Reviews for Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Easy setup, good performance, good feature set

Weakness: Unreliable, terrible support

I've now installed three WGR614v3 and one WGR614v4 routers. The first (a WGR614v3) worked perfectly -- it was so easy I didn't know what to do and it worked well. I bought two more -- and also got v3 models even though the website suggests that v4 and v5 were already in the field. That might have been for the best since the one v4 router that I tried seems deficient.

I only had problems with one of the WGR614v3 routers. It had the annoying habit of freezing -- especially under extended Internet load such as viewing streaming Quicktime movies. Sometimes it would happen after 20 or 30 minutes and other times I wouldn't experience the problem for several days.

After finally convincing their Indian tech support that my unit was bad, they sent me a WGR614v4 as a replacement. I don't know if the unit is bad, the firmware is bad (it came with the latest on their site), or the design is just flawed. However, it exhibits very flaky behavior. WiFi connections between the clients and the router just slow down over time. Resetting the connection (e.g. turning the wireless off and then on) fixes the performance for a while but then it just slows down again. Its also only in one direction -- download (from router to the client) is slowed but upload (client to router) is fine.

The other problem is that devices on the wireless network often just don't see each other. The router shows each devices as attached and each device can ping the router but they can't ping each other. Maybe a few packets will get through but I measure> 99% packet loss. When I put my old v3 router back in place, I never see this problem (nor the slowing wireless performance mentioned above). Note that the slowing wireless performance and the dropped wireless packets are independent -- even when the wireless performance is very good, connections between certain devices on the wireless are broken.

Support is very frustrating because they basically assume your a novice user and refuse to deviate from their resolution flow charts. I've been working with computers and networks for> 10 years and it just wastes so much time to deal with people who know less. Especially when they refuse to acknowledge it.

Normally I wouldn't even work with consumer-class devices like this but business class-devices are too expensive for most home users (such as families and friends). For the money, the feature set is great on these units. I am working with a mixed 802.11b/g network and using WPA-PSK encryption, SPI, and NAT. A more robust "bussiness-grade" unit with the same feature set could cost $300-$500 or more, and that is a hard sell when they see $70 versions in the store.

You just have to treat these units as disposable. From a time versus money point of view, you are probably better off just throwing the units away rather than dealing with tech support. If you get lucky on the first try (such as my first two WGR614v3), you are ahead of the game.

If you end up with a bum WGR614v3 or the WGR614v4, then you just wasted $50 or $70. You can get a replacement from tech support out of principle but you'll probably waste so much time (and your shipping money) that you'll have wished you just paid for another unit (perhaps from another disposable manufacturer) and went to the movies with the extra time.

Best of luck

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: It routes the internet connection just fine over the built-in four port switch.

Weakness: Whenever I enable wireless funcionality the router stops forwarding packets to the internet. I am unable to even ping outside IP addresses. This problem occured with the newest firmware also.

I am so incredibly dissatisfied with this product that it inspired me to register a Pricegrabber account just to complain about it. I exchanged it for the SMC Wireless Barricade router and the signal was better and the router worked just fine, with all the same features as the Netgear.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Ease of set up

Weakness: It sould last more than 72 Hours

I was pumped up when my router arrived.WR614v3, I could set up my two desk tops and my laptop. Set up was quick and easy to accomplish. It worked well for about 3 days the it flat lined__________________________. dead, muerte, kaput etc called csr in Indian great guy walked me through everything and said Its dead send it back. The saga continues. I will let you know how router 2 turns out.

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Netgear quality down

Strengths: Cheap, looks good

Weakness: features way below competitors, no WPA-2

I used to have lots of netgear products and was satisfied by their quality in the past as they were above the competitors, so when I looking a new access point, I figured I would buy a netgear.
Well it is a disappointment as features wise for it does not offer WPA-2 security as the others do, second the features are below the competitors, and third even though the router looks good it is cheap build, fourth, for those who wants to buy a external antenna for extra wireless range forget it this one is not removable.
My is a 614v6, it has not frozen as the previous reviews shows but would not be suprised if it did...

I would look twice at buying a netgear product in the future. I think the competitors have surpassed netgear.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: I have Version 2 of the unit. Has a great feature set which is what attracted me to this router. I also had great experience with a previous Netgear router.

