i don't know why you all complain about respiffed stuff. i have never had a problem with any respiffed items. i mean if you get a new part on your car because the old part went bad does that mean your car is respiffed and a piece of junk?

Higherfat wrote:Just bought this router a few months ago, paid 80 bucks for it, curse you for being 2 months late Woot!!!! Works great for me, I would buy 3 if i were you.

I bought it two days ago for $60.

It does setup easy and works great. But, I find the flashing lights somewhat annoying.

OpenWRT claims their firmware is compatible, but it is untested:

http://wiki.openwrt.org/TableOfHardware#head-0fb2d6ad87c6a7e70321bf57d5224fe9c18f3603

Just to add to the immense pool of anecdotes --

I've had this for about a year. My previous router was a complete piece of carp, and the chapest G router I could find at the time (Airnet).

I actually think I bought my WPN824 from woot, come to think of it.

In any case, there are indeed multiple versions. The one I currently have has a black button near the wired ports to turn off the lights. As others have mentioned, earlier versions had a little plastic cover.

I used to reset the airnet router daily. I've never had to reset the WPN824 EXCEPT when our cable modem has gone out due to cable company issues. As someone mentioned, it doesn't seem to recover gracefully when its uplink dies and is restored. However, even then there have been times when that has happened where I have NOT needed to reset it.

I'm using it in a mixed environment with a Wii, Vista laptop, slingbox (connected via wireless bridge), Linux laptop, Linux desktop, XP desktop, and hardwired NAS. Signal strength on all the wireless devices is noticeably higher than with my previous router, and usually 80+ even when I'm 3 floors down from it, in the most remote corner of our family room. I can saturate my 10mbit internet connection from anywhere in the house using either of the laptops.

None of my existing wireless cards are MIMO. However, I'm grabbing one of these today to pair with a Rangemax MIMO card that was bought last week to help my wife's cousin go wireless.

I've got nothing bad to say about this after a year of pretty heavy bittorrent and gaming use.

There is a button on the unit to shut the lights off.

So do you need 2 of these to setup a VPN??

cbaxter711 wrote:Does anyone know if this will work well while playing the wii?

it does not like the wii. wii wants channel 1 or 11 and this sits on channel 6. haven't been able to change the settings

ATTENTION: This router does not support VPN pass-through. I got it in Costco to replace my long lived wrt54g v1. No connection to my company VPN network could be made. I spent 4 hours with guys from India on the phone (in addition to several hours on my own before that) trying to resolve the issue before they agreed to submit bug report. Since the fix was not part of following software upgrade I had to return it.

For the record - when there was issue with WRT54G with gateway setup for DHCP it took them 15 minutes to troubleshoot and admit bug and 2 weeks later firmware upgrade already fixed it. I did not care much anyway as by that time I was running DD-WRT.

This netgear on the other hand is not supported by DD-WRT so no easy escape there.

Newegg Reviews

I have the v2 version of this one and just ordered a replacement. I use it as an access point to extend my wireless coverage. That means I only use the local ports and the wireless not the uplink port. I also disabled the DHCP server. Netgear has documentation in their support section that describes this config. Should work with any consumer model of wireless router. Anyway my experience is this:

Improved range over the G predecessor. Range is the purpose of the MIMO (Multiple In/Multiple Out) technology which involves switching around amongst 7 antennas to find the best connection to a client.

Throughput was suitable for working from home over VPN. My VNC (interactive) sessions and VoIP phone calls worked fine. Supported my DSL throughput (6M/512K).

Would have liked to see better throughput between devices in the house.

Replacing because it needs periodic reboots. It doesn't stop passing Wireless<->Wired traffic completely, but it does start dropping 25-50% of the packets. Really screws with phone calls and interactive apps. Email and HTTP slows down.

Do Not buy this product!

I bought a brand new one of these, and two weeks later had problems with it.
I had to reboot it, it would work for a day or two, then i had to reboot it again.

another week or so goes by and I looked on netgears site, and saw a new firmware for it. D/Ld the correct firmware, but it crashed upon installing, bricking the device. I called netgear support, and they basically said that
a) its a known problem
b) its under warranty
c) they would replace it for me, but I had to pay for shipping both ways!!!

