Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with netgear

Netgear Wireless-G Router WGR614 & AIM

twiggy32 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:30:14 -0800

How do I get my new Netgear Wireless-G Router WGR614 to play nice with AIM? I just installed a new Netgear wireless router and everything seems like it is working fine. However, I have to use AIM at home for work stuff, and I cannot connect. It tries to connect several times without success, and then AIM tells me I tried to log on too many times. I tried using AIM, iChat, and Adium, so it seems to be a problem with AIM not the chat program. I think this may have something to do with opening the right port, but I am at the limit of my technical abilities and my IT guy at work told me it was probably just because Macs suck, so no help there. Any advice?

File access to router without wget

alby — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:01:21 -0800

How do I copy files to a Netgear DG834G router without using wget? I'm trying to install openwrt on an old Netgear DG834Gv3 router (mainly using these instructions). The instructions recommend to telnet into the router and then copy over the new firmware from the internet using wget.

Unfortunately, wget isn't playing ball. Telnetting into the router works fine and I can execute commands but whether I use http or ftp and whether I use the hostname or IP wget cannot see the internet at all. Ping isn't successful for anything either.

So how do I copy over the firmware without using wget? Or alternatively, how do I get wget to work? The router's bootloader does not allow FTP connections.

I just want the damned router to work.

ocherdraco — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:41:39 -0800

Is my wireless router dead? If not, how do I fix it? The details, as I understand them:

I'm on a Mac. I have cable internet via TimeWarner, and an RCA Cable Modem. When I plug the ethernet cable from this modem directly into my computer, I am able to access the internet. When it is plugged into the wireless router, I am not.

Currently, on my wireless router (Netgear WGR614 v7), when the ethernet cable from the modem is plugged into it, the only light that turns on is the power light, and, of course, the network does not appear in the list of available networks. I have tried: unplugging and replugging the ethernet cable, unplugging and replugging the power cord. No change. The Netgear website infuriatingly refers me to the user manual to "troubleshoot the light status," and the user manual just tells me to turn it off and on again, with no indication of what to do if that doesn't work.

I have, over the past several days, had increasingly spotty wireless, and last night, the signal was dropping every minute or so, but when it was there, it was as strong as normal.

Is there anything I can do, or must I just go buy a new one?

wifi ignorance

A189Nut — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:29:35 -0800

WiFi router ignorance I am in the UK. I have a Netgear DG834G router (a few years old.) I have an 8 meg dsl connection (router stats tell me 8128kps down and 448 kps up.)

Is there any point upgrading to a newer router?

For instance, the Netgear RangeMax Next is described as 15 x faster than Wireless g and with 4 x the range. I know my dsl connection will not be 15 times better, but will I notice any speed difference between my laptop and the router do you think folks?

Why can't we connect wirelessly?

mai — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:29:34 -0800

Why can't we connect wirelessly to the internet? We have comcast cable internet and a netgear router and fourteen computers, 13 of which connect wirelessly and one of which uses a wired ethernet connection.

Our internet connection stopped working (possibly because the modem was fried by a lightning strike near us?). None of the lights on the modem would go on, so Comcast told us to bring it in and get a new one.

After replacing the modem, the situation is this:
1. If I am wired directly to the modem, I can connect to the internet.
I am on a Mac.
2. My roommate tried to connect directly to the modem running Linux and could not get internet.
3. The router is broadcasting wireless signal. We can all connect to it and can see each other. But, when the router is connected to the modem, there is no internet coming through the pipes.
4. I tried connecting to the router and having it search for firmware updates, and it can't see the internet at all.
5. I tried the whole reset rigamarole (of router, of modem, of everything), it did not help.

So, is our router broken? Is there something else going on?
I am not super knowledgeable about computers. I usually solve problems by googling for info and bumbling about until something works. Detailed, action-oriented explainations are appreciated.

ReadyNAS NV+ won't release files!

bcnarc — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:45:42 -0800

I have had a ReadyNAS NV+ for the past two years and it's been great to have a space to dump files. Now that I am trying to move them off the device en masse I am having nothing but problems. Please help! Specs: Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (4x500gb, running latest gold firmware). I have several shares setup, the largest of which contains my 300gb+ music directory organized by iTunes. Whether I connect to the device via AFP, SMB/CFS or FTP I get copy errors whenever I try to move files off of the device. I'm using OS X 10.5.6 connected over a local gigabit network.

