Networking Reviews

This cable modem and wireless functions of this device seemed to be operational, but any time I tried to have two computers hooked up simultaneously, both computers would lose their connection with the gateway. This was indeed frustrating, but technical support failed to resolve the problem after a month of exasperating phone calls and one product exchange. I was twice promised a return call within 24 hours, and twice unapologetically snubbed.
I have been extremely disappointed and discouraged with this experience, and I am not inclined to ever purchase another Netgear product. I have returned this product and decided to go with Linksys after a recommendation from my systems administrator.

My 3 star rating is based on my rating of this unit's features and Netgear support - I still do not have it working yet.

(I have made 6 calls to Comcast support, but the connection from the modem is still being refused by Comcast.)

I called Netgear support to see if they could shed any light, and after waiting 45 minutes, was answered by a call center in India by a technician that I could not understand. An e-mail supprt request remains unanswered after 2 days.

I just recieved and connected the Netgear CG814M 802.11b Wireless Cable Modem Internet Gateway... it worked fine although it took Comcast cable over 10hrs, two installers, 3 customer reps and finnally a competant technical advisor at 12midnight who simply entered the correct serial and mac numbers that others before him couldn't figure out (can you tell I'm not a fan of Comcast cable's customer service!!!) and within minutes I was up and running. An excellent, whisper quiet and sleek silver designed unit that accomplishes all that it was meant to do. The USB and Ethernet are all that I have utilized so far, I'm waiting to configure the unit and also waiting on my wireless USB adaptors, PC cards and CF cards to really get my wireless networking off the ground. So far so good, I HIGHLY reccommend it!

This unit works on 802.11a only, the 802.11b barely functions, if at all. Unit is constantly locking up, but could not get Netgear to issue an RMA. Tech support was not helpful, definately overseas with a language barrier. I would not recommend this unit or Netgear as a company.

The .a half of this thing works just fine. I have an Netgear HE102 (.a only AP) and it seems comparable in performance.
However the .b side is completely worthless. WEP or not, Netgear, Toshiba and other client adapters, all the same. No range, instable connection. Tried latest firmware, nada. Tried a pair of the WAB102's with same results. Steer clear of this thing. Get the HE102, or something better if you need .a, and get a $... special out of the sunday paper for your .b/.g needs.

If you already have an older 'wired' router, this is definitely the way to go. Just plug it in to an available plug on your existing router. Forget about the noisy 2.4ghz 11b and/or 11g, and go with this second generation 11a/b unit with the atheros chip. Not only does it provide turbo 108 MB 5 ghz 11a, it also provides 11b, so if you have any friends that need to connect they can with the popular 11b standard.

, compared to my SMC 'wired' router and my USR Turbo G wireless routers this is a quality solid corporate grade unit. The manuals are excellent, I had no problems installing it, within minutes it was running, plus 3 year warranty.

I also ordered an SMC2335W cardbus adapter with the WAP, which is an 11a/b adpater that supports 108 MBps turbo 11a. I was hesitant since this card was not on the recommended list that tiger provided for use with the WAB102. After doing some research I found out that this adapter used the same chipset as the WAB102 so I figured it would work well, and it did ...for only $20! ..plus great SMC limited lifetime warranty.

**PLEASE NOTE: THIS SMC CARD STARTED CAUSING MY PC TO CRASH AFTER ABOUT A WEEK, THE SIGNAL STRENGTH ALSO DROPPED, AND IT CAN NO LONGER MAINTAIN A DECENT CONNECTION. SMC SUPPORT WERE NOT HELPFUL AND WOULD NOT GIVE ME AN RMA UNTIL I TRIED IT ON ANOTHER LAPTOP. WHICH I THINK IS AN UNREALISTIC THING TO EXPECT, 'HEY, MIND IF I TRY MY FAULTY CARDBUS CARD ON YOUR $3000 LAPTOP' ???? THE CARD DOESN'T START TO FAULTER UNITL IT GET'S WARMED UP, SO I WOULD HAVE TO TEST IT FOR AS MUCH AS A FEW HOURS.** NO MORE SMC FOR ME! I RETURNED IT TO THE VENDOR AND ACCEPTED THE RESTOCKING CHARGE, IT WASN'T WORTH THE HEADACHE TO DEAL WITH SMC SUPPORT.

These two items work perfectly together, within a few minutes I had the network setup in 108 Mbps turbo mode. With the WAP on the middle floor of my 3 floor home, I get 100% signal strength no matter what floor or end of the house I'm on, cheers to 5 Ghz. For a test I transfered a 1.7 Gigabyte file, while the file was transferring I slowly walked through the house, making sure I went to the most obstructed places, no dropped connections and the transfer rate never dropped below 25 Mbps, the average transfer rate was 31.7 Mbps, it took just under 9 minutes to complete the transfer, WOW ...only a couple hundred bps slower than my wired 100 meg network.