Weakness: Constantly having to power-cycle the router. It just fails to route traffic after a while. No firmware upgrades since mid-year.

I will not buy another Netgear router. From what I've seen, Linksys has gotten its act together so I'll give them a try. A friend of mine has reported the same type of problems with his, though he has only two computers routing through his. We have nine and have to power-cycle the router more often than he does.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Can work fairly well for days at a time.

Weakness: Gives pings of 500+ sometimes in the 1000's (of milliseconds) when connected to a Cable modem ! * ! * ! BAD

I haggled with Comcast on many occaisions about the cable connection I had. We finally narrowed the problem down to the Netgear WGR614. I swapped it twice for brand new ones (=3 brand new 614's). I've had numerous detailed discussions with the technical support people. Bottom line--even trying every possible trick they could come up with, the ping eventually goes unacceptably high (if you're a gamer). My mom, who only reads e-mail, doesn't realize there's a problem when it takes 2 seconds to connect to the server. I ran traceroutes, ping tests, etc. etc. etc., swapped out the motorola cable modem, had Comcast install a new wire into my house--on and on. Only to have it conclusively boiled down to this piece of #&%&.

Anyway, I'm still using it because with the v.2 it goes for longer periods before all the pings go to gehenna in a handbasket. Get one of the other routers that one of the other raters (above) refers to. That's what I'd do, but I'm heading overseas in 4 days so I don't have time.

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What a nice looking piece of equipment!

Strengths: Low profile, sleek, great packaging, nice techy color.

Weakness: Works well when it works! Technical support (Punjab support) is outragously horrible!

I've been using the 614 w/DSL for 2 months now and previously used the 614v2 for 10 months. The 614v2 died after 6 months, and the WGR614 died after 2 months. Both had LONG hardware warrantees, and a very short "Software" warrantee.

Both failures were hardware related failures. The 614v2 failed to communicate with the DSL modem and would not "Hard reset" from the external reset button. The WGR614 failed to hold any configuration after 2 months. Both visits to Netgears Punjab support resulted in a gut wrenching experience! This Indian support is a slap in my face! My eight year old granddaughter has more technical abilities than these clowns collectively! It is downright BAD! In my opinion, a sleezy way for Netgear to slip out of their warrantee obligations... Does this conjure up the word (class action)?

After asking one support person to repeat what was said a couple of times (his/her english was NOT understandable) I was placed on hold for 87 minutes. When they returned, I was told the connection was bad and they hung up.

When I finnaly got through to another, It was as though I were speaking to a wall... She asked me if the lights on the front were green, when I answered yes, I was told it was a software issue, and since my "Software" warrantee had expired, they wanted $32.xx to continue!

What kind of company does this to their customers? BUYERS; BEWARE! BE VERY AWARE!! Never again!

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Compatibility, Ease of installation, Speed & signal strength reliability

Weakness: None

I replaced a Linksys WRT54G that would not work with our network, with the Netgear WGR614 and all of my problems were solved. With the WRT54G, the wireless network worked, but the wired did not. With WGR614 everything works and the signal is stronger on a more reliable basis than the WRT54G. I highly recommend the Netgear. By the way, my father and I (both electrical engineers, for all of you morons that say you need technical aptitude to hook it up) and a tech support rep. from Linksys took 1.5 weeks tooling with the WRT54G to no avail.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Looks cool. Good price.

Weakness: Does not work with Motorola cable modem. Does not include print server connection.

I was able to get the router to send out IP addresses on my home network to both Macs and Windoze machines, but it never was able to establish internet service with my Motorola Surfboard SB5100 cable modem (this is the only cable modem sold at WalMart, so I presume it is quite common, and was bought within the year). I called tech support, and the Indian accent was only a problem for one word "wizard", which sounded like "vis-art". After holding for 15 minutes or so, we tried many things for another 45 minutes. He then gave up and told me to buy a different model. I bought a D-Link instead, got a better price with rebate, AND it claims to get 108 Mbps. Why buy Netgear?

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Great price, especially with rebate

Weakness: Intermittent network connect failure required numerous reboots/power-cycles.

