rice75's Full Review: NetGear WGR614 Wireless Router
Before I owned my laptop I never needed a router, much less a wireless router, because I only had one computer connected to my cable modem (on Time Warner’s RoadRunner). I had hopes that one day I would have my own personal network of computers but that never really materialized. After the purchase of my HP Pavilion ze4430, with its built-in 54g wireless network adapter, I realized my dream of having more than one computer connected to the internet.
Wireless connectivity to the internet is definitely all it is cracked up to be. Thanks to my Netgear WGR614 Wireless Router I can take my laptop anywhere in the house (at least almost anywhere, more on that later) and jack right into the internet. Not being tethered by a wire is convenient and now I don’t know if I can live without it. I’m am currently watching my Cleveland Browns play on Monday night, right in front of the TV, as I finish up this review.
The Netgear WGR614 Wireless Router is a full featured wireless router. It uses the 802.11g wireless network protocol, which can reach speeds of 54 Mbps. The 802.11g protocol is also downward compatible with products that use the 802.11b protocol, which only can reach top speed of 11 Mbps. It is a very secure router, with a hardware firewall that includes SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) and NAT (network address translation) that do a dutiful job of protecting the PCs connected to your network. Along with these firewall services, WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is also integrated, encrypting all the data that the router transmits wirelessly. There are some concerns that WEP is flawed, but currently there aren’t any other fixes to shore up its effectiveness. While some of the other reviews of this router will disagree, the setup of this device can be quite simple. Getting your devices to connect to it can be a different story.
Setup started out super simple. It was nothing more than connecting my cable modem to the router and connecting my desktop to one of the four wired LAN ports (there are four ports in addition to the wireless features). I fired up my PC and connected to the router using Internet Explorer. A lot of the setup was done automatically and I setup up my own WEP codes and setup up some other control parameters, but it was really quite simple. It is really nice to be able to do all the setup via a web browser. It makes things intuitive and easy to navigate. Everything setup up very quickly. I was surfing the internet in seconds. No problem. Then I tried to setup the wireless connection to my laptop and that’s when the frustration set in. I setup my TCP/IP settings on my wireless adapter on he laptop to obtain its IP settings automatically. The first time I tried to connect the wireless network I would see the signal but it wouldn’t acquire an IP address from the router via DHCP. It would just say “Automatic Private Address” and be content with that. I can’t say how frustrating it is to see those three words when you’re trying to set up a wireless network. Finally, after about an hour of pulling out my hear and muttering unholy oaths under my breath, it fixed itself. There is a “Repair” button on the network adapter settings window, but that only works about 75% of the time. I don’t know what made it finally worked, but once I was connected I was happy and was surfing like a champ.
The Netgear WGR614 Wireless Router has a decent range, but it is effected by things like walls, floors and the position of the antenna. I currently have my router in my basement on the highest shelf in one corner of my basement. Most of the time I’m right above the router to connect, but when I take it up to my bedroom, I’m as far as I can get from it and the signal is intermittent. I plan on bringing the router up the main floor so I have a better range. One frustrating thing is the need to do a hard reset periodically to get the signal to sync up with my laptop. I’m not sure why this happens, but I’ll get a nice, strong signal to my laptop but be unable to connect. After a hard reset (there is no reset or power button) everything works fine but it can be a pain to have to go downstairs to reset the router.
Since networking in Windows XP can be done with TCP/IP, I am able to network my to PCs, enabling me to share files between my two PCs. I am able to anything I want on my main PC upstairs on my laptop, making it a huge convenience to be anywhere and access all my files. And since I have WEP enabled I don’t have to worry about my data being compromised.
I can’t give the Netgear WGR614 Wireless Router a full five stars. It really is a nice piece of hardware, it just isn’t perfect. Setting up everything is a cinch but connecting to the wireless router is not the easiest thing to do. I would definitely recommend this router, because it really does work effectively, but again, with the difficulty of a portion of the setup and having to occasionally reset the device, I can’t give it a five star rating. It deserves a solid 4 stars.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 Driver Availability: Windows only
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