I'm very pleased.

many thanks to this article that helped shed some light on the second gen 11a/b from atheros http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article46-page1.php

Neil

This product is misrepresented as a 640x480 resolution camera when in fact the packaging says 352x288.

This may be a good camera - but if you are looking for a 640x480, this is NOT it.

Basically, you get for what you paid for: a cheap webcam. Here are the things that I found out:

1. XP Drivers are provided, but they aren't XP certified.
2. L shape piece felt cheap. It is hard to make it stable on the top of my laptop. Using the taped clip probably improves the stability, if you don't care about having the clip permanently attached on your laptop.
3. Some of the software came with the package don't install under XP.
4. Performance is bad, comparing to other webcams, and quality is so-so. Even at the highest frame rate, you still see the "fast-moving" object effect.

Overall, it is a cheap webcam, so don't expect too much.

THIS WEBCAM.. MICRO INNOVATIONS IC400C, IS A GREAT WEBCAM TO OWN. THE WEB PICTURE IS VERY CLEAR AND BEAUTIFUL. I LOVE IT WITH MY WINDOWS XP.

I found by inserting this D-Link my hard drive crashed and burned,please let me know if others have had problems with this item.

After searching for an inexpensive USB upgrade card, I found the D-Link adapter here, for a terrific price. (...) I too am very handy around a PC, so I took the gamble.

Well, my box also had no documentation! However, installation was simple; here are my tips. I inserted the card into an open PCI slot, and powered up the PC. The card was automatically detected and the install wizard was started. I needed the Win98 disk for the install to continue (looking for drivers), and once inserted, the install completed without issue.

When I went to install a USB mouse, it was not detected! before any other troubleshooting, I left the mouse plugged in, and powered the PC down (not a restart, but a full power down). When the PC was turned back on, the mouse was immediately recognized and installed.

I also installed an older USB scanner, and it too was recognized and installed perfectly.

Again, this is a great product, hurting from no documentation.

Adding a USB port to my computer was easy with this D-Link product, but only because I'm good with computers and didn't need much hand-holding. Unfortunately, my box didn't include directions (they were somehow accidentally left out) and the D-Link web site wasn't much help either. But I was able to get customer service on the phone (it was NOT a toll-free call) and complete the installation quickly and without any other problems.

Now that everything is installed, I am very pleased. The D-Link port worked just as it should. This was definitely a great way to add a USB port without spending a great deal of money. If the documentation had been provided, this product would have gotten five stars from me.

After 2 months, the firewire component of this product short-circuited and fried all connected firewire components including the firewire port on my CPU motherboard. D-link will not accept liability for any damage caused by this malfunction. This hub acted as a conduit for $2500 damage to my computer system. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!!!

Having a Mac, I want to be able to expand the number of USB & Firewire devices and this seemed like a great choice, 4 USB, 3 Firewire. Perfect. Well not quite. You only get a *total* for 3 Firewire ports, including the one you'd have to hook up to a computer. For USB though, you get 4 USB ports, and one additional port to hook up to the computer. Sure, you don't have to have Firewire connected to a computer, unlike USB, but what would be the point of buying a hub with both USB and Firewire if you weren't going to hook it up to a computer for both things? Just be aware of that if you buy this product. -1 star for misleading product naming, and -1 star for not actually providing 4 total Firewire ports.

As previously stated the DFB-H7 hub really only adds three additional USB 2.0 ports and 1 additional firewire port. But the hub is perfect if you want your ports closer to you while working. I have my desktop PC under the desk and the hub on top of the desk and it works perfect. I like the DFB-H7 much better than the GE USB 2.0 hub, which is much more compact and will now be used with my laptop. As the packaging says the DFB-H7 is for desktop use.

Appears to be feature-rich at first glance, but if you are like me, and need to SPOOF YOUR MAC ADDRESS with your ISP because they have your computer's MAC address in their database DO NOT BUY THIS ROUTER. The MAC Spoofing feature does not work, and it causes the unit to be unable to obtain an IP Address from your ISP, and thus you cannot get online.

UNIDEN technical support is open 24/7, but the person who took my call could care less to be working there. I was not walked through any kind of extensive testing or troubleshooting procedure. The only thing suggested was to press the reset button. After that failed, it was suggested I RMA the unit.

I will be taking the tech's advice, however, I will not be getting a new unit. I will be getting my money back

Do not have a cable modem or DSL but bought Uniden's ENR1504 because wanted to experiment with it on home network. Upgraded firmware, downloaded from Uniden website, without any problems. Currently using it as a four port 10/100 Mbps hub and it works great.