I bought this based on the low price and familiarity with other netgear equipment that had worked for me in the past. Setup wasn't too bad (The Access List interface wasn't obvious, but a tech support guy from Bombay walked me through it with no problems), but subsequently, the internet connection through the router would die. Sometimes it required a power-cycle of the router, sometimes it would necessitate a power-cycle of both the router and the cable modem, but it was a daily occurrence and no tech support help was able to ascertain the problem, so we took it back, bought a linksys (Which I've installed before in a couple of client's homes) and we've never looked back. Sorry, I can't recommend this netgear router.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Works well most of the time and thought I had a real deal considering the included "FREE" software. WRONG!!

Weakness: This appears to be on old overstocked item as when you go to register the included incomplete software, the drop down box for the purchase date doesn't include a date in 2004 !!! See below.

This is a copy of the email I sent to Netgear today.
To: testimonials@netgear.com
Subject: dis-satisfied customer

Dear Sir,
A little over 2 months ago I purchased a new WGR614v2 router from you. The router works ok most of the time except for having to reset it every now and then to correct unexplained strange behavior such as not being able to reach certain web sites, but I can live with that now that I know what to do. My complaint is about the so-called "Free software" that was supposed to be included with it. First of all the "Freedom Security Software" that came on the CD with the router did have a firewall but there was no anti-virus software with it. After e-mailing you I recieved instructions on how to download an uninstaller and a password to get a current version of the package. I finally got it working but just recently discovered I couldn't reach a favorite hardware vendor on the Web. After thinking thier site must be down temporarily for several days I finally realized that Freedom was unable to update when I turned on my computer. The reason? It had expired 2 weeks ago! I had been without a firewall for 2 weeks and didn't even know it! There was never any warning or notification! Clicked the Renew or Buy button and Buy was the only option offered. I would not buy this software if it were the only security software on the planet. As for advertising "Free Software Included", in this case at least that is just a plain lie. False Advertising. If you had said Free trial or Demo version included I might give you a pass, but that is not what was stated. I made my purchase based on ALL the promises I saw on the ad. Freedom Software is on my permanent blacklist and Netgear is very close. Your equipment works acceptably but your false advertising is totally unacceptable. I am sending a copy of this to Newegg where I bought the router and to Pricegrabber where I saw it advertised.

dp711

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: None

Weakness: Has never worked as described

I purchased this router primarily to setup a connection for my PPC. I made the purchase and went on a 3 month deployment. I come back looking to have a wireless connection for my PPC and the thing is dead. All that it does is light up the 4 numbers accross the front.

I called support and they wanted me to pay $1.74 a minute for technical help. I refused and sent them an email. They responded as if I was a 9 year old.
Anyway, I tried everything and the product is DEAD. Read carefully, I have never owned such a piece of crap in all of my life. I will never buy another NETGEAR product as long as I live.

I purchased a new notebook (1/10/05) and can't get access to the internet through this. Long story short, I purchased the new Belkin Pre-N router and card and I'm online with both the notebook and Pocket PC in under 30 minutes. Thank You Belkin, Boo to you NETGEAR. Never again will you get my money. Beware, you've been warned.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Easy setup and configuration Fantastic price out there with rebates also.

Weakness: Tech suypport is poor since you cant understand them. Just do fimware upgrades and things will go smooth.

Overall Pretty Good
Hooked up unit and had to upgrade the firmware, registered the product and called the tech support. If you can speak the language of India, your in luck cause I couldn't understand a word. I decided to just answer my own question on the firmware. It wasn't to bad getting the item configured and the speed was very well and item overall was a great price with the rebate. Overall the product was a plus. Make sure you do the frimware upgrade first thing. Since the support was hard to understand I gave a 4 and also a 4 for overall since firmware was way out.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Good, consistent signal quality and well designed software interface

Weakness: The documentation must be printed from an Adobe pdf file; First level support appears to all be in India, suffers from difficult to understand English, and somewhat limited technical skills

I wanted an 802.11g wireless router that would interface with AOL, apparently no small feat. While this router is offered for sale on the AOL web site, it lacks a "compatibility" label, and is not supported by AOL technical support. Netgear's first level support was incapable of resolving the AOL connection difficulties, but second level support, apparently located in the U.S. solved the problem in a reasonable length of time.

While the security features on the router are quite adequate, the ability to suppress broadcasting of the SSID is not included in the current level of firmware. However, it will be in the next release, which will be downloadable from the Netgear web site.

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Mine died after a year and a half

Strengths: Very easy to set up. Worked Great under very modest loads.

Weakness: After I upgraded the memory chip, I had nothing but trouble.

