Netgear - P.O.S or unfortunate coincidence?

[Zewt]

Our household went wireless about 9 months ago. Currently the router and the two adapters that receive wireless signals are netgear. Now maybe it is just me and this is an isolated incident, but ever since the beginning we have had progressing problems with all our wireless gear.

First, the upstairs adapter began to act oddly. Occasionally it would lose the signal, but not enough to get worried about. Soon after this, however, the signal drops were getting ridiculously frequent. I am now enjoying five minute increments of web browsing fun. I am not sure whether this is due to other surrounding networks getting in the way or w/e. All I know, atm, is that it blows hard.

The downstairs adapter is a different story. That one didn't start having problems until about two months after plug-in. This particular adapter would become completely unrecognizable and require a re-plug in order for windows to notice it again. At the beginning this problem wasn't a big deal, only because it didn't happen that frequently. Now, it is as frequent as the upstairs connection drops.

When all is good on the adapter front, however, there are most likely router issues. The problems with the router didn't begin to come into play until about 5 months in. It now routinely stops broadcasting a wireless signal all together. The remedy to this is to unplug it all together and replug everything.

So my questions are these: Am I alone in this ordeal (having ****ty netgear equipment)? Are there quality brands that people have had good experiences with?

Thanks guys.

 

[SavageBasher]

That's netgear for you. I got a wireless router just to use as an AP, and it still drops my connection about once every 2-3 hours. Plus it dies if i try to do any data transfer or multiple connections.

Linksys makes some solid stuff, but if you can afford it try to get a 3com AP on ebay.

 

[Uqdroma]

Am I the only one who has never had a bad Netgear? Two routers, two switches, and six NICs, and no problems here. Just wonderin' if I've been lucky. All over the web I read horror stories.

 

[Zewt]

There is a good chance that you are lucky, Uqdroma. Netgear is a well established company, however, so maybe those of us who have horror stories just come out more frequently than those who own other brands.

Either way, this whole experience has convinced me to change brands before I even think of buying a new netgear item. Savagebasher, you mentioned Linksys and 3Com ap. Does ap stand for access point? If so, is it just another word for router?

 

[SavageBasher]

ap is just a bridge from wired to wireless. if you were to get an AP only, you could just plug it into the router, and disable the router's wireless.

 

[Zewt]

Ahh, I see. Now would that solution be more reliable then getting the wireless signal straight from the router?

 

[SavageBasher]

not per say, but 3com AP's are designed for high traffic/multiple connection setups. I have never been disconnected from the ones on my campus, even with torrents going for 5+ hours at a time.

 

[Dermen]

You could try a router with DD-WRT firmware. I just got a Buffalo WHR-G54S a few weeks ago and flashed it with DD-WRT right out of the box. It has been working great. I had a D-Link router before and when I would boot my laptop my wireless PC would get dropped until I shut the laptop off. I also didn't get very good speed and the router would reboot randomly all the time. With the Bufallo and DD-WRT both computers stay connected, the speed is much better, and no more reboots. You can check out the DD-WRT website at http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php

 

[Zewt]

Whoa! That website is intimidating to a networking noob like me. If you could break me down a description of what that is, I'd be most appreciative. I read what is was on the website and could barely understand any of it

 

[Dermen]

Yeah it gives the router tons of advanced settings, you can even overclock. The good thing is you don't need to know what all the advanced settings do, you can just leave them alone. I would suggest you read the wiki on their site about how to flash. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

 

[Zewt]

But, in the long run, seeing as how I am a newb and probably wouldn't utilize half of those features, would it ultimately lead to better connections and fewer drops? I ask you to speak from your experience.

 

[Uqdroma]

But, in the long run, seeing as how I am a newb and probably wouldn't utilize half of those features, would it ultimately lead to better connections and fewer drops? I ask you to speak from your experience.

I seem to be the only one who did here. Everyone has bad things to say about Netgear...but this "owner" of several Netgear items has had zero problems in five or six years. Could ISP router compatibility be an issue with Netgears?

 

[Dermen]

But, in the long run, seeing as how I am a newb and probably wouldn't utilize half of those features, would it ultimately lead to better connections and fewer drops? I ask you to speak from your experience.

I have only had it for about 2 weeks so I can't really say. I had a friend who has a linksys WRT54G v3 that he used for gaming and had a lot of lag problems(the router and his computer where on opposite ends of the house). He flashed it with DD-WRT and set the transmit power a little higher and it got rid of most of his lag. He is one of the reasons I decided to give it a try. That and I see it recommended on the forums here pretty often. Also, I have never heard about anybody unhappy with DD-WRT except those who had a bad flash and 'bricked' their routers. Flashing firmware always has the potential to screw up any device. I actually screwed up my old D-Link router flashing it with stock firmware.

 

[PLOBBY]

Ive had 3 netgear switches, one was about 5 years old and one of the ports went bad, now I have an 8 and 5 port gigabit switch and both have been working flawlessly for the past year. I have 4 netgear NIC's and they havent let me down yet either.