The two errors I am getting repeatedly are 'duplicate file already exists in this location' where it usually finds another instance of the same song, but a different file size, ie different file. The other error is permissions related, but I have only one user configured for this device, and I am logged as that user.

I just want my files off! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Does my Netgear router suck or is something else going on here?

lbo — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:58:06 -0800

Why is my brand new iMac (connecting to the internet wirelessly) having trouble staying connected when I download large files? I don't think my particular question has been addressed in previous posts.

I am having a connection problem with my wireless router and my husband's brand new 24" iMac (running Leopard), which seems to happen when too much data comes through at once. I've also had the problem when using my old Powerbook G4 (Tiger), but it hasn't been as bad with the Powerbook.

We have a Mac Mini that's connected directly to a Netgear WGT624 router and Comcast cable. It's password-protected, but otherwise has no special settings. The Mac Mini has no problems with the direct connection. The Powerbook has had issues staying connected when we go to sites that are image-heavy, but rarely seems to have problems downloading large files otherwise.

With the new iMac, though, the connection dies several times per hour when visiting image-heavy websites, downloading large files, or downloading newsgroup headers. The visual evidence of the signal doesn't immediately disappear (the menu bar icon), the rate just slowly decreases to zero. Every time that happens, we have to unplug the router and plug it in again after 10 seconds or so. Usually that reestablishes the signal, but sometimes it has to be done two or three times before the signal returns.

The thing we've noticed with downloads on the iMac that we haven't seen with the Powerbook is that the download rate seems to level off at a higher rate than before. It will typically reach its highest level right before the wireless connection dies. For instance, on a 10MB download, the rate reached 400+kbps, which I don't think it ever did before, and then promptly died.

We've had the problem when using Firefox, Safari, various FTP programs, Unison (newsgroup reader) and with torrents.

We don't really know where to start to figure this one out. Is it just a crappy router or do we need to somehow change our settings? Thanks!

sad accesspoint drama.

beerbajay — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:52:08 -0800

Netgear access point weirdness. Wireless roaming. OMG, why does the AP do this and as a result cause my internets connection to connect/disconnect frequently? INTERNETS <-- modem <-- (Netgear WGR614v7 router w/ wifi) <-- (both Netgear WPN802v2 access points)

Trying to get wireless roaming working, but one of the APs doesn't even play nice in a single room. As shown in the graph, there is hella strong signal in the room until suddenly and inexplicably it drops off hard until the power is lower than that of the other AP/router which are in another room behind a heavy wall. Windows disconnects, sometimes picking up one of the other signals, sometimes not.

Router is on channel 1, APs on 7 and 11. I'm in an apartment building so there's a number of other wireless networks on channel 1, 6, and 11.

Good wired router as gateway to VoIP and wireless router?

skywhite — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:45:35 -0800

Good wired router as gateway to VoIP and wireless router? When I got Vonage several years ago, they provided a now-discontinued Netgear RP614 wired router to plug my cable into, and the router (which also has a built-in firewall that works well) then offers outlets for my Vonage box as well as my Apple Airport wireless router (which I use for my Mac and as part of a larger network with an Airport Express streaming music to my living room stereo).

Everything's worked fine until recently. Now the Netgear router gets confused and shuts down all through-traffic at least once a day. A manual reset (unplug, wait, plug back in) sets things right, but it seems the router is on its way out after 5 years of service.

Vonage no longer offers wired routers -- instead they offer a proprietary VoIP box that has its own little router built-in, but I don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with Vonage, and I'd rather just do something non-proprietary on my own.

Is Netgear still a good choice for wired routers? Anyone else I might want to look at (eg Belkin)? Also, is this setup too convoluted -- is there a way to improve it while simplifying -- or is this just par for the course if I want VoIP as wekk as wireless internet?

Back me up, Scotty!

sprocket87 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:02:02 -0800

Recommend a good tool to remotely backup/synchronize large folders to my home NAS. Here's what I have:

- Laptop with 100+ GB music library; misc documents, photos, and other data that needs backed up
- Netgear ReadyNAS Duo 750GB at home (supports pretty much everything - rsync, (S)FTP, WebDAV, etc)

Here's what I want to do:

For my MP3 library (100GB, 20k files, 4k folders) - mirror or synchronize any changes from my laptop (remote at work) to my home NAS. I've tried a TON of apps already with varying degrees of success. The major problem seems to be that to do a mirror, the apps have to perform a full "audit" scan of the destination (NAS) share to see what needs updated/copied. Problem is, with 20k files, that takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r, at least using FTP or WebDAV.