But they were going to charge me for shipping or some other nonsense, and it would take over 3 weeks to get the stupid thing squared away.

I use this device in my home office where i work almost every day and night.

So trying to contain myself, i politely told them that a brand new one of these only cost 50 bucks, and I wanted to speak to a supervisor... That was useless, because he spouted the same rhetoric as the support person.

After being as polite and patient as I could, I told him to fornicate with this device, and that I would be buying a Linksys.
I bought the linksys wireless WRT54G and its been six months so far, not even a glitch!

STAY AWAY FROM THIS carp! The cheap price you pay wont be worth
the aggrivation to come!

ggreiner wrote:it does not like the wii. wii wants channel 1 or 11 and this sits on channel 6. haven't been able to change the settings

We've got a Wii with this router, and I've never had trouble with it. The Wii is also about as far away from the router as it could be without being outside our home.

Refurbished Netgear = buggy, crashing piece of carp. Trust me on that. Don't buy this garbage. It isn't worth $5 for the number of times you'll have to reset the thing.

If you're savvy enough, get a Linsys and use the DD-WRT firmware. Yes, it's a pain in the neck to set up, but once you do get everything working right, it's rock solid.

I have this router. I've had it for about a year and it has yet to give me a problem. I bought it new for about the same price,though.

Which verison is this? According to netgears website, there is /three/ different versions.

http://kbserver.netgear.com/products/wpn824.asp

I got this router a few months ago. Works without any problems with BitTorrents, VOIP, VPN.

4 year old Toshiba laptop gets 108, 3 year old Dell - does not.

Mine came with a lid to cover the lights, I don't need it, since I don't keep my router in the bedroom, but on a shelf high above the desktop (can barely see the lights).

does this router act as a range extender as well?

I wooted this last time, about 18 mos ago(http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=1695). Seems to be the same item, same condition, and bafflingly the same price, but whatever, it's 30 bucks.
It's worked very well for me, and I haven't had a single issue. People seem to be way down on this cheap piece of plastic, low-end, budget-model switch/router, and given that, generally speaking, you get what you pay for, I'd say I'm perfectly happy. Works great with my PC's, laptops, and Palm; no speed, connection or configuration issues. Yeah, as people have complained, it's got a pretty basic setup and dumbed-down plug-and-play attitude, but you can do general configs, and I have (firewall, VLAN settings, DMZ) without problems. It's not as configurable as the Linksys's at the same price level (nor as hackable), but it serves my purposes as well as other, more-expensive routers I've owned
It is "only" B/G, but N's start at about $20 more for the low-end ones, so that's kind of apples to oranges. And power-wise this router has been fine, but I live in a townhouse, so nothing ever gets more than about 100ft away from it. So I'm probably not the best guy to ask in that regard.

And, to address two issues raised a few times, yes, the big flashing disco light is idiotic, but you can turn it off. And, yes, it works perfectly with my Wii.

Also, it resets very quickly when my cable modem goes kerplunk after one of the thrice-weekly brown-outs in my area. Not that that's a big incentive, but I sure appreciate it.

I bought this router months ago and it works great. No reliability problems or constant need for resets.

I don't know why people keep bitching about the lights. There is a easily found switch on the back that turns them off. Mine has been off since day one.

lc78126 wrote:i heard the blue lights were really annoying.

>Just put duct-tape over them.

Don't waste the duct tape, the blue lights can be turned off manually. There is simple button that switches them on and off.

I have anetgear wireless router now that works okay but things hooked to it wireless only go as high as 54 would this boost them to 108 ?

I bought this exact router on Woot about 2 years ago.
It has a tendency to drop your Internet connection on a regular basis (now almost evey night when I turn on my laptop). The speed and range is great, but since we use Vonage for our phone, I'm looking for a more reliable router. Any suggestions?

OK, so it is not just me! Whew...I have been fighting this router for months, and even went back and forth with Netgear support for about a month before they essentially said they were sending my complaint up the chain and I never heard from them again. I still wonder if it is my computer and not the router though since whenever my dad or brother come over there computers (which are newer) seem to work fine....

