108 Mbps Wireless Media Router, 802.11b, g
1 Does not work with Airport Extreme - Tech support a joke
Any machines accessing over an airport extreme card will have very poor access speeds and lots of dropped packets (over 50%) unless you disable the "G" protocol on the router and run it in 8011.b mode only. Netgear "support" involves wading through a 5-layer menu, sitting on hold, then talking to a thickly accented fellow from some foreign shore whose job is to say "no" just like the Dana Carvey commercials for Capital One.
When I asked to talk to someone knowledgeable on the product I was told that is "premium" support which costs $$ even in the first 90 days.
2 It works fine for me.
This router works great for me. I am glad I bought it.
3 Useless
This router crashes every day or two. It has to be cold rebooted and all the connection details reloaded each time.
I have already returned the first unit, but the replacement is just as bad. Even with a new unit and the latest software upgrade, this router is very unreliable.
4 Do not even think about it
Being a networking and computer savvy user for more than a decade, I have installed and used much more complex products. This Netgear router was the worst product I have ever purchased. It took my a couple of hours to setup and get working. The remote USB drive access does not work. I repeat, does not work as portrayed. USB drive access is very slow. I repeat, very slow. Connections keep dropping in a home environment. I repeat, keep dropping in a home environment.
Just wait and buy a simpler router for now.
5 My last Netgear router
Like other reviewers, I have been a previous Netgear owner. I noticed that their tech support has diminished over the last two years and they now rigidly enforce a 90 day rule. Yet when I upgraded my home network to 802.11G, I still purchased the familiar Netgear brand. I wish I hadn't.
While set up was easy, the extra expense of the USB drive support router was a waste of money. The external drive I connected to the USB port was 'visible' to my network computers only occasionally. When I contacted Netgear support, they told me I had to format a one week old drive. I did, but it still was only occasionally available from my networked computers.
More importantly, I began to have connectivity problems in the last month and even computers hard wired to the router cannot find an internet connection. After 45 minutes on the phone with Netgear support, they have concluded that my modem is not working correctly. Wow, thanks!
My choices are to return it and wait for a replacement in 7-10 days, or pay $15 for a five day turnaround or $30 for a 3 day turnaround. No thanks. I'd rather throw this expensive router away, cross Netgear off my list and buy something reliable. Save your money, save your time, save your hair and buy elsewhere.
6 Save yours time + efforts
I bought this product and already spend more than 2 weeks to get it working to no avail. I returned the product. Problems:
1) Wireless connection is too poor, connection drops, speed fluctuates(my laptop uses wirelessG) too often.
2) USB drive access is excellent from wired PC, too poor from wireless PC. On average it takes 4-5minutes to transfer a 1MB file from laptop to USB drive. My laptop has in-built Broadcom wireless card. Telephonic service people are "WORTHLESS". I went through level 1 -> 2-> 3 technical support, they were just clueless and kept babbling the same basic stuff.
3) Their purpoted FTP access doesn't work. After many tries, the Level 2 support technician told me that the router doesn't have an option to open up service port 20, required for FTP access. And hence I cannot make an FTP connection from outside.
Conclusion: If you have enough spare time, please go ahead, else please take advantage of my experiences and do yourself a great favour by not purchasing this router-or crap should I say!
7 Storage is not simple and support for it was poor
I tried to plug in 3 drive types for external storage. This was to be a great way to have a single location for all my computers on the network. Unfortunately this USB drive does not work as promised. I used a USB drive formatted FAT32, another formatted NTFS, and finally a flash drive. None of them would work with the unit. The instructions were not working and I am faily proficient with networking. I emailed their help area and they asked me questions like "is your drive plugged in?". 10 emails later I could not get anyone who would have a conversation with me. I am still not able to use this router and decided to go out and buy a NAS drive that will allow me to do the same basic thing. I am returning this router for the less expensive model and plugging the NAS drive into a LAN port and getting the same basic functions.
8 Excellent apart for the slow disk access speed
Been running this router for about 9 months now and it works very well. Using the latest firmware the wireless connection is always 100% throughout the house and now there's no firewall on my computer (relying on the router's firewall) web access seems much faster too.
I've only got a couple of gripes;
1) You couldn't forward both TCP and UDP on the same port number, although this has finally been fixed with the latest firmware ;o)
2) I'm using a Maxtor One Touch 300GB USB drive attached to the router, although this router claims USB2 the transfer rate I get when copying to and from the drive is only about ~10 Mbps. This should be at least 50 Mbps on a 100baseT network? I get about 70 Mbps when transferring files to and from my XBox. The drive is lightning fast when it's connected directly to the computer.