Ideally, I'd like a real-time backup app that monitors some selected folders (like My Music) and kicks off an automated upload for any changed files. This (a) makes it fully automatic and (b) [in theory] faster - doesn't have to synch each time, just upload based off a good known synch. Problem is, I've yet to find the right tool to accomplish all these things correctly.

Note: I'd be happy as a clam to use rsync, which the ReadyNAS supports, but I'm sending from a Windows client and my options are limited. I've been racking my brain trying to get DeltaCopy to work, but it keeps timing out when attempting to connect to the NAS. I have port forwarding, etc, working fine on my router, so I can't really figure out why rsync is failing.

Note 2: The ReadyNAS does have optional support for SSH and Telnet, I believe, but it involves some trickery to get working and I think it might void my warranty...

How do I fix my wireless internet connection?

Hogermite — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:48:58 -0800

Wireless connection on brand new laptop disconnecting after 5-30 minutes and unable to reconnect. Peer moderation with counselor, persuasive tactics with claw hammer and threats of waterboarding proving frustratingly ineffective. Any real solution out there? Running Vista Home Premium 32-bit with Netgear WGT624 v2 router connected to Comcast (RCA) modem on a 3-week old HP Pavilion dv6626 notebook..direct connection works fine and so does wireless...for 5-30 minutes max...then, wireless will disconnect and prevent reconnect to router...even though I can sometimes connect to other wireless connections. Tried upgrading router firmware, upgrading drivers, disabling TCP/IP v6, changing battery settings, disabling 802.11 authentication, changing router channel to 11 and a majority of the other advice given online...even used the heck out of HP "talk to an online technician" feature so often that now they just tell me to send the darn thing in....and I'm about to that point, even though it would that would be admitting defeat, which would be a horrible blow to what's left of my ego...basically, I'm hoping someone might have experienced the same problems I have and found a solution....oh, and this is my first post, so if I violated any spoken/unspoken rule of MeFi....i sowwie. :) thank you!

Small business networking hardware

prggr — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:32:44 -0800

Supporting about 35 computers and have had two switches (Netgear, Linksys) die in the last year. Looking for suggestions of brands we can stick with that are cheaper than Cisco. Our network is a mix of Linksys, Netgear, and I think maybe a d-link switch floating around somewhere. Our network has a single 8 port gigabit switch plugged into which we have a 16 port switch, several 8 port switches, Linksys wireless AP, our router/firewall, and the servers. About 8 months ago one of the 8 port switches died, and yesterday (yes, on a Sunday of course -- luckily I keep spare switches around), the 8 port gigabit switch died. I'm going to be chasing Netgear since they seem to have a decent warranty, but I'm now wondering if there is a decently reliable brand of switches that doesn't cost several arms and legs.

I'm just looking at unmanaged switches. We're going to be moving locations early 2008 and I figure it is a good time to get all the hardware setup with the same brand and same models so I can keep the correct spares in stock. Now, we haven't even had this entire setup for more than 2 years and most of the equipment is under a year old. With about 6-7 switches, having 2 go out so soon is really annoying and not good for business.

So, I'm quite willing to listen to any suggestions. I have poked around a bit this morning and noticed Cisco hardware is still way expensive, Netgear now offers a lifetime warranty (which only helps after the fact.. warranties sure don't keep hardware from failing), and that there are a bunch of various brands I don't know anything about.

Thanks again!

Another Bittorrent Question

apetpsychic — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 11:32:39 -0800

I've seen this and this,and this. When I'm running Transmission (I used to use Azareus, with the same problems, but I switched because a lot of the trackers I used banned it. I will switch if anyone can suggest a better client) on OSX it kills all of my web browsing. Even when I turn on Speed Limiter there is no web browsing. I'm only downloading one file, with one peer at the moment, for what that's worth. But when I cap upload at 5k, web browsing works again (by the way, I browse with Firefox). That doesn't seem right to me. I have Time Warner Road Runner cable internet and a Netgear WGR614v7 - 54 Mbps Wireless Router. Is there anything I'm overlooking to be able to browse the web while downloading torrents?

My Wifi is Cursed

bofe — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:08:55 -0800

I'm having strange Wireless issues. I've tried two PCI cards (they were both LINKSYS WMP11 PCI Wireless-B Adapter) and a USB dongle (Netgear WG111T USB) in Windows XP and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Any time I get to the point where the wireless connection is being made, the computer completely freezes. No keyboard or mouse response at all. I have to shut the computer's power off. Any suggestions? More tech details:

The Wifi Router I'm trying to connect to:

LINKSYS WRT54G IEEE 802.3/3u, IEEE 802.11b/g Wireless-G Broadband Router. I'm running WPA PSK encryption on the AP.

