NetGear Wireless Range and speed issues??

I Just got a New NetGear N600 Dual band router. I had a old Linksys G router and it always dropped my connection. So i got the NetGear brought it home set it up used it for a few hours Wooo hoo problems solved no more internet drops. But Now I have noticed some poor range and speed coming from that router. Worse then the old router. Does NetGear hate mac? My PC runs the same internet Just fine. Also The 5Ghz Band seems to be a little slower then the 2.4Ghz But neither are up to par with what they should be. I get Server errors quite often now when trying to load pages and sometimes it just gets stuck loading and i have to refresh and refresh till it actually does something. I don't know they best way to describe all this. Is It just NetGear? I have 14 days to return the router should i got back and get something else? I don't want to go over $100.
I didn't get another linksys cause the old one scared me with all the dropped Connection so i steered away from them are they worth it now? I think i would like a dual band router unless it isn't necessary what are the benefits to having dual band?

Wow That was alot. Thank you to whoever can answer my questions!

IMHO Netgear hates everyone. I don't really care for that brand.

Thanks that didn't help me much though.

Agree

I have a similar problem, using a 'Vividwireless' 4G router. Sometimes the connection is perfect, other times pages need to be refreshed 3-4 times before they successfully load. Generally, the download speed is good - it's the page loading speed which is unreliable and regularly needs refreshing.
Any ideas?

I don't know - I had pretty good luck with netgear - but I wanted to be able to run a WDS and I liked having airtunes so I went with apple networking. Works great with PCs and Macs. I've found in general that the 5GHz band isn't all that great. If I lived in an open concept loft maybe it would work.

Anyway - if you sit next to the router do the problems go away?

Also try pointing to Google's DNS servers - maybe its a network thing.
Google Public DNS

Thanks for the reply. Router is very close. Problem is difficult to pin point as it is so intermittent.
Going to check on another hot spot to see if issue exists there.
Cheers.

Issues like this are almost always not hardware based. It's just poor placement or interference from other wireless devices.

Things to check:

1. Make sure it's high and central within your home. The worst place for it is in a basement. On a typical two story home, you want it on the second floor and central.

2. Keep the device far away from microwave ovens. The instant the microwave turns on, it sends out a field of EFI that causes and instant deadspot for reception all around it. Also, keep it away from other wireless/cordless devices like baby monitors, and cordless phone bases.

3. Experiment with the channel setting in the wireless configuration. This varies the signal slightly on the same band. If you have other devices in your neighborhood operating on channel 1, make sure you're on 11. You want to be as far apart from the competing signals as possible.

4. Remember that the higher up in the spectrum you go, the shorter the range of service. So, the 5GHz band is going to have less range than the 2.4GHz band on the same router.

Thank you very much for the thing about google DNS I did that and switched to the 2.4GHz Both made a difference before the DNS Switch it did the same thing on the 2.4GHz but now it doesn't i will test it for a couple days.

So since I cannot use the 5GHz band Should i just refund the router and get a straight 2.4GHz router for cheaper? I saw they had a Linksys for $59? (Linksys WRT120N Wireless N Router | Staples®) Or They had one for $99 (Linksys Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Broadband Router | Staples®) Doest the Extended Rang actually make much of a difference?

Or Could anyone recommend a router under $100 That you think works great. It is kinda nice having the USB Port of the NetGear i bought. But the router is making me wonder.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Netgear routers. If it works the way you want it to, don't sweat it.

My personal recommendation (and that of many others here) is the D-Link DIR-655, which is one of the longest range 802.11n routers on the market.

Thank you very much i went out and bought the D-Link that you suggested Funny thing was that it was 20 dollars cheaper off new egg then the one i got so I am very happy about that! You didn't Only help my network problems but you saved me money! Going to staples today and returning the NetGear