Found information here that says people like the cool look, high speed but not the low range. I'm always scared to buy refurbs though... Amazon has a new one for about $80.

I would buy three of these if I weren't so damn rich.
I have a DS3 installed in each of my houses with Cisco SOHO VOIP/IP routers for each one.
You POOR people enjoy your poverty the best you can with this cheap router... good luck getting it to work with your little DSL/cable connections. I hope the wireless feature enhances your mediocre lives.
Try not to file bankruptcy while paying for it. Its not good for my economy.

yes in a bag o'carp

uset to have one of these ,respiffied as well but got mine for 19.99 shipped from buydotcom



oh and it was almost year ago.

cnote1287 wrote:Well i have a wireless negear router from like 5 years ago and it isnt G its only a B....would this be a decent upgrade or should i look elsewhere

this would be a decent upgrade in that case

i have an imac all in one, it was an old school computer, will this router work just to access the internet on it??

cnote1287 wrote:i have a toshiba laptop that i got a year and a half ago....think it would work with that? intel pro/wireless 3945ABG is the card

good chance

tbergy wrote:All right, currently running a b-whatever wireless router for 5 college student computers and a wii. Will this work for nothing fancy wireless or is it really a piece of Manos, the Hands of Fate?

yes

Does this work with Wii?

Never mind about working with Wii. I see several comments and it appears that it does. Sorry to ask a question that has been asked and answered several times.

I have a Buff Airstation with DD-WRT. I'm moving out and plan on taking it. I'm a gamer and avid pc user, and the roommates who live in this house just surf the web. Would this be a suitable router for them?

HedoDiver wrote:I bought this exact router on Woot about 2 years ago.
It has a tendency to drop your Internet connection on a regular basis (now almost evey night when I turn on my laptop). The speed and range is great, but since we use Vonage for our phone, I'm looking for a more reliable router. Any suggestions?

huh - I bought this same router from CompUSA about 2 years ago and it's run flawlessly with a few exceptions.. I have to power cycle it about once every 6 months or so.. the wife uses the wirless daily and I have a wireless bridge connected to it also for the xbox.. I dunno what firmware I am running, but I haven't updated it in a LONG time.. anyways.. I think electronics can be like people though, some are moody. ;)

edit: for a comparable router money-wise, you could get a Linsys WRT54G I guess.. it's getting kind of long in the tooth, but there is a decent community of people supporing it with many different Linux firmwares for it.. kind of cool.

http://www.wrtrouters.com/

No N?! No Way.

I have a linksys and it's been working great, my last Netgear (very old) had issues with VPN tunnels.

I would love to get an N router, so come on Woot!!

rx8dominates wrote:i don't know why you all complain about respiffed stuff. i have never had a problem with any respiffed items. i mean if you get a new part on your car because the old part went bad does that mean your car is respiffed and a piece of junk?

Great comparison with the car repair. I would say 95%+ cars out there are "refurbs."

I also haven't had any problems with refurbs but thats not to say no one else has. Its probably more mental than anything. Just be comfortable with what the refurbs product is.

Some refurbs to stay away from are: Toothbrushes, bologna sandwiches, condoms,..., etc.

Oh and I think I need some floaties so I dont drown in all the tears about those LEDs...as Arnold's soundboards would say, STOP WHININ!

and RX8's don't dominate like an EVO ;)

thanks w00t!

this thing is 50+ on other sites

I paid full retail for this piece of carp when it came out because of the added range & speed. After a couple weeks, it would not hold the "static" DHCP leases (one of the reasons I bought it), and Netgear said, "yeah, we know."

After a couple months, it would drop the internet connection regularly (at least once a day). Save your money, get something you can put DD-WRT on.

I've replaced it with a cheap-o Buffalo router (no longer sold, sadly), and it's 10x better in every way. I get FAR, FAR better reception from the Buffalo than the Netgear could ever hope for.

boxerx wrote:I know someone who ended up taping over the blue lights because it got too annoying!

...or you can just use the switch on the back to keep them off.