Picked up a Netgear WGR614 tonight. Wow, was setup interesting.

I was having too many issues with my Belkin and decided to move on.

First impressions of the Netgear...*not* impressed. Upon trying to install it, the setup disk had 2 *HUGE* errors on it....

If you have a non-windows system, setup gets around this by using an HTML based guide that walks you through setting the router up. Instructions are to open up a 'index.htm' file, which basically consists of an imagemap that point you to different setup files on the CD.

Guess what...the actual image of the imagemap was named wrong on the CD! When you open up the .htm file, the image can't load and you just see a broken image/link icon. Viewing the source code, and browsing through the contents of the CD showed me what was going on. Knowing a bit about imagemaps though, I hoped it would still function without the image itself present (see the cursor in the first image). I located the file and opened it up in Preview, and used that to approximate the location of things as I hovered the mouse over the map. I thought I was being pretty clever...Guess what happened next...

When you click the link for setup in English...*THAT* points to the wrong place as well (see the 2nd image). I didn't bother to do any searching at that point to see if it was the source code or the file that was wrong. I was able to click on setup for Spanish, Swedish, French, you name it. All the languages worked except english. So then I got clever again, and loaded the Dashboard translator widget, figuring it would get me by enough to set the thing up. I got through the first few pages, but no dice after that...the widget needs an internet connection.

I finally broke down and dusted off my PC...booted it up, installed my ISP software on it, and used that machine to configure the router. It was so belittling to have to resort to that.

Now i'm having trouble configuring the wireless security, as it only seems to have WEP and WPA-PSK. I want something safer than WEP, and Airport doesn't seem to play with WPA-PSK. I'm in WEP for now...and it seems to be functioning well. A bit slower than my Belkin was, but not by much.

Still, i've never had such a nightmare setting up a router. I can't believe the setup CD would be so error ridden. It's completely unacceptable to allow a product to ship like this. Not a good first impression.

-Nick

Amazing and in Firefox too! I used to love Netgear but I have found lately things have gone down hill a bit. I have ran into the very problem with that CD you did so just got around it logging in with a browser and doing it myself. My Netgear WGT624 has the same settings for Wifi and WPA-PSK works here with my Macs. Are you sure you got the Hex code right on both ends for your WPA? I am shocked yours does not have WPA2. Also check the Firmware and see if it's the latest. I have seen upgrades sometimes contain WPA2.

Hello,

I am actually surprised to hear u r having problems with this router.

read this thread

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60428

This router actually ROCKS, I miss it rite now since I am away from home. But it was the easiest router to set up NO CDs no Software nothing BAM HTML interface and I was Wireless in Minutes.

May be u just got a bad Router.

Cheers

Mina

MinaMACMan said:

Hello,

I am actually surprised to hear u r having problems with this router.

read this thread

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60428

This router actually ROCKS, I miss it rite now since I am away from home. But it was the easiest router to set up NO CDs no Software nothing BAM HTML interface and I was Wireless in Minutes.

May be u just got a bad Router.

Cheers


Mina

Click to expand...

I had no issues getting mine to work either. I just ditched the CD and did it manually like you did. I can set up any router that way.

Thanks for the replies guys. However, MinaMACMan and dtravis7...as stated in the original post, there's no problem with the router. It was the setup disk itself that had 2 major errors in it.

The router seems to be working fine. I was just so surprised that the setup disk wasn't scrutinized enough to catch big errors like that, which completely prevent most people (non-Windows users at least) from setting the thing up in the first place.

I was going to set it up manually. But after having so many issues with my Belkin (which always worked flawlessly with my PC, oddly enough), I wanted to be sure there were no questionable variables.

Today is the first full day with it, so i'll see how it fairs. So far so good.

Not to get off topic, but does anyone have the Netgear Super G? I'm curious if there's a noticeable difference in performance.

-Nick

You had said that you could not get WPA to work. That would be an Issue for me as I do not trust WEP at all. Did you ever get WPA working?

dtravis7 said:

You had said that you could not get WPA to work. That would be an Issue for me as I do not trust WEP at all. Did you ever get WPA working?

Click to expand...

Yeah I got the WPA up and running fine.

-Nick

fiveightandten said:

Yeah I got the WPA up and running fine.

-Nick

Click to expand...

Great, good to hear. What did you have to do to get WPA working? It might help other members here if they run into trouble.

dtravis7 said:

Great, good to hear. What did you have to do to get WPA working? It might help other members here if they run into trouble.

Click to expand...

Initially, I was setting up the router using my PC via a wired connection and I couldn't get the Mac to connect to it with any of the password options (there's no option for "WPA-PSK").

I set it up for 128-bit WEP, and just changed it once I was connected with the Mac. The airport utility automatically selected "WPA" when I chose to connect to the network and I was able to get right in.

FWIW, I also had SSID broadcasting turned off initially, which may have had something to do with an initial connection being a problem. But once I got it all set up (with SSID broadcast on), I was able to turn it off again.

It's been functioning fine; set up with WPA-PSK, no SSID Broadcasting. A port check yields all ports are stealth, and the connection has been stable. I beat it up last night...downloaded a 1GB file from Limewire, which ran all night long and got through without any snags. I'm curious as to whether or not the Super G or the D-link (both "100MBPS") would yield any better performance, but this router seems to be working fine and it's probably a keeper.

Performance is slightly slower than the Belkin 'g' I was using previously. And the Belkin did have more options, particularly security features. But this router seems to have better range, and obviously a much more reliable signal so far.

-Nick

With my new Netgear router I simply took it out of the box, plugged it in.. connected it to the modem and the iMac, typed in the IP address... set the WPA security, unplugged it from the iMac... enjoyed the wireless web... it could not have been easier to set-up for me.

RIDE said:

With my new Netgear router I simply took it out of the box, plugged it in.. connected it to the modem and the iMac, typed in the IP address... set the WPA security, unplugged it from the iMac... enjoyed the wireless web... it could not have been easier to set-up for me.

Click to expand...

Yeah, setup was just horrible when I tried to actually use the setup CD.

The router seems to be working out though. It dropped connection on me once, but it seems to have been an isolated incident. The only annoyance about it is that it takes longer to reconnect than i'm used to. For instance, if I haven't been online in a while, and I open up my web broswer, it takes a moment for it to connect to the modem and get to the outside world. The Belkin was almost instantaneous. But i'm a patient man, I can wait the 15 or 20 seconds.

-Nick