This model is truly a disposable unit. I was pretty much a novice when I purchased this and this unit was easy to set up, The router supported two network printers a laptop and a desktop cpu with a pro-dsl connection.
Security was pretty tough to set up.
Once I upgraded the memory, the router could not consistently support IP addresses. who knows, it might have been me. I subsequently purchased and installed a linksys routher and did not seem to have any of these problems.

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It's Junk

Strengths: None

Stopped comminucating with my modem after one week of use(Speedstream 5100). Spent 5 hours on the phone with some guy from India who was hard to understand and ultimately couldn't get it to work. Returned for refund.

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Reply by member: zoglog
Aug 9, 2007

please refrain from making ignorant comments.

Report this as innapropriate

Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Few, if any. Maybe fast, but read on for an explanation.

Weakness: The unit gets extremely hot, slows down, and almost stops working.

The unit was at first perfectly fine, but soon it started to malfunction. I used it to network copmuters and share a broadband connection. The connection soon started slowing down, even though my ISP had just doubled its downstream download rate. Then I noticed that the unit would get REALLY hot. I took it apart and removed panels to increase airflow, but that did nothing. I started using a mini fan to cool it down, and that didn't work. Eventually, it basically broke down. It couldn't maintain a connection, and even when I could connect, download rated were in the 8-10 KB range, instead of the 200-300KB range it should (and now does) run at. I STRONGLY recommend that you do not purchase this unit. I now have the D-Link DI-524. It's basically the same thing, but made by D-Link. It works like a charm. Check out my review for it.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: NONE

Weakness: Everything about this product

once you are able to configure the router and update its firmware which there are no instructions for so an unexperienced user would have problems, this router never stays connected. It can not handle even small amounts of data being sent, it drops out continuously. I tired every source of encryption and people were still able to break into my network in under 5 minutes. Their tech support team is based in India and are clueless regarding their products, all they do is read from a text book how to resolve problems, they are very rude and degrading to customers. I would suggest to anyone looking to set up a home or business network to stay far away from any Netgear products.
I have since purchased a Linksys router and have had no problems with it, had it up and running on all 4 of my computers in 10 mins, and have never loss connections.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: NONE!

Weakness: This is the absolute worst piece of networking equipment in the world.

I went through 4 of these, yes, FOUR! None would work. 4 routers in 7 days?!?! Bought a linksys and that worked in less then 5min. I wasted over 10 hours troubleshooting, and it was the routers fault. DO NOT BUY!

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It has worked for me - Have owned 2 [first lasted...

Strengths: Easy setup. Have it in a wired and wireless environment. 3 boxes using Ethernet and 2 hooked up wirelessly. I do all my own Tech Support. Current model is WGR614v7.

Weakness: None. Need to keep away from heat and keep it well ventilated, like all electronics. The first unit crapped out when someone, repositioned the unit in an area where it was picking up external heat.

Tests at www.dslreports.com/... show consistent and fast download speeds with Comcast cable. The laptop has good range and one box is connected wirelessly with USB connector.

With 4 people hooked up through this unit, it gets a lot of usage. There a lot of downloads of Linux Distributions and never a problem yet.

Biggest problem is when Comcast 'burps' and we need to PowerCycle the Cable Modem and then the Router. At least this seems to only happen about every 6 weeks.

But then I cut my teeth in providing Tech Support when a major Baby Bell first introduced its DSL.

When I do see a slowdown, I go to my Desktop and run Batch File/s to test the Comcast connection and invariably the problem is with Routers within the Comcast system or the Website itself.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: strong wireless signal, easy setup, takes up little space

Weakness: SPI firewall slows down internet connection considerably

Bought the v2 model for a great price. Setup was a breeze: I hooked up my desktop, and a wireless laptop in under 15 mins. The setup interface is very intuitive even if you have no clue about networking. The router was working flawlessly for about a week, until my internet connection had slowed from ~3.5mbps to ~1mbps, and the router got very hot. When I connected my PC directly to my cable modem, the speed was back to ~3.5mbps. After turning off the router for half an hour and letting it cool down, the problem disappeared for another week. When I called Netgear support (in India, of course), they replaced it with a v3 model. It again had worked flawlessly for about a week, and then the same problem re-appeared. This time the tech-support guy told me to turn off the SPI firewall, which fixed the problem. According to him, this is a known issue and Netgear is working on a fix. It has been 2 weeks since, and I have seen no connection speed issues. Judging from the newsgroup posts, this is a problem in other Netgear routers, and they have been promising a fix since late 2003.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Easy setup and use. Was able to get the system up and running in lessa than 15 minutes

Weakness: None

Excellent Product! I use this product with my Moterola Surfboard 5100 cable modem; it works great and I have had zero problems. One of the reviewers said they had a proble using the router with the 5100. I can assure you that was the operator becasue it certainly wasn't the equipment.