A NOTE TO PREVIOUS REVIEWERS
I don't know if it's been a firmware update since you reviewed your unit but you were complaining about the FAT32 support and having max 32GB partitions? I have a single 300GB partition on my drive and it works fine. And the max 4GB file limit, come on, any decent backup software should be able to split the backup into <4GB chunks :o/
9 When did the wheels come off at Netgear?
I've been a Netgear fan for quite some time.
This device sounds like a dream but has been a total nightmare, even with the latest firmware from Netgear's website:
1) Wireless connection flat out doesn't work for me. Both the laptop card and previous wireless router where Netgear branded product and worked great together (802.11b).
2) USB drive connection is unstable. After formatting the drive with FAT32 and lots of little (32GB) partitions, I copied everything to the drive and connected it to router. The router reports the shares properly and reports correct directory structure but files are only visible intermittently via Windows networking. When files are copied FROM the device - the copies are truncated/corrupt. THIS COULD BE A AN 'INCOMPATIBLE' USB ENCLOSURE PROBLEM. However, I've had no similar issues when connecting the enclosure directly to USB port on my computer.
3) FTP to USB shares flat out didn't work for me. FTP program sees the FTP server but username/password is never successfully authenticated.
4) Web administration interface is buggy: after successfully connecting to the internet via a wired port on the router, web administration attached device list does NOT show my computer as being attached.
5) Netgear support forums website unreachable. The cherry on the cake of my WGT634U experience? The links to Netgear's support forum have been unreachable for the past few days. Perhaps they are overloaded with traffic due to complaints and questions about this unbelievably poor product.
What the HECK has happened at Netgear that they would let a product like this out the door?!?!
10 Experiences and problem resolutions
I purchased this Netgear WGT634U router to work with a laptop with built-in Intel Centrino wi-fi at 54mbps, another PC with Netgear WG311T 108mbps PCI card, and finally another one with a plain RJ45 100BaseTx card. The RJ45 plugs via a cable directly into the one of the 4 available RJ45 ports. The broadband to the internet plugs into another port (5th one) dedicated to uplink. My setup uses PPPOE, and the router upon bootup had a wizard that automatically detected this type of connection and asked for login details. (this router has a built in webserver that serves pages just for configuring it via a browser). Because I have a mixed speed setting (54mpbs and 108 mbps), I chose the 108mbps Auto setting, which will allow multiple speeds to connect to the router. The 100BaseTX computer by default uses 100mbps. In summary, I was able to get all three to connect and share files and printers (make sure you add an account with the same account and password on all your three computers), but I had lots of problems before finally resolving them.
Problem resolutions: I have read a lot of reports on this router, and I had my share of them with constant reboots, connection drops, etc. I tried both the Netgear utility on the 108mbps pci card, and also microsoft's utility. I also upgraded the firmware on the router (via their web interface), and the latest drivers on the PCI wifi card. But the connection just keeps dropping. If it worked, it would work for a certain period of time before problems appeared again. I used secure WPA for the two wireless connections, tampered with lots of settings. But they didn't seem to isolate the problem.
Finally, after weeks of reading and experimenting, I nailed down the main problem: It is the HEAT of the chip that is causing it to misbehave. Luckily the design of the casing allows you to cut along the vent holes on the top cover to remove a round piece of plastic from the top of the router to expose the board with chips to air. The front panel and two side ones can also be removed (after removing and replacing 4 screws). So what I did was cut out along the vent holes on the top of the casing, and removed the two side panels and screwed the case back. This allowed free airflow to the board and chips. Did it solve the problem? YES! The thing worked like a charm. No connection drops, full signal, and perfect working order. (I don't have a compabitle USB drive to test the that ftp drive though, so I may update this info later).
So in essense, if you have purchased this router, just cut along the vent holes on the top casing to expose the chip to air, and remove two of the side panels, and you are set to go. After the firmware upgrade, its the HEAT HEAT HEAT! Nothing else is wrong with it. To upgrade the router (and get the better WPA security included in firmware versions 1.4.1.5 and above), its just clicks away after pointing your browser to it. This product would have gotten a 5 star if not for the heat problem. I suggest also to put it on its included stands to make it stand upright. This makes air flow even better. If you want heavy duty operation in hot areas, just buy one of those tiny USB fans and point the fan at the heatsink of the biggest chip on the board (assuming you just removed the hole in the top cover like I mentioned above).
Some interesting notes: Before I removed the cover to cool it, it would constantly reboot during certain times. There is a switch on it where you poke a pen into a small hole that resets the router. If you press and hold it for 5 seconds or more, it erases all your settings (login info etc) but the firmware upgraded software is never erased.
So in essense, this router works great, but because of the slim design, and poor heat dissipation of the casing, it overheats very often. Removing the hole on the cover and two of the side panels, the product is rock solid and connection is great.
