Customer reviews for the NetGear DG834G Wireless BT ADSL Modem/Router & Firewall 802.11g

Bought this as it had good reviews and was supported by AOL. Set up not overly easy but it worked first time. Unfortunately after 7 days use it would not find my DSL. After over an hour of frustrating 'help' from an asian call centre person that spoke poor and hard to understand English (at my cost!!)that basically told me what was obvious - it was knackered! So I'm returning it to Dabs for a full refund -NOTGEAR!!

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

Please don't buy this - mine is an absolute shocker, no wireless functionality at all!!! It is tagged as a 834G, and that is what I bought, but the firmware shows it as an plain 834 with no wireless functionality. None of the wireless functions work or are present and Netgear support is a shocker.

Dabs you have a lot to answer for..........

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

Buy something that works properly and has decent support. Had it for nearly 2 years. Easy and quick set up, and run fair for around 6 months, then the problems started. VPN connection started to drop every few mins, after upgrading to the most recent firmware and a day long fight with settings/customer service/upgrades/etc was unable to connect via VPN at all, even though I'm a cisco certified network engineer... Then 6 months ago wifi went crazy - had 35-50% signal strength when my laptop was 50cm from the router, only to die completely. As for Netgear support, it is slow and near useless. Check out the forums if you want to see the long list of problems people are having this this family of router.

Have borrowed Draytek for a weekend - worked like a breeze!

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

I've been through two of these gadgets. Returned both. Terrible connectivity, appalling switch performance. Unpredictable wireless (depends on client device). It turns out that Netgear cut corners and went for a totally new chipset between v2 and this version (v3), and it's causing a lot of problems. Linksys have done a similar trick with similar results (at least for WRT54GS v5+), and so I'm now going to try 3Com.

It's all the fault of ducks, anyway.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

Looking at the reviews, and talking to other users, seems you can get good routers and bad routers. Mine's a duffer. When first turned on, it drops the ADSL every 10 seconds, reconnects, drops etc. After it has warmed up it seems to stay online, but it's OH SO SLOW! Got better download from a 56K modem - and that's when I'm connected to the router via Ethernet - haven't managed to get the WIFI working yet.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

I'm now on to my second DG834G after the first one gave up the ghost after numerous failures. Tech support were OK but only managed to get me back online for a day or two before something else would fail. Installed new firmware at one point to then later be advised to remove it by tech support. Since arrival of replacement equipment, I have had to call them back a number of times due to a whole new range of failures including complete dropping of wireless access. The only plus side is that the wireless range is good (through 3 floors) but overall I want my money back. This router is about as robust as a piece of rice paper.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

Setup ok although setup wizard doesn't detect all the internet settings as it claims. Got it working though, 4 days online & it dropped the connection to the internet. Netgear technical confirm I had a faulty unit & shd return to supplier. Dab say this unit can be returned directly to the manufacturer but that’s only if you’ll accept a refurbished unit & pay for collection & delivery. New replacement can only be obtained from the supplier (Dab.com) can’t talk to Dab.com so had to work out the return procedure via the internet. It works but was very annoying. Unit has gone back, Dab.com if you read this I don't want a replacement just a refund. God only knows how long that will take because the unit apparently needs testing 1st! Decided to buy from a shop so if it goes wrong I can just take it back and get a replacement. Bought a Belkin which is easier to setup, it detects all the settings, took less than 5 minutes.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

This router looks great and can be hooked up to the web in no time. If you have a plain old ISP with one IP address then this is (probably) a great product.

If you have more than one IP address though, this router cannot route for you. Thus, if you've got a setup where you can hook up a games console and your PC to broadband on separate IP addresses then this doesn't support it.

Also, it turns out, you can't separate the RJ45 ports and wireless to have different subnets, firewalls and NAT settings on each.

In the end I tried turning the wireless off and using my other access point. Then I tried to make the firewall let all requests through to a single IP (it's a router, remember) - it can't be done though. It just won't route packets - the firewall kills them and cannot be turned off.

A router that can't route. Who'd have thought it?

Back to the Linux box and the USB modem methinks.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

This is very quick and easy to set up but the signal is very patchy. I bought the ANT2405 Antenna for £40.00 but found that this doesn't include a connection cable, the cable costs another £40 (reported this to Trading Standards for sharp practice - Netgear failed to respond), my wireless network now has more cable than the hardwire network it replaced and the signal is still not continuous. Pulling out the power cable on the router and waiting five minutes occassionally does the trick. Cordless phones, microwaves, other wireless networks and walls interfere with the signal, with the booster antenna even 12 foot is beyond its limits. I've forgotten just what is the point of wireless - bring back wire!!!!

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

i haven't given up yet and the support people are patient. i am fairly good with pc s but know nothing about routers. my pc doesn't seem to have the correct slot to put the erthenet cable in and the manual doesn't tell you what to do in this case.
i simply powered up the router to see how far away the netgear pci card would detect the signal. excellent strength in the same room, low signal in next room, no signal in corridor and no signal in kitchen where my adsl line is. this doesn't seem to be putting off the netgear people who seem to think altering settings will improve the range but i dont see how this will happen. will call them again tonight.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money