Customer Reviews

NETGEAR INTRODUCES WIRELESS ADSL FIREWALL ROUTER.(Netgear DG834G and Netgear DG834 ): An article from: Modem User News

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I installed firmware revision 1.3 of the Netgear and the following problems were evident and advised to Netgear via the support request site.

1. IF the number of firewall rules approached 50 the user interface suffers from "Stack Overflow" and the help screen on the right hand side of the user interface completely disappears as the error .........setup.cgi/ NO CACHE and further modifications are not possible as there is insufficient RAM allocated to the user interface to write back to the unit.

2. When a ISP connection was provided to the unit in the conditions above the unit would start to exhibit more frequent stack overflow error errors and I assume the additional overhead of comms traffic, when a connection was applied, made it impossible for the unit to be further configured via the user interface sand maintain a comms connection.

Operationally the unit then exhibited the following errors in relation to FTP traffic, indeed it became impossible to perform ANY FTP transaction as I assume the unit was so bust knocking back invalid traffic that it could not also observe performing 2 tasks; namely observing the configured firewall rules AND maintaining comms connection PPoE.

After further reading about advances? to the firmware, I decided to upgrade the unit to version 1.50 the most recent of NON BETA firmware available for the unit.

Despite the unit NOT having to deal with maintaining a comms connection, I attempted to log into the unit with NO additional software firewalls and or restriction running to prevent the Unit from both having to perform 2 tasks, comms and user change via the interface; and being restrained by software conditions.

I was unable to log into the unit, however the unit did respond to my initial login attempt be asking for the admin user logon and MY password. After 45 minutes the unit displayed on the screen "Loading configuration file...please wait"; and I observed some packets were sent to the unit and some did come back, however at a trickle

I reset the unit to factory defaults as my configuration file was saved and I was hopeful that be upgrading the unit's firmware to version 1.50 and then applying my configuration file it may be able to do this.

I was unable to log into the unit at all so I reset to factory defaults

I then rang Tech Support, and the first question I was asked was, "Is this going to be quick as there are many calls waiting". I quickly stated my problems and was guided by the support.

One of the most perplexing tests the support technician asked my to perform was to see if I could "ping the unit" which I was happy to do, however this is a firewall unit, the use of a diagnostic ping to the unit will always fail; however the technician seemed to be lost on this reason.

I requested a RA - return authority, but was only told they did RMA - return maintenance authority numbers. In other words we only relace the unit with a new one if faulty but do not refund.

I now, as advised by Netgear to present the Unit back to you for refund under the Netgear RMA.

In closing I draw your attention to the warranty card enclosed, and in particularly the sentence "Should the product fail......" and "Replacement products may be refurbished...", Together there statements would seem to indicate that under NO circumstances is the full price of the product every refunded, and even If I had been able to forward the unit to you within vendor guidelines for refund; the unit will never be refunded either to you.

So choose carefully, and if you accept a replacement for a dead unit of this abysmal quality the warranty seems to indicate your new unit might not be new and may be made up of used working parts!

In all my 32 years in IT I have never seen such appalling hardware and pathetic support.