One thing I don't like is the 800 service call number is routed to India instead of the US. I had one question and wasn't able to understand the tech at all.

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Netgear WGR614

Strengths: Instantly configurable right out the box and New istallation wizard anyone can use

Weakness: None, tech support I think every complains about because the help desk is in India some may not understand what is being said BUT even still some of the posts I’ve read all received new routers.

I’m writing this note 1st in defense of the Netgear WGR614 wireless router and any product that Netgear has and 2nd to help anyone that is considering this product. I have never written a product review but after reading some of the reviews some of them got me kind of upset because the product is in my opinion not getting a fair chance, so my point is not for my opinions views to be long, if so I apologize in advance.

Some of the opinions I’ve read are from the experienced to the inexperienced in networking. The Netgear WGR614 wireless router I can agree is so easy to setup and configure BUT you know what - any router wired or wireless is you plug them up and they work. Now the security features are another story, the Netgear WGR614 is instantly configurable right out the box. If you are new to wireless the wizard will handle all this for you I was without doubt so impressed that the wizard would do all you needed to do if you are looking to use the Powerful WEP encryption (40/64- or 128-bit), MAC Address Control, WPA-PSK, integrated into the router is Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), Denial of Service (DoS) its Child Safe you can limit web access by blocking offensive content and URL addresses, and the router sends real-time email alerts by a single machine or all activity on the network or part or leg of you network if the are more that one router. Yes I the Netgear WGR614 supports up to 15 routers using static routes just name that leg of you network and you’re done ex. . downstairs, upstairs, garage or accounting, billing, shipping you get the point. You will not go wrong buying the Netgear WGR614 or any Netgear product in my opinion.

I have a degree in computer network technology and my opinion is that anyone can install a wireless router regardless of experience the configuration of the wireless portion of the router has been made so simple and clear just plug in you MAC addresses answer a few questions and you are done. Now using the advanced wireless configurations can be puzzling to a new user but if your reading comprehension is fairly good anyone can get through it.

And so I purchased this wireless router based on the expected performance, familiarity with the Netgear product line and the fact I needed an upgrade to the wireless G technology. The MR814 wireless B router that I had in service (trouble free for the past 3 years) was installed at my moms to make her pc wireless. The setup at our home is hybrid, we have 5 wireless devices and 3 wired that consists of 2 laptops – a IBM with a Netgear wireless B MA521 2.4 GHz – Toshiba with integrated Atheros wireless B-G 2.4GHz – Sony PSP integrated wireless B – Gateway desktop gigabyte wireless B-G PCI 2.4 GHz – Acer desktop gigabyte wireless PCI B-G 2.4 GHz, wired is the Microsoft Xbox (for Xbox Live), Sony PlayStation 2 and a old Gateway 433c desktop I use as a firewall running Linux Red Hat 9 (file/printer server) and a wired Linksys BEFSR41 used as a switch. My wireless network uses MAC address authentication along with WPA-PSK (Pre-Shared Key) that I’ve set to change every 2 hours.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Ease of Setup

Weakness: None Detected

I bought this router for a client using Cox Cable. This is hard to setup when there is an existing computer because, Cox looks for the existing MAC address. I had set it up in my office for a fixed IP DSL ISP with no problems. I moved it to my client's and after making the necessary changes and setting it to clone the client's computer, the router was totally connected with no problems.

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NetGear is one of the BEST. Don't let other reviews...

Strengths: Features. Wireless range. Robust Connections. Ease of use / configuring. Remote access. Consistency. Reliability. IP Address Control.

Weakness: Firewall configuration. Initial Configuration.