I had the same problem with two of the Linksys PCI Cards on two different boxes. However, I've had no problem connecting various laptops to this access point.

Right now I'm restricted to Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) but I'm willing to use the PCI card or the USB dongle. Either way, I just want this to work. I had configured the PCI card and the USB adapter with ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant.

Death to cheap consumer routers

tumult — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:57:44 -0800

I'm tired of wireless routers that suck. Over the years, I've gone through four different Apple AirPorts (all different models, two were Extremes and one was Express) a couple of WRT54Gs (one was an S, which I tried two different versions of the firmware on, followed by DD-WRT and then OpenWRT. The other was a v6 with the vxworks built-in firmware) a couple of Netgears (don't remember the models) and using a computer with a PCI 802.11x card.

All of the routers were not so good and eventually died. The AirPorts would continue to get spotty until they could no longer be configured through the administrative interface. The WRT54Gs would first intermittently have their wireless go out until I restarted them, and then would eventually start crashing more and more frequently, and then eventually the administration panels would stop functioning. This happened with all of the various firmwares. The Netgears would sometimes act slow and seemed to drop connections frequently, and lacked the configuration power of the Linksys routers. The PC works ok, but I don't like having a huge honking PC where my cable comes in. I could run ethernet to the room with the rest of my computers, but then I would have to run ethernet back out to the original room to where my media center PC is, because that computer has to be wired (802.11b/g isn't fast enough to stream HD). I guess I could put a switch there with the cable modem, though.

I'm considering building a small, cheap PC to act as a router/fileserver, but I figured I'd see if anyone has some good suggestions here for a router, first. I'm willing to spend up to $250-$300, since that's what I'd spend on a new PC anyway.

I don't know if I'm cursed or what, but my second WRT54G just had its wireless "burn out" like the other one, so I'm willing to make a long-term investment at this point. This has all taken place over the course of three different residencies, so I guess cheap consumer routers just blow and there aren't ghosts in my outlets.

I think my Wi-fi is being leeched, Please help!

spinko — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:09:51 -0800

I think my Wi-fi is being leeched, Please help! I have had no problems with my old wired router for broadband for my 2 laptops. No problems with speed or Ping.

I upgraded to wi-fi at home for my 2 laptops. I got recommended The Netgear DG834G, both connect to the internet fine.

Im using WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key) for protection. Got a choice of WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA-802.1x

When playing online games it Good and bad at times. Im getting 300-500ms ping on World Of Warcraft. Sometimes its so bad I turn off the router and restart it. For 2-3 mins its 150ms then jumps back to 300-500ms.

Incase you asked, none of the computers connected are downloading anything.

I was so pissed the other night I disconnected the router for 16 hours. The next day I played the game, perfect pings. Day later back to being bad.

Security is turned on, I check the attached devices when ping is bad and it says UNKNOWN as an Computer Name.

Whats weird is that when sometimes I get a popup from Windows saying that my IP is conflicting.

Both Laptops are 192.168.0.2 and the other 192.168.0.3

Upgraded to latest Firmware on the router.

Could someone be hacking into my router for free access?
If so How can I stop it as its annoying.

Mac OSX v Netgear Router

superfurry — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:57:41 -0800

Trying to solve a Mac internet disconnection issue. As always there is I have a Mac Mini running OS X 10.4.9 connected to a Netgear DG834G router via an ethernet connection. The router has the latest firmware installed. I also have a Windows XP Pro machine connected. They are both on static IP addresses on the router, though I also tried them on dynamic ones. They have both in the past been connected to this router via wireless and wired connections.

The PC plays along nicely. The Mac has browsing the web issues. Every now and then - actually quite frequently - the Mac gets 'server not found' errors in Firefox, and I have to repeatadly click the Retry button to get it to load the page. Looking at the router logs, the router is maintaining its DSL connection - its the Mac somehow crapping out. Like I said, no such issues on the pc.

I've tried different hardware by swapping the Mac HDD into different machines. I've formatted and re-installed OSX completely. I've tried wired, I've tried wireless. I'm at the end of my tether.

Before I go buying another DSL router, any suggestions or known issues ?

