Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router
by Netgear

List Price: $99.99
Our Price: $16.00
You Save: $83.99 (84%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: CE
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Digital Photo Product Details

• Connect to a cable/DSL modem and get wired or wireless Internet access for all your computers
• Compatible with most 802.11b wireless networking devices
• Firewall, 128-bit Encryption, Parental controls
• Smart Wizard automatically detects ISP type, Port Range Forwarding, Exposed Host (DMZ), URL Content Filtering, E-mail Alerts.
• Compatible with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, Mac OS, NetWare, UNIX, and Linux

• Windows Live OneCare 2.0 (Up to 3 Users)
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard [OLD VERSION]
• Nero 8 Ultra Edition [OLD VERSION]
• Quicken Deluxe 2010 [OLD VERSION]
• Kaspersky Antivirus 2010 1-User [OLD VERSION]

Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router

Customer Review: Mine was defective, yours may work
Summary: 1 Stars

1. Beware the rebate. If you remove the UPN number to get the rebate, you won't be able to return the device for Amazon's credit. (That's one way rebates work for manufacturers.)

2. Do be sure to install the latest firmware update. I connected the Netgear to my Cisco 675 DSL router; that didn't work. After the firmware update the Cisco to WAP connection worked. There were other problems though ...

3. I'm not sure if my unit was simply defective, or whether the MR814 won't work with a secondary 10/100 switch. In any case I had to return it due to poor and unreliable connections between my WAP device and my switch based wired LAN.

4. I received an automated acknowledgement after emailing Netgear tech support email, but no further reply.

5. You get what you pay for in the IT world. At such a low proice point quality control and tech support are luxuries. On the other hand, if a device works then it's a real bargain. I replaced this device with a $250!!! 802.11G Apple Airport which works great at more than four times the cost.

6. My local network expert claims Linksys is the best bet in the low end consumer WAP/router market. Linksys has lots of quality issues too, but they are the volume seller. I'd try them instead. In my case though, I didn't want to spend any more time debugging my LAN, so I paid a lot more for an Apple device (strong brand) with better quality control and support.

7. Debugging LAN problems is hard for a non-expert, there are so many interacting parts. Most of us aren't familiar even with Packet Sniffers, much less hardware LAN monitors. When buying LAN components, a bit more quality is worth a bit more money.

8. The Netgear does have excellent 802.11b range, better than the SMC or Airport. The antennas are removable so you can easily extend the WAP range even further.

9. The Netgear software seemed pretty decent, but I'm very familiar with this kind of software. I configured it with one of my Win2K machines, but the browser UI works fine with Safari or IE on a Mac.

Details:

I'm a reasonably competent amateur network guy, and I can get advice from a work colleague who's world class. For a year and a half I used an SMC 802.11b device with my mixed PC/Mac LAN and WLAN. The SMC worked well, but I think the wirless card was failing after about 15 months of increasingly heavy use. (I put GBs of data through the wireless LAN every few days.) I was annoyed with the short life-span off the SMC WAP, so I decided to try an alternative. Hence the Netgear.

The first problem I ran into was that this device really didn't work when connected to the LAN port of my Cisco 675 DSL router (which cannot be replaced). A download would proceed at about 10 KBytes/sec for a half-minute then stop. Updating to the latest firmware fixed this problem. I then got between 75-120 KByte/sec across the DSL line; this is about as good as it gets.

I had more intractable problems on the LAN side. I put a Hawking Technology print server on one Netgear port, and a D-Link 10/100 switch on another Netgear LAN port. (Note mixing manufacturers on a LAN is fine in theory but in practice should be avoided.) When I used the Hawking print server I would lose connectivity between my wireless iBook and my wired LAN server Win2K SMB share. I then moved the Hawking connection to a port on my D-Link switch. This worked a bit better, but connectivity between the WAP client and SMB share was unreliable. I'd lose my network connection after large file transfers, and throughput was about 100 KBytes/sec -- no better than the DSL transfers. Across my wired 100Mbit/sec LAN I couldn't see any problems, but that traffic goes only through my switch.

Cables were all fine, green lights, worked with other devices, etc.

I still don't know if this device really can support any switch on one of its LAN ports, whether it might work with a Netgear switch, or whether the internal switch or switch/WAP connections were defective. After a month of debugging the failing SMC device and two weeks of debugging the Netgear I was fed up. I paid big bugs for the Apple AirPort.

The AirPort works well. I get the same 75-125 KBytes/sec across the DSL, and I get 300KBytes/sec when connecting to my internal LAN share. That's about as good as it gets; 802.11b is the equivalent of a 2-3 MBit/sec wired connection. The Mac software, documentation, and tech support is light years ahead of SMC or Netgear. For most uses though, the Linksys would be my next bet. Most vendors are dumping their 802.11b devices, so you can get a good deal. Do plan on doing a firmware update and using timed transfers of a 5MB file to look for performance issues. Do an overnight transfer of 4-5GB of files as well. If hardware problems show up, return the device and try again. Don't mix manufacturers on your LAN if you can help it.

Description of Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router