I have been working with wireless devices for over 7 years. Some of which were designed by some of our top engineers, before the introduction of 802.11b wireless ... and used the 900 MHz frequency instead of 2400 MHz (Or 2.4 GHz). Anyway, I rememeber when companies like Cisco, Orinoco and those based off of the PRISM II chipset were the only devices to buy, as they followed the 802.11x spec flawlessly, and incorporated all features of 802.11x. Now, wireless has flooded the markets so much, that high-end vendors such as Cisco & Orinoco were forced to sell out to companies that dominated the markets by price, not quality. Enter NetGear. NetGear introduced it's devices at a time when quality was being compromised by quantity and volume discounts. While many people today write about frustrations with many wireless devices ... (No HUGE names starting with "L" will be mentioned), I feel that NetGear went far and beyond the call of duty when trying to uphold the 802.11x specification, and market for a reasonable price. Therefore, based on this foundation, NetGear has surpassed the rest of the market. I have personally purchased hundreds of their devices and configured them to work flawlessly. Plus, I can sleep at night knowing that these devices will not pose any problems for my customers during regular use. Summary: Don't believe the hype. Most issues posted here & on other sites are usually a result of user error, or 3rd party software provided with the wireless device. I personally have never experienced any of the problems mentioned here with a NetGear device. If you know how to use it, it will work well for you. If you don't know how to use it, call, contact or Google someone in this country that can help you instead of frustrate you and make you write a bad review because you are upset with the help you received. Someone working for Tech Support outside of the USA should not constitute for the amount of time invested in a quality hardware and firmware design that works fantastically well, when given the proper opportunity and/or environment and/or network administrator.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Super easy setup, I haven't had to reboot it once and I love the Dynamic DNS updater, Mac Filtering page that gives you a list of conected devices to accept or block, and super easy to update the bios

Weakness: none yet

I have bought and set up many different Wireless routers from Linksys, SMC, Dlink, and Netgear. So far Linksys and this Netgear have help up hands down. I can emphasize enough of the ease of setup and use of this product. It requires some slight knowledge of how wireless routers work but that is all you need.

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Netgear WGR614

Strengths: Not sure

Weakness: Static Routes don't work, laptops using other access points connected via RJ45 to gigabit switch failing to ping WGR614, settings getting screwed up randomly, throughput 60% slower than Linksys (down)

My Linksys BEFSR41 has been locking up recently and rebooting randomly. It is plugged into an APC 2200 UPS with many other devices so I know power is not the issue. I tried upgrading the firmware on the BEFSR41 but then I could not stay connected with external Half-Life servers (a known problem with latest versions of Linksys firmware).

I purchased the WGR614, configured it similar to the Linksys then cut over plugging the cable from the Motorola cable modem into the Netgear having used the same MAC address I had cloned in the Linksys (so as not to be assigned a new IP address by my ISP). Initially the WGR614 would lock up every 30 seconds or so requiring I pull the power plug. When this persisted I went back and reviewed the settings. All of the port forwarding entries I had carefully typed in were uniformly screwed up. My entries were made as
192.168.2.9
192.168.2.14
192.168.2.16

They were changed to
192.2.168.192 for all the entries.

I manually adjusted every entry then verified they were correct. After all these corrections the stability of the router was 100%, no more lockups. With that I decided to boot up my SuSE Linux laptop which uses a Cisco PCMCIA a/b/g wireless card. I was able to connect using the WGR614. Later I tried again but was unable to ping the router from the laptop. I checked the port forwarding entries and everything was back to 192.2.168.192. I fixed the entries a second time but pinging the router continues to be very intermittent.

My private network uses 192.168.2 so please don't cite this as the cause of these problems. The router was set up as 192.168.2.1.

I have not tried using a Windows based laptop to see if pinging the router is a problem there as well.

I have three four networks I work with. They are 192.168.3, 192.168.5 and 172.25.1. The 192.168.3 network is connected by way of a Linksys BEFSR41 router's WAN port connected to a pair of Netgear XE102 powerline adapters. The static route from 192.168.2 devices defined in the WGR614 to 192.168.3 works without define routes in devices on the 192.168.2 network. The 172.25.1 network is a token ring segment linking my office to one several hundred feet away (exceeds Ethernet 100 meter distance). The Ethernet here connects to the token ring through a Cisco router. On the other end of the token ring are a Linux machine connected to both token ring and Ethernet and another Cisco router. The Cisco in my office is defined in the WGR614 as the route to the token ring and other Ethernet segment. This worked flawlessly in the Linksys but does not work using the Netgear. I have to define routes on all devices on my Ethernet segment in order to talk to the device on the token ring or devices on the 192.168.5 Ethernet segment. RIP direction initially was set to none but in attempting to correct the problem I currently have it set to both and RIP version which had been NONE is now RIP_1. Neither of these changes have fixed the routing issues.