11 Netgear fan disappointed
I have used many Netgear products over the years with great satisfaction. This particular router was a disappointment:
- connection drops off; requires reboot often
- needs 2 minutes to boot! my old Netgear wireless router is
up in 10 seconds
- insecure: port 21 (FTP) is open on WAN. I couldn't find an
option in the config menu to turn this off - even though I
upgraded to the latest firmware on Netgear site.
12 Sign me up for a Class Action Law Suit
This is absolutely the worst piece of high tech equipment I have ever bought. The QA people at NetGear must be shot. The router is full of software bugs. Every single feature is buggy and work inconsistently. It would stop working with no apparent reason and requires reboot almost daily. In a few instances, the only remedy is to wipe out the NVRAM setting and start all over again. Then it will still hang hopelessly a few days later.
After honestly trying to make it work for 2-3 months, and updating firmware several times to no avail , I finally gave up and bought a D-link router which works like a charm and took all of 5 minutes to setup.
Worst thing is, I bought a $200+ USB hard drive to use with this router, and 2 PC Card wirelss adapters. I ended up buying a DLink router and a Buffalo LinkStation. The Netgear driver seems buggy also but after the latest firmware upgrade, the NetGear PCMCIA card started working with my new D-Link router in 108Mpbs mode. My my expensive USB hard drive is now useless since the Linkstation comes with a built-in hard drive. All in all, I lost about $350 with this little mis-adventure with Netgear.
All in all, the whole package costed me close to $500 (Netgear P.O.S. router, hard drive, and 2 PCMCIA Cards). And it is $500 down the drain.
DO NOT BUY THIS P.O.S.! This is such a bad experience, I have lost any faith in the brand. Judging by the rest of the reviews here, I am not the only one that suffered.
13 When it works it is great
I could do two pages on the ordeal I have been through with TWO different WGT634U s.
I will however give a synopsis.
BUGGY - not sure if it is firmware or hardware but this router needs constant rebooting.
HOT - Quite possibly one reason for the buggy nature. I have a fan on mine though and it still has problems.
FRUSTRATING TECH SUPPORT - outsourced to India.
Only reason this POS is getting a 2 is how fast it is when it does work.
14 Decent Wireless Router but it's Supposed to be More
I use pretty much use all Netgear stuff for my home network, including a couple of wireless router/access points. I picked up the WGT634U when it first came out thinking I'd be able to extend the range of my wireless network, plug in a monster USB drive for backup and file sharing, and then turn off my home file server.
To quote the great Homer... Doh!
I guess I got what I deserved for going on the bleeding edge and not waiting to see some reviews. This thing has one MAJOR design flaw that makes it basically useless for me... you can't write files on it when it's formatted as NTFS, and formatting as FAT32 limits you to 32GB under WinXP! Not only that, but files are limited to 4GB in FAT32. That makes this thing pretty much useless unless I really want to maintain 10 partitions on my 300GB drive and find a backup program that will break the file up into 4GB chunks. That's just not going to happen.
15 Worst Router in Past 7 years
Extremely buggy router. Each router has a unique problem. FTP doesn't work on one, support asked me to return it to store. Second one constantly reboots. Third refues to connect.
I design elec. circuits for a living and I have one recommendation to make, stay away from this router WGT634U.
Customer Support: Just hope and clueless!!
Shame on you NETGEAR. Fifth bad experience with your products in less than 4 months.
16 Seriously?
I have installed over 20 different wireless routers. This is by far the worst wireless product I have ever seen. For starters, of the 3 computers that I have, only one could actually detect the wireless signal (coincidentally, the one with a Netgear wireless card). Even that PC could only connect to the signal some of the time. Also, despite claims on the Netgear website that it "Works with all USB compliant external flash and hard drives", it wouldn't work with the one I have. And, though the box advertises that it supports WPA-PSK, they fail to mention that you need to download an upgrade to use that feature. I would not recommend this device to anyone.
17 Linux ?
Since it can only read NTFS and not write to it, I am assuming that the router runs some version of Linux kernel in its Firmware.
18 Very Unstable
I bought this with the hope that i could store all my pictures and music in one central place on the network. But my drive is NTFS, which this device only supports read only access, so i couldn't add any new files through the network. I was willing to live with that with the hope that at some point a firmware revision would solve that problem.
I had to return it because it wouldn't keep a wireless connection to any of my devices for a consistant period of time. Some of these devices had compatible Netgear SuperG cards and some didn't. I was absolutely maddening to watch the little pop up box in the system tray lose, then find, then lose my connection.
Maybe if I was new to this stuff this might not have bothered me so much, but I replaced an old Linksys 802.11b wireless router that had just worked for years without so much as a hiccup. I am very disappointed in this product and wouldn't recommend it.