My laptop, wireless card and VPN Client aren't playing nice.

cholly — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:52:45 -0800

My laptop, wireless card and VPN Client aren't playing nice. I recently did a reformat of my laptop and changed from Windows Server 2003 to Windows XP. It is a Dell Latitude X200, if that changes anything. My NetGear WG511v2 wireless card worked fine until I installed a Cisco VPN Client. I've tried to remedy this, but if the VPN is installed, the wireless card cannot be plugged into the computer without starting an endless cycle of Blue Screens of Death and constant reboots. The same combination worked perfectly fine when the laptop was running Server 2003.

An error message tells me that there is a hardware issue, but I can't work out why. I've tried reinstalling drivers, rolling back drivers, installing them in different orders, operating the card with and without the NetGear wireless wizard, and disabling the VPN from automatically booting on startup. I've also checked (and double checked) the Device Manager, and it says that everything is properly installed, until I install the VPN and then it disables the wireless card after I reboot in safe mode and normal mode after the aforementioned Blue Screens of Death.

Is there any hope of fixing this, or should be prepared to fork out for a new card?

Streaming sound should stream seamlessly

Mutant — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 05:13:38 -0800

OS X, Netgear DG834G, "Network stalled" message in iTunes is getting rather annoying! First the basic setup: I've got two several Macs all sharing a Netgear FG384G wireless router.

Downstairs in my lounge there are two iMacs. Upstairs in my back bedroom there is an iBook with Apple Pro speakers. It streams sound via iTunes 7.02 from one of the iMacs in the lounge.

Intermittently music will pause and I"ll get the message "Network stalled" with a progress bar that refreshes while the iBook pulls down more of the track.

The problem comes and goes, and it's getting annoying.

Further details: downstairs in my lounge I've got two iMacs, one an iMac DV+ (G3, 450Mhz) and the other a flat panel 1.83Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac.

Regardless of which Mac is used, I get the problem intermittently. I've also experimented with my G4 PowerBooks (1.25Ghz and 1.5Ghz), same problem. The iBook currently being used is a 466Mhz G3 running 10.4.6. I've got a second G3 iBook, 300 Mhz, and it exhibits the same behaviour if I try to stream sound from it.

I've had this problem for a while; the iTunes update is recent.

I'm stumped why this would happen. There is very little traffic on the internal LAN. I haven't run a tool to verify, but the boxes are just sitting there. The G3 iMac pings two remote boxes that I own, and is running little else (iCal to kick off some scripts but they aren't running when this problem happens, and the G3 iMac isn't streaming sound).

The MacIntel is doing pretty much nothing sometimes when the problem rears it's head.

I've experimented with one of my PowerBooks and even if in the same room as the iBook, when the problem is happening it happens.

I've checked the router logs to see if there was perhaps a DOS from the WAN side that might be overwhelming it, and preventing it from forwarding packets on the internal 'Net and found nothing.

On the iBook I've tried quitting iTunes, logging out and rebooting - nope. When the problem happens, it happens.

No matter what machine I'm streaming from when it happens it happens.

I've been in this flat five years, and when I first moved in there were no other access points about. Now there are at least three that I can see and maybe more that are running silent (I know about Kismet but haven't tried this yet).

I have had interference in the past, which I solved by configuring the router to use a specific channel instead of 'auto'. Before that I'd sit in the lounge and sometimes watch the signal strength swing from five bars to zero and back to five.

I had the streaming audio problem back then, but now even though the signal is consistently stable and five bars across the flat (and into my garden - whoot!), I still, from time to time, have problems streaming sound in my upstairs bedroom.

Any suggestions? I've got 23GB of sound, so dumping a copy on the iBook isn't an option.

iPaq hates WEP WiFi

niles — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 16:22:47 -0800

Ok, I have an HP 4155 iPaq and a WEP-enabled Netgear WGR614v6, but they don't connect. Any other computer can connect to the WiFi, and the PDA can connect to unprotected signals. When I attempt to connect, the iPaq asks for the passcode. This is my first problem: Do I use the generated phrase, or the base keycode? I'm not sure because while this box has no other options, in the network settings dialog there is a "key index" setting.

Anyway, I have tried both, so I don't think that's my problem.

Once I enter the passcode, the PDA attempts to connect, but just "times out" for lack of a better phrase. Am I just missing something here, or is this another feature HP forogt to implement correctly?

I believe I have installed all of the WiFi updates for the iPaq, and the reason the siginal isn't WPA is because the iPaq only supports WEP (I think). Please no network security tips on WPA vs WEP. No solution will be too hard - I'm the resident guru :)

And that bouncing Santa gif is pretty cool.