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Don't Buy!

Strengths: None I can think of.

Weakness: Very unrealiable connection. Customer support in India.

After spending 10 minutes giving the Indian customer support guy every possible piece of information so he could 'diagnose' the problem, he finally came up with the brilliant recommendation that I move the laptop closer to the router for a better signal! What a waste of time.

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Reply by member: zoglog
Apr 13, 2006

Greedy companies cost cutting by shipping off jobs.... typical. Problem is not enough people are resisting since tech support is not used by a good chunk of purchasers and some people are purely motivated by price.

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Reply by member: zoglog
Aug 9, 2007

nobody is saying it's free, we pay for it by purchasing the product. Customer service COMES with it. If they made a decent product, they wouldn't need to hire so many reps to take calls. And because they want to cost cut they ship off the jobs at a fraction of the cost. The guy made no racist comments at all, he's just calling the facts as they are. Plain and simple many times it's impossible to understand foreign tech support because english is not their primary language and they act like robots reading off flash cards. It's simply a Quality of Service issue.

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Doesnt Work With Online Games

Strengths: Easy setup, Nice advanced router functionality

Weakness: Loses connection while playing online games.

I play a lot of online games, Diablo, Warcraft, Command & Conquer. But I can not play while connected to the router. I have to disconect the router and wire my pc directly to my cable modem to play. It is not even the wireless side because this occurs with wireless and as a wired router. If all you plan to do is browse the web then this router is for you. Plan to play network intensive games, or do "work from home" type of applications I would find another router to use.

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More problems than solutions

Strengths: decent range, nice admin interface, small

Weakness: unreliable, drops connections, can't turn off SSID broadcast, setup software doesn't work, WEP encryption failed

I have a home network of two Power Mac G4s and one Dell Win2K laptop. I connected the Netgear WGR614 802.11g + 4-port router as best i could according to the very inarticulate and unhelpful quick setup guide, replacing my older Linksys 4-port BEFSR41. Ran the software on the Windows laptop (through a cable, not wireless), and got an error that the Internet isn't available, that I should log on and try again. Ehm, I don't log on ever, the cable moidem is on, the router is one, the computer is one, and everything's plugged in, and it works. Where am I supposed to log on? OK, so I check connections and try again only to get the same thing. I try logging in from one of the Power Macs, which works, and I proceed with manual setup, but it hangs on the final configuration. So I go back to the laptop and try logging in directly from that, but once again the router isn't recognized. After rearraging the network several times and trying different computers and then pulling out half my hair, i figure out how to reset the router. I run the software again, it checks my internet connection successfully, but this time get an error that the router should be disconnected to proceed with setup. HUH? I try disconnecting it from each the cable modem and the power supply, and of course it doesn't work either way. Reset it a few more times. Rearrange some more cabling. Try from the laptop again and eventually the direct login and setup works. I set a 128bit WEP passphrase, change the master password, and change the router IP successfully. Unfortunately though, i can't turn off the SSID broadcast that's supposed to help keep the network secure through obscurity. OK, skip that. So the thing works wired, but what about wireless? I unplug the wire from the laptop and set up the Linksys 802.11g card software for 128bit WEP encryption, enter the passphrase, and it fails to connect. All the settings are right. I pull out the rest of my hair before trying WPA-PSK security, which works fine. YAY! I have wireless! But wait! It drops so many packets that sustained connections like IRC and online Scrabble get disconnected, but you see no effects just from Web use. Cycling the power is a hit-or-miss proposition. I got the wireless router for convenience, not hassle. I was tired of mooching off my neighbor's inconsistent wireless connection, but I realize now that he also has a WGR614, so it's not just a problem with mine. Even at only $30 from Fry's, I expected more from a Netgear. I'm not going to bother with the tech support dance. I'll be returning this piece of crap. What a waste.

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My experience trying to get the WGR614 to work

Strengths: Simply did not work, with or with resource disk.

Weakness: A bad product, