Netgear Causing problems, or Mac?

I have a netgear DG834PN
And every single IM client i download does not connect
At the minute i am/was using adium, but that stopped connecting, so i did the whole "connect via HTTP" thing, yeah, works, but not good enough, i always get the message "switch board error" when i send an IM to someone, i tried downloading the new MSN for mac, but it tells me i am not connected to the internet, i have been searching round the internet for 3 days trying to fix this, but i can't really find a solution, i find people with the same errors as me, but no solution.
so my question is, is it something to do with my netgear DG834PN router?
because i cant seem to get IM clients to connect on any of my macs, they are all on leopard, i have accessed the settings of my router and selected "Open IM Ports(IM ports are open by default)" setting in the "firewall rule" tab.
But still not avail, this is really getting to me, because i use msn with EVERYTHING!, my professor sends me my work i have to complete through msn, so it is really important.
Many thanks in advanced!

Jesse

oh and i have set the firewall on my mac to allow everything

Well, the way to test that would be to unplug your router and plug your Mac directly into the cable modem/dsl modem. Turn the modem off completely, then turn it back on. See if your Mac can connect then. If it can,then you know that the router is the problem.