Impressive bit of kit but needs firmware upgrade to correct problems
Written: Dec 06 '03 (Updated Dec 12 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fantastic features, easy to set up, very customisable.
Cons: Problems re-connecting dropped lines, can't change default firewall rules, UPnP forwarding problems.
The Bottom Line: Superb bit of kit, but beware of problems listed and pray that firmware upgrade in the future fixes these issues.
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| red3kgto's Full Review: Sony PlayStation 2 Slimline Console |
I have managed to get my hands on a DG834G here in the UK. They have only been available for a few weeks and are like rocking horse shlte at the moment!
I went for the DG834G because there is nothing else on the market like it. There is a similar device from US Robotics, but it is not currently widely available.
The DG834G replaces the older DG824M. The main difference appears to be the addition of 802.11g support, which means the wireless access point now supports speeds of up to 54mbps. In reality you probably won't get this speed, but it is still supposed to be faster than the older 802.11b (11mbps) standard.
The DG834G is an all-in-one package. It has a built in ADSL modem (which supports both PPPoE and PPPoA), a 4 port 10/100 switch (using UTP ports), an SPI firewall (stateful packet inspection), oh and the 802.11g wireless access point.
The firewall is fully featured and includes NAT, DNS proxy, ability to configure a DMZ, a built in DHCP server, customisable rules and logging. The features are too many to list here.
In addition the firewall is also supposed to support UPnP forwarding to enable things like MSN Messenger voice and video conversations.
The DG834G is incredibly easy to set up. Connect one PC to a UTP port and set it to use DHCP and the DG834G will give it an address from the 192.168.0/24 address range. The device itself is accessible at 192.168.0.1 and once logged in, it runs a wizard to set up the WAN connection to your DSL provider. Within 5 minutes, it is up and working with internet access using the default firewall rules of block all inbound but allow all outbound. Therefore you no longer need to run ZoneAlarm as you are fully protected (although ZoneAlarm is still useful to alert you to trojan programs trying to access the net without your knowledge).
The wireless aspect is also very easy to set up allowing you to configure the SSID name, and whether to use 64 bit or 128 bit encryption. It will generate the keys for you (you just enter a passphrase) and you just copy one of the keys to your wireless network card configuration.
I have had my DG834G for a week now and while I am very happy with it there are a few problems that I would like to get resolved:
1) Occasionally my ADSL line gets dropped (quite common even with simple ADSL modems due to a noisy line I have here). The DG834G is configured to auto-connect if required, but on many occasions now it has not re-connected and I have had to manually click on a "connect" button on the status page. This is quite annoying as my partner doesn't know how to do this so I just tell her to unplug the power lead to the DG834G and then reconnect it in order to get it to bring the line up again. So it seems there may be an issue here with the DG834G failing to bring the connection back up. This does seem to be a common problem among the posters to the forums at www.adslguide.org.uk so I know I am not the only person with this problem.
2) The default inbound firewall rule is set to block everything, but you cannot change the logging on this rule. By default the logging is switched off, but I would like to be able to switch it on so that I can see how much stuff is being rejected. As a consequence, when I analyse the router logs, there is nothing in there (apart from the router boot-up sequence). It would be nice if I could change the default firewall rules - for instance, I should be allowed to allow everything not deny it. It may not be a wise thing to do, but it should be my choice (what if I am using this device on an internal network and want to enable all traffic?). So this is a bit of a pain. [Update: I have added a second "block everything" in-bound rule with logging enabled to see if this would enable logging but I still get nothing in the logs].
3) The biggest problem so far is that the DG834G claims to support UPnP for MSN Messenger etc. However, I cannot get it to work! MSN Messenger complains that it cannot connect due to a network problem. I am not the only one suffering from this problem as a search for DG834G in the forums at www.adslguide.org.uk reveals.
So it seems that although the DG834G is a fundamentally sound piece of kit there are problems that need sorting. I am assuming that Netgear will eventually release a firmware upgrade to resolve these problems. Mine currently has firmware v1.02.00, so check this and let me know if you have a later version and still suffer from the same problems.
Unfortunately, the DG834G seems to be following in the DG824M's footsteps very closely. The DG824M was plagued with problems in the early samples, and a plethora of firmware upgrades were required to get it working. While the DG834G seems to work much better straight out of the box, more work is required to get the firmware up to scratch.
It is such a shame that Netgear continue to release products with these kinds of problems but I guess they wanted to be first to market with an all-in-one-wonder box despite any remaining firmware issues. It will be interesting to see what the new USR box is like.
In the meantime keep an eye on the forums at www.adslguide.org.uk to get an idea of the problems some people are experiencing.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
red3kgto
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Reviews written: 8
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