Netgear DG834G Nightmare

Hi All,

I got my new broadband connection up and running yesterday with an ethernet
connection to my laptop using a Netgear DG834G wireless router. I later
upgraded the firmware to V 1.05. Today I wanted to add a PC using a Netgear
wireless adapter on a usb port. Bad news : no wireless light showing on the
router. Where did it go - it was there yesterday? I phoned someone at
Netgear Support who was absolutely clueless and after a few reboots decided
that the router needed to be replaced. I phoned the supplier, BT Shop, and
spoke to a guy who was very helpful and is arranging a replacement.

So the question is has anyone else had this experience? Was it related to
the firmware upgrade? I'm reluctant to upgrade the new one when it arrives.

TIA,
Terry

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:40:18 +0100, Terrycymru <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I got my new broadband connection up and running yesterday with an
> ethernet
> connection to my laptop using a Netgear DG834G wireless router. I later
> upgraded the firmware to V 1.05. Today I wanted to add a PC using a
> Netgear
> wireless adapter on a usb port. Bad news : no wireless light showing on
> the
> router. Where did it go - it was there yesterday? I phoned someone at
> Netgear Support who was absolutely clueless and after a few reboots
> decided
> that the router needed to be replaced. I phoned the supplier, BT Shop,
> and
> spoke to a guy who was very helpful and is arranging a replacement.
>
> So the question is has anyone else had this experience? Was it related to
> the firmware upgrade? I'm reluctant to upgrade the new one when it
> arrives.
>
> TIA,
> Terry

Hi Terry,

I've been using the DG834G for over 6 months and installed the v1.05
firmware a couple of weeks after it came out. I've not had a single
problem with the router at all and the wireless connection has been spot
on.
I couldn't say what went wrong but hopefully your replacement will allow
you to connect via the wireless link, it's probably just one of those one
off things.

With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

"Terrycymru" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1eqlwkhoqjr44$.(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi All,
>
> I got my new broadband connection up and running yesterday with an
> ethernet
> connection to my laptop using a Netgear DG834G wireless router. I later
> upgraded the firmware to V 1.05. Today I wanted to add a PC using a
> Netgear
> wireless adapter on a usb port. Bad news : no wireless light showing on
> the
> router. Where did it go - it was there yesterday? I phoned someone at
> Netgear Support who was absolutely clueless and after a few reboots
> decided
> that the router needed to be replaced. I phoned the supplier, BT Shop, and
> spoke to a guy who was very helpful and is arranging a replacement.
>
> So the question is has anyone else had this experience? Was it related to
> the firmware upgrade? I'm reluctant to upgrade the new one when it
> arrives.
>
> TIA,
> Terry

Crikey. Would have thought maybe a bit more testing before asking for a
replacement (its what I would have done anyway given that a lot of mail
order companies for example expect you to pay the postage to get the
"faulty" products back to them). You mention the BT Shop though so perhaps
you have the luxury of getting it back to the shop easily without the
postage cost worries etc.

Anyway, I digress - I have the same router, haven't seen this problem with
the wireless light completely going out but after I did an upgrade from
1.03.00 to the latest 1.05.00 release I started to see more and more
problems with the wireless being much more flaky than the previous firmware.
Mind you I did the upgrade over the wireless link - probably a bad move -
did you do the upgrade the same way???

I took mine back to 1.03.00 and had a stable connection again for a while
but then I thought about trying 1.05.00 again - I made the mistake of doing
exactly the same thing again ie. updating via wireless and this time around,
screwed the whole thing up good and proper - alternating two led's on the
front (can't remember which ones)

Luckily I had downloaded the dg834g recovery utility from Netgear previously
and I managed to successfully reflash the router with 1.05.00 firmware I
might add, over a wired connection using this utility. Since then I have to
say its been rock solid even on that latest firmware.

So I suppose the moral of this is, wherever possible I would recommend using
the recovery utility to do ANY firmware upgrades on this router and
definitely do them over a wired connection. Try this to see if it solves the
problem on your router.

I can only assume that firmware upgrades over wireless (even if you get a
success status after doing them) are very, very dodgy.

Andy

"Terrycymru" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1eqlwkhoqjr44$.(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi All,
>
> I got my new broadband connection up and running yesterday with an
> ethernet
> connection to my laptop using a Netgear DG834G wireless router. I later
> upgraded the firmware to V 1.05. Today I wanted to add a PC using a
> Netgear
> wireless adapter on a usb port. Bad news : no wireless light showing on
> the
> router. Where did it go - it was there yesterday? I phoned someone at
> Netgear Support who was absolutely clueless and after a few reboots
> decided
> that the router needed to be replaced. I phoned the supplier, BT Shop, and
> spoke to a guy who was very helpful and is arranging a replacement.
>
> So the question is has anyone else had this experience? Was it related to
> the firmware upgrade? I'm reluctant to upgrade the new one when it
> arrives.