19 Your Previous Reviews Helped
Reading the previous reviews really helped educate me on internet protection. First of all, I think this is a great product. I havent had a single failure or problem yet, and I'm doing every test I can to try to get it to hiccup. Based on the previous reviews, I scanned my ports to see if there were any open. And the default was to have port 21 open and 113 closed but viewable. It also returns a ping which isn't totally internet stealthy. But after going thru proper set-up, and actually READING, I learned to change the default to stealth all my ports and turned my ping return off. Now I am totally secure and have an awesome fast wireless machine. And on a computer knowledge level. 10 being Super Computer Geek, 0 being No knowledge, I would rate myself a 6.5, just a tad above average. Anyone that takes the time to read this and research products is smart enough to set this up.
20 waste of time
Just didn't work in my network. Kept dropping the DSL internet connection. My network: Yahoo SBC DSL, SlipStreem DSL modem, one wired PC, and one wireless laptop. Every 30 minutes or so the internet connection would drop. And the laptop would hardly ever pick up a signal. I bought the equivalent Linksys (minus the USB port) and everything worked fine.
21 Good features but would consistently drop PPPoE connection
I bought this router to replace my D-Link DI-614+ for 802.11g support AND USB drive support (my main reason for the upgrade). However, there's a bug in their firmware that cause my SBC Yahoo DSL connection to drop after several hours of use/non-use and it wouldn't reconnect until I manually reconnect or reboot the router. My D-Link router works reliably and would reconnect if the connection is dropped. I have tried all firmware versions including the latest beta v1.3.0.0 with different MTU settings but no luck. Other modes (DHCP, static IP) seem to work fine. I have e-mailed Netgear tech support but they are not very helpful - they sent me the latest beta firmware version which I have already tried! I would stay away from this product unless you really want the integrated USB drive support and can deal with PPPoE disconnects.
22 A Unique Wireless Router-Server
I've had several wireless routers, and this one sets up and works as well or better than any, with excellent range, compatibility, and versatile security features. The unique server feature allows a compatible storage device attached via the router's USB port to act as a media/file server accessible via FTP from the web - that's why port 21 is open. It's nice to be able to download/upload files from anywhere you have web access. Yes, there are some rough edges to the software, but nothing insurmountable.
23 A very poor product!
Hello - I have been a fan of Netgear products for many years. I feel, unfortunately, that their products are being released with more and more bugs. This is by far the worst I've ever owned.
I got an ill feeling when I opened the box, and the first thing that comes out is a bright yellow sheet of paper saying to be sure to check their website for any bug fixes before using the wireless capabilities. Hmmmm....
Then I hooked it up and ran security scans from GRC.com. The router fails - it has ports 13 and 21 WIDE OPEN for all the world to see. In addition, the default is to respond to all pings from the internet.
Then I upgraded the firmware as advised and tried the wireless. First, there is no WPA on this router yet. They claim it will come later. Then it would not reliably connect with my 108mbps Netgear wireless card even though the boxes said it would. It would fail authentication for about 2 minutes then all of a sudden would establish the connection.
And the last straw was the error messages. They are in poor English. For example, when my wireless connections got dropped and I tried to log back on, the router displayed this message: USER ALREADY LOGINED ON. Logined on? What the heck is that?
So it went back to the store. I'll stick with my old Netgear products for now until they all die.
24 Easy setup and Future Expansion Possible
The Netgear WGT-634U Wireless Media Router was very easy to install and setup. I successfully connected three laptops (1 wired, one wireless and one both wired and wireless) within 15 minutes. The router works great with good range. Although 108g is great, I've had to back down to 54g for the sake of my laptop with a 54g card built-in.
The router's setup is a web of java-enabled web pages stored inside the router itself. You access it via IE or other java Browser. Very nice. The first thing I did was to update the firmware to the latest version: 1.1.0.6
I do not have a USB drive as yet to test the media applications of the router. I plan to get one very soon because it is a great idea with many possibilities.
I purchased this router with a PS121 printer server and WAG511 802.11a/b/g Dual Band PC Card. The printer server was a snap to setup requiring only a CD-ROM installation on all three computers. I was able to free up a USB port on one computer by doing this. Now I can print from anywhere on any computer.
The WAG511 card is for one laptop that I will use wirelessly only and offers access to a wider array of networks outside my home.
One of my laptops is wired only via a NIC/Modem PC Card and is in a permanent location.
My primary laptop is wired at its main location but can easily be switched to wireless via a built-in 54g Wi-Fi card.
It's great having all three computers running streaming media. Also, I can now burn DVDs/CDs and more on one computer and still access my cable modem to get online with the others.
The router looks great too. Runs warm but that's mentioned in the manual.