A Pox Upon Netgear and their Salty Software

snailer — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:21:52 -0800

Cursed Netgear Software Substitute - Does it exist for Windows 2000? I've yet to encounter a more annoying piece of software than the Netgear "SMART WIZARD" - won't start at boot, frequent dropouts with WPA-PSK, all round irritation. Card is a WG311v3.

I'm wondering do any of you good Metafilterers know of a generic wireless network app for Win 2K - like the WZC Software you get with Windows XP? Free, if possible!

Router Software Makin' Trouble. HELP!

abbyladybug — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 15:14:01 -0800

What single tech issue is likely to cause these three things to occur (when they all recently worked):

Inability to upload using Flickr Uploadr (the message says "can't connect to Flickr")
Inability to sub to podcasts in iTunes
GMail notified can't connect to the server?

All issues relate to stand-alone programs which read information on the internet. And yet, visiting these web sites directly is no problem at all. These issues are all new, and I think they relate to my new Netgear router software. I don't have these problems on my laptop, even when I'm using it at home wirelessly. Any of you brainiacs got any ideas? I'm tired of calling India!!More details about this problem can be found in the FlickrBugs forum.

Get a lazy router to work.

kingjoeshmoe — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:27:52 -0800

Yet another tech support question: Help me get my router to play nice! So most of the time I can connect to the internet using my wireless router (a Netgear WGT624) just fine. Every so often, though, when I put my laptop into sleep mode, when I turn it back on the router pretends it doesn't exist.

On the available networks page, I can see it broadcasting at full power, but when I attempt to connect, my laptop never gets a response. I know it's the router and not my laptop because my laptop still can connect fine to the unsecured network someone else has nearby.

Ways I've gotten it to work again in the past:
1. The first few times, I rebooted my laptop, and then everything worked fine again.
2. After the first few times, that stopped working. The next time, it started working after I logged onto the other network nearby, and then immediately disconnected. All of a sudden, the router and laptop were playing nice again.
3. The last time it happened, neither 1 or 2 worked. I fixed it by unplugging the router, and plugging back in.

I feel like it's adapting to my attempts to get it under control. Please help.

More info:

I'm running windows XP on an IBM Thinkpad.
Router is configured to use WPA encryption.

Unexpected and Uncofingured Port Forwarding from Netgear Switch/Router

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 20 May 2006 13:09:54 -0800

On my XP system, the recently installed Norton anti-worm app told me that my Netgear RP614v2 NAT-enabled router attempted to udp connect to my port number 2061 from its port 12024. However, there is no port fowarding or triggering enabled, nor is there a DMZ address configured at all. There is some port forwarding configured via UPnP...but not that one or to this IP. UPnP config in the Netgear does say one address/port is mapped to a different IP and it was configured by the Azureus bittorrent client via its UPnP plug-in. But, again, this is only one port and to a different IP than my XP machine (whose IP is static via DHPP). SPI is on, ping reply is off.

Also, remote configuration is not enabled on the Netgear. The router firmware is 29 2004.

How could this happen? Any ideas?

I know that UPnP is supposedly insecure, but I confess I've never researched the matter nor worried about it very much. Immediately after this incident, I've turned off UPnP in the Netgear config and switched the XP machine running Azureus to use a fixed IP address and configured port forwarding for that one port and IP.

Bafflingly consistent wireless problems

rwhe — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:50:47 -0800

Using two different Netgear WiFi adapters under Windows XP, we can connect to our home network, but can't ping any domains or see any websites (though we can under Knoppix). My wife just bought an Averatec notebook from a friend, who never had any problems with it. It runs Windows XP Home Edition and came with a Netgear WG111v1 wireless USB dongle. We can connect from the laptop to our home network via our Linksys WAP11, but can't see the Internet. The Netgear software says we have made a strong connection and we can even see some traffic in the monitor utility, but we can't ping google.com or surf via IE. My wife's old laptop connected wirelessly via a Netgear MA401 PCMCIA card, but when I plug that card into her new laptop, we get the same problem. (I am using the latest drivers for both adapters.) I can also connect wirelessly to our LAN with my Zaurus PDA (runs Linux). Oh, AND I can surf the web using the PCMCIA card on her laptop if I run Knoppix on it! There seems to be something peculiar about the combination of Windows XP and our home network, but I'm damned if I can figure what it is. (I'm probably damned for letting "Win" XP in the front door anyway.) I've been working on this night and day, and my google-fu quails before the task. Can anyone help me? I would love to fix this for my dear wife.