? Airport and Wireless Netgear Router Issues!!

Hey,

We used to have a Belkin Wireless Router that worked fantastic, that died last week... just simply turned on. So the people I rent from bought a NetGear Rangemax Wireless Router (WNR8348 v2) which was quite expensive and supposed to be great and fast... and it seems useless!!
I am using a Macbook, with Mozilla Firefox.
My problems are...
*really intermittent internet connection.
*takes forever to properly connect to internet, if it even does.
*not especially fast connection that it claims.
*It's almost like if I try to open a page before it is truly connected (eve tho the airport wireless signal is 3 bars or full) and it doesn't connect... I wont be able to connect again unless I reboot my computer, and hope for the best.

Please note that this is happening within in very close proximity to the router. And it is flashing green as if everything is ok!

Is there some setting I need to change on my mac?

Please help, it is driving me crazy.

Firstly, who is your ISP, and secondly, what settings have you input into the router? It sounds like a possiible MTU issue, but if you can give me the above, I may be able to help more.

Thanks Kyomii,
I am not up-to-date with my IT jargon, what is MTU? My internet is through Optus (Australia) and it is cable, the settings? the only thing i did myself was put a password to stop it being a 'free-for-all' in the wireless settings section.

Hi Biddy, I am not familiar with settings for Australian ISPs. MTU is a setting for transfer, and if set too high, packets fragment and if too low you will have problems viewing sites. It should be available to alter in your router, but you need to ask your ISP what setting this needs to be.

However, from what I can see, this is JUST a router - that means there is no adsl modem built into it, so you will need to attach a modem to connect. Have you got a modem connected to it and also have you set the router up to communicate with the modem properly? (Such as bridge mode etc...)

Hang on, just noticed you say you are on cable? I am therefore assuming you have your cable modem connected to this router?

Yes I absolutely understand the need for a modem, and yes do have a modem that is correctly attached to the router. If i attach the modem directly to my laptop, the internet has no issues and works everytime. It is when I attach the Netgear that I have issues. And it does work... very occasionally I will be able to access the internet, but more often than not, The wireless signal strength is good, and yet there is absolutely no internet.

I don't know what bridge mode is? I don't believe it was ever mentioned in the setup instructions...

I think the problem may be one of two issues:

Your cable modem is "old" and incompatible for the router (chipset conflict) and therefore the connection is slow and intermittent (unlikely but possible)

OR

The router has not been set up to correctly work with the modem. Normally, you cannot plug a router in a modem, set up wireless and surf the net - you have to set up the router to talk properly to the modem so that there are no connection issues.

Your settings also depend on if you have other computers on the network (DHCP on or offf) if you have a static IP, if the Mac address of the Modem needs cloning in the router (normally does for cable) etc.

I can't advise as I do not know what settings Aus cable uses, but I do know the router needs to be set up correctly. I would therefore advise you either ring Netgear or your ISP for assistance on setting this up correctly to work with your cable modem.