Common wisdom seems to be to perform a "reset" after upgrading your
firmware. This will lose all your personal settings for passwords, services,
rules etc.. so perform a backup first. The reset hole is in the back and
needs to have a pointy object inserted for several seconds (check the manual
coz ISTR it's at least 10 seconds, maybe more). I don't know if that will
help but I guess it's worth a try.

BTW, I have had my DG834G since January and only have occasional problems.
Strangely, it always seems to take a day or two to settle down after a
firmware upgrade. I've no idea why but there you go :-)

"Terrycymru" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1eqlwkhoqjr44$.(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi All,
>
> I got my new broadband connection up and running yesterday with an
ethernet
> connection to my laptop using a Netgear DG834G wireless router. I later
> upgraded the firmware to V 1.05. Today I wanted to add a PC using a
Netgear
> wireless adapter on a usb port. Bad news : no wireless light showing on
the
> router. Where did it go - it was there yesterday? I phoned someone at
> Netgear Support who was absolutely clueless and after a few reboots
decided
> that the router needed to be replaced. I phoned the supplier, BT Shop, and
> spoke to a guy who was very helpful and is arranging a replacement.
>
> So the question is has anyone else had this experience? Was it related to
> the firmware upgrade? I'm reluctant to upgrade the new one when it
arrives.
>
> TIA,
> Terry

Mine came with v1.04 and I lost the wireless (and Ethernet) connection when
I plugged a 4-port hub into an Ethernet socket on the back of the DG834G.
Removing the hub restored the wireless link. Strange. The hub has
performed perfectly for years so I guess the DG834G is a little sensitive.
I've since upgraded to v1.05 and it has been very stable although I haven't
tried the hub again.

BTW, I also have a WG511 card for my laptop and the wireless comms between
that and the DG834G was rubbish until I upgraded the WG511 software to the
latest version.

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:27:22 +0100, DMG wrote:


>
> BTW, I also have a WG511 card for my laptop and the wireless comms between
> that and the DG834G was rubbish until I upgraded the WG511 software to the
> latest version.

Thanks, for the warning. I've also got a WG511 card I want to try when I
get a replacement router.

Terry

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:08:02 +0100, Tiny Tim wrote:

>
> Common wisdom seems to be to perform a "reset" after upgrading your
> firmware. This will lose all your personal settings for passwords, services,
> rules etc.. so perform a backup first. The reset hole is in the back and
> needs to have a pointy object inserted for several seconds (check the manual
> coz ISTR it's at least 10 seconds, maybe more). I don't know if that will
> help but I guess it's worth a try

Netgear Support told me to do it 3 times for 15 seconds each. It didn't
work.

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:55:43 +0100, PlusNet Support Team wrote:


> Hi Terry,
>
> I've been using the DG834G for over 6 months and installed the v1.05
> firmware a couple of weeks after it came out. I've not had a single
> problem with the router at all and the wireless connection has been spot
> on.
> I couldn't say what went wrong but hopefully your replacement will allow
> you to connect via the wireless link, it's probably just one of those one
> off things.
>
> With Regards,
>
> Dave,

Hi Dave,

As a new Plusnet broadband customer I'm glad to see you've got experience
of the DG834G

One question perhaps you can answer. Will a change of router cause any
problems with Plusnet? I read somewhere that this can be a problem with
some ISPs.

Regards,
Terry

Terry

"Terrycymru" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1m3j3fuo3ycvj$.1nxrn9jyv6vra$.(E-Mail Removed). ..
> On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:08:02 +0100, Tiny Tim wrote:
>
>>
>> Common wisdom seems to be to perform a "reset" after upgrading your
>> firmware. This will lose all your personal settings for passwords,
>> services,
>> rules etc.. so perform a backup first. The reset hole is in the back and
>> needs to have a pointy object inserted for several seconds (check the
>> manual
>> coz ISTR it's at least 10 seconds, maybe more). I don't know if that will
>> help but I guess it's worth a try
>
> Netgear Support told me to do it 3 times for 15 seconds each. It didn't
> work.
>

Have you tried the Netgear recovery utility yet and reflashed firmware via a
wired connection?

Andy

Terrycymru <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:1u7rb1wsqjvr1.guj7jf21b63q$.(E-Mail Removed):

> As a new Plusnet broadband customer I'm glad to see you've got
> experience of the DG834G
>
> One question perhaps you can answer. Will a change of router cause any
> problems with Plusnet? I read somewhere that this can be a problem
> with some ISPs.

Hi Terry,

I can second Dave's sentiments on the DG834G - although from reading some
forums this model can suffer problems more than others. It's possible
this is just down to the volume sold, as it can be found cheaply.
Personally it's served me fine on the latest firmware, and the wireless
range copes well with my generously thick stone-walled house.

As to changing routers, I can't imagine that would cause a problem unless
the router to which you changed was incompatible with UK ADSL. Certainly
of late I've been chopping and changing my two routers with no issues.

Regards,
--
| Alex Crosby.................................Broadband Solutions for
| Customer Support...............................Home & Business
| PlusNet plc..................................@ http://www.plus.net
+ ---- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet ---+