendor. This product has changed my mind. On arrival, it was unable to retain settings on power-off. Fortunately salvageable by a hard reset. Wired connection to the router gave speeds >30 mbps while wireless crawled along at 0.2-0.7 mbps with occasional bursts up to 2.3 mbps. After a night and day of fighting with this thing, finally found turning off wmm (wifi multi-media)(not recommended by the vendor) and frameburst allowed wireless internet connection speeds to be what they should have been i.e. ~30 mbps.
Netgear technical support is completely worthless - the email team is incapable of reading, understanding or responding in any way that is related to the question asked or any response to their non-response that you might give! To give them some credit, the staff is very good at "cut and paste" from the manual and it is amusing to try and guess what the keyword was that they used to make their selected response - one would think that it was somehow related to your query, right?
BTW, if you buy anything refurbished made by Netgear, you are on your own - don't even bother trying to obtain support from them!...and there does seem to be a lot of refurbished Netgear stuff out there....no need to wonder why.