NETGEAR WNDR3700 Reviewed

[Unregistered]

In stock at Fry's

Don't know how many people have a Fry's Electronics near them, but surprisingly enough they stock this router. I took an "open box" model with some trepidation at about $150, and it seems to be as good as new. At least, after I reset it to manufacturer's defaults so that I could log into it *smile*.

Great wireless coverage by the way, 2.4GHz. wireless g is "excellent" signal throughout almost my whole house, while my Dlink DIR-655 went as low as "good" in some of those spots. Based on this, I have hopes that I'll be able to get some use out of the 5GHz. band as well as the 2.4GHz. I'm not expecting the 5GHz. to have the range of 2.4GHz., but should be good for wireless n when in range.

-Roger

 

[tipstir]

WNDR3700-Lose internet after a few minutes of no use.

Have you read the issues on the netgear forum about this router.
http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=41392

 

[bluegrass]

I would say the issues folks are having with the WNDR3700 are due to the immense difficulty of making the NAS feature set work flawlessly with every flavor of USB controlled external hard drive. It seems most flash drives are OK at this point.

I am impressed that they have addressed the issue in their WNDR3700 knowledge base concerning which devices they know of work/don't work with the NAS features.

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11280/session/L2F2LzEvc2lkLzhObFUxRElq

 

[tipstir]

I would say the issues folks are having with the WNDR3700 are due to the immense difficulty of making the NAS feature set work flawlessly with every flavor of USB controlled external hard drive. It seems most flash drives are OK at this point.

I am impressed that they have addressed the issue in their WNDR3700 knowledge base concerning which devices they know of work/don't work with the NAS features.

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11280/session/L2F2LzEvc2lkLzhObFUxRElq

WD Passport have been pretty stable/fast transfer with Wireless N Routers with USB Storage features.

 

[Unregistered]

Remote management problems

I have enabled Remote Management, but somehow it's not working properly. I am able to access the router from the internet, but the pages load extremely slow. Sometimes some of the frames(!) don't load at all.
Has anyoneone seen this problem? Management from the local network works OK.

 

[dkyeager]

I have enabled Remote Management, but somehow it's not working properly. I am able to access the router from the internet, but the pages load extremely slow. Sometimes some of the frames(!) don't load at all.
Has anyoneone seen this problem? Management from the local network works OK.

Yes. I assume it is a function of the GUI interface and slow uplink speed at the router site (which then becomes your download speed, ie 750kb, etc.) I prefer telnet for this reason. I always recommend doing any of this within a VPN for security reasons. Actually faster to use remote desktop on a local machine to pull up router web page. Same issues with some Linksys routers.

 

[vashthestampede83]

I have another question about the configuration. At the moment i have a superb Netgear DG834G, 0 problem,0 drop connection
Is it possible to connect the DG834G and the WNDR3700 enabling all the ethernet port of either devices? My idea is to plug one of the ethernet port of DG to WAN port of WNDR and give to the WNDR WAN a static IP in the same subnet of DG (ethernet). Could be work?
The 4 ethernet of WNDR are not enough for me since i have some devices that doesn't require gigabit (printer, an old PC).
PS:Obviously i will disable the wireless part of the DG

 

[Unregistered]

Issues from Netgear forum

I did read all the stuff on the Netgear forum, and did not see anything there that would bother me, especially in comparison to what's on the forums for other routers *smile*. There's a few of every product that don't work properly, sometimes they're defective, sometimes misconfigured. I have to admit that I don't care about the NAS functionality, I'm getting a router to be a router, not a printer server, not a NAS access point, just a router. I'm a firm believer in trying to find things that do one thing extremely well, rather than several things in a less than optimal fashion. But that's just me, I do see the value of multi-function in one item if the functions are closely related, desirable, and well-designed...I'm still trying to figure out why one company put a digital picture frame on their router, who decided that was a good idea *smile*?

-Roger

 

[rpwoodman]

Just so I'm 100% clear (my apologies if it should be already!), do you still take the performance hit if all the N clients are operating in the 5GHz band only, and the A/B/G clients are operating in the 2.4 band (obviously)?

Thank you,
BAJT

TBH, I'm more than a little confused about what speeds should be obtained in a heterogeneous network (i.e. clients connecting using a/b/g/n, on either frequency, using different encryption mechanisms, along with wired connections). If someone could point me to a straight forward description (or maybe Tim could to one of his fact sheets, like he's done with the "How to buy a NAS" article - product independent), I'd be eternally grateful, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I'd be happy to do it myself if I knew the facts!

 

[vashthestampede83]

TBH, I'm more than a little confused about what speeds should be obtained in a heterogeneous network (i.e. clients connecting using a/b/g/n, on either frequency, using different encryption mechanisms, along with wired connections). If someone could point me to a straight forward description (or maybe Tim could to one of his fact sheets, like he's done with the "How to buy a NAS" article - product independent), I'd be eternally grateful, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I'd be happy to do it myself if I knew the facts!