The ENR1504 Router has been a very good product to use and is easy to set up. I originally had a SMC 7004ABR router. I like how the new router allows me to open up ports (port mapping) so that I can get different applications to work through the router. The 7004ABR supposedly allowed ports to be opened, but the applications sometimes did not work with the change.

A major feature of the ENR1504 is the included Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) feature of the Uniden router. The router uses SPI to examine each packet to make sure that the packet is legitimate. SPI is a definite improvement over my previous 7004ABR router.

I also like the addition of Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). UPnP is "a networking architecture that provides compatibility among computers, networking equipment, software and peripherals."-ENR1504 Owner's Manual

UPnP helps applications steer around the Network Address Translation (NAT). NAT is used to allow multiple computers to access the Internet from one internet protocol (IP) address. NAT can sometimes cause problems because applications are usually not built to go through a NAT device easily.

Tech Support is friendly and helpful. About early March, I had a problem when the router stopped working. I tried working with the Uniden Tech Support to get the problem fixed. After a lot of help by Tech Support staff in trying to get the router fixed, I had to RMA the unit back to Uniden. About two weeks later, I received the fixed ENR1504. The Uniden router has worked ever since.

My advice is to always get reviews on any networking or computer product from places such as Practically Networked, Epinions, or just typing the product's name and adding the word 'review' into a search engine. The same advice goes for any product you are buying from looking up the VIN number on a car to see the car's history to buying a good DVD player.

I think it is also a good idea to be on the lookout for good deals on products you buy, such as going to Deal News or another comparison-shopping site.

Unfortunately cannot properly review the product as having terrible difficulties obtaining an input/output cable. May have to have one made. This is not made plain in any documentation.

Once the appropriate cable was obtained the data switch has proved to be an excellent addition to our set-up. Where previously one was obliged to disconnect and reconnect different peripherals, now, with the data switch, it's easy!

Plugged it in, both, to 110 volts and to the USB port on my PC. It will not connect my scanner or my Altec Lansing Speakers even after reloading my USB driver.

Not much to say about a USB hub other than it works or doesnt. The only feature that would set it apart from almost any other is that it can be mounted to a desk or wall or anything because of well designed slots in the bottom. If you are not going to mout it, rubber feet are provided for it to sit on your desktop. It is small and the status lights are easy to read. Great product!

I ordered the wrong part, thought this was a mixer - Am I dumb.

I needed a LocalTalk bridge to hook up my old LaserWriter to my network. Not only did this low cost device act as a print server, it allowed me to network a old Mac Classic with PhoneNET. I also bought a cable not expecting this thing to include one, but when I opened up the box, it came with one!

This product really sticks. I bought a couple days ago and then had to return it. I couldn't even set up the VNP because there was no proper documentation. I call Netgear and their support was no help at all. The router couldn't work wirelessly and wired simultaneously for the same machine... without reset the router... What I am trying to say is if you connected wirelessly to the router and then disconnected that wireless connection and then plugged into the router with your wired LAN cable... you would not have a connection. Unless you went into the the router wirelessly and resetted it manaully. The latest firmware upgrade they have for the router is a beta v1.2 - And if you have a a problem with beta versions of their firmware you cannot call them (Netgear).... you have to email .... beta@netgear.com or something like that. It does have alot of cool features but there are too many glitches. Hope this review helps.

Specs are great - hardware VPN [3DES & 256bit AES], 100+ tunnels, dyndns support, Stateful FW, syslog, 8 port 10/100 switch, 7.5Mbps WAN-LAN on IP & 4.2Mbps using 3DES.

Ive experienced solid performance with very good 802.11b range and throughput. Remote access via available Safenet DialIP client and office-office tunnel to a Netscreen works well.

Very good documentation on the website for connecting this device to other manufacturers equipment - like Cisco, Nortel, Win2k, etc. Was able to bring up a branch office tunnel to a Netscreen [not documented] in about 30 minutes. Included WLAN client not tested, nor was the available full client [less than $30 per user] -- but its available!!!

Only negative - support. I forward a couple of ports to an internal linux box. That machine can not connect to the 'net unless I turn off the port forarding. This could be a 'feature' of the beta firmware v1.2b I'm running. But that code is required to use domain names rather than IP addresses for VPN end-points. After trading email with netgear support - nothing got resolved.

Overall - its a solid box with some rough edges.

The documention that comes with the router is garbage. The client software that comes with the router is garbage, In fact, the documention and the screen shots didn't match what the router's web interface. Nor did the documentation match the client client software it comes with.

Aside from the problems with the documentation, once you figure out Netgear's logic, everything works. Well, atleast everything I've tried. I've been able to set up a client to Netgear VPN connection, and Site to Site. I've also tried all the other features and so far, everything works solid. The only thing I haven't used is the wireless.

Over all, I am happy with the FVM318. The only drawback is the documentation.