The concept is quite simple, the wireless performance are dependant of the slowest device(in term of the wireless tecnology) connected to the wireless network.
If you connect to the same network a "g" device and a "n" device, your wireless speed will be a "G". Having a dual band (simultaneus) router doesn't change the concept, but now you have two separate wireless network and you can use one only for "N" device(if the range of 5Ghz is enough), and the other for other "b/g" device without affect the perfomances.

 

[rpwoodman]

The concept is quite simple, the wireless performance are dependant of the slowest device(in term of the wireless tecnology) connected to the wireless network.
If you connect to the same network a "g" device and a "n" device, your wireless speed will be a "G". Having a dual band (simultaneus) router doesn't change the concept, but now you have two separate wireless network and you can use one only for "N" device(if the range of 5Ghz is enough), and the other for other "b/g" device without affect the perfomances.

Ok, great info - thanks.
Wireless 'n' can work on either the 2.4 or 5.0 Ghz frequencies, yes? But most laptops (for example) which have 'n' will work on the 2.4 Ghz frequency, not the 5.0Ghz?
I saw something in an earlier posting in this thread which read (to me) that you could only get the max speed using a specific encryption type. All (wireless) clients would need to be using this same encryption type or speed is dragged down to a much lower speed?

I also have a router which currently connects to my existing router using WEP (and this other router connects to my PVR so that I can copy recordings from the HDD to my PC/Mac for editing) - if the above paragraph is true, then by keeping this functionality, I'd be dragging the wireless speed down for all wireless clients?

thanks very much

 

[vashthestampede83]

Ok, great info - thanks.
Wireless 'n' can work on either the 2.4 or 5.0 Ghz frequencies, yes?

Yes

But most laptops (for example) which have 'n' will work on the 2.4 Ghz frequency, not the 5.0Ghz?

Depends of thw wireless adapter, you must check in the specific.

I saw something in an earlier posting in this thread which read (to me) that you could only get the max speed using a specific encryption type. All (wireless) clients would need to be using this same encryption type or speed is dragged down to a much lower speed?

This is the Tim explanation "The N spec mandates that routers limit connection speed to 54 Mbps when using WEP or WPA/TKIP."
So about your question, i think the answer is yes.

I also have a router which currently connects to my existing router using WEP (and this other router connects to my PVR so that I can copy recordings from the HDD to my PC/Mac for editing) - if the above paragraph is true, then by keeping this functionality, I'd be dragging the wireless speed down for all wireless clients?

You shuld change the wireless security to WPA2.

 

[thiggins]

Is it possible to connect the DG834G and the WNDR3700 enabling all the ethernet port of either devices? My idea is to plug one of the ethernet port of DG to WAN port of WNDR and give to the WNDR WAN a static IP in the same subnet of DG (ethernet). Could be work?
The 4 ethernet of WNDR are not enough for me since i have some devices that doesn't require gigabit (printer, an old PC).

So you just want the WNDR3700 to act as an access point and to use its switch ports? See How To Convert a Wireless Router into an Access Point.

 

[thiggins]

TBH, I'm more than a little confused about what speeds should be obtained in a heterogeneous network (i.e. clients connecting using a/b/g/n, on either frequency, using different encryption mechanisms, along with wired connections). If someone could point me to a straight forward description (or maybe Tim could to one of his fact sheets,

Try Add, Don't Replace When Upgrading to 802.11n.

Re vashthestampede83's reply, with a mix of 11g and n or a and n clients, the speed of both clients is reduced when both are active. Look at the plots in the above article. The N client doesn't drop to N speed, but does suffer a significant speed drop.

 

[rpwoodman]

Try Add, Don't Replace When Upgrading to 802.11n.

Re vashthestampede83's reply, with a mix of 11g and n or a and n clients, the speed of both clients is reduced when both are active. Look at the plots in the above article. The N client doesn't drop to N speed, but does suffer a significant speed drop.

Ok, thanks Timothy

rgds

 

[rpwoodman]

Just found that there is a new firmware available (due to the check when you go into the admin pages). However, I've no idea what it fixes/adds, and if you go to the support pages (in the UK), the WNDR3700 is not listed.
Has anyone in the UK tried the firmware update?

rgds

 

[alrightbugme]

If you're referring to version 1.0.4.35, just check out
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11766
That's where they provide a list of new features and enhancements.

 

[rpwoodman]

If you're referring to version 1.0.4.35, just check out
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11766
That's where they provide a list of new features and enhancements.

That's the version - super - thanks

 

[vashthestampede83]

So you just want the WNDR3700 to act as an access point and to use its switch ports? See How To Convert a Wireless Router into an Access Point.

Thank you very much. This kind of connection make me lose the power (in term of routing, througput, maximum connection ....) of the WNDR3700? What you think about this connection? My problem is to have more (than the 4) ethernet connection, also not gigabit, without buy another device (gigabit switch).

 

[rpwoodman]

You shuld change the wireless security to WPA2.

Just found this in the manual (5-22):
Warning: If you use the wireless repeating function, your options for wireless security are limited to None or WEP.

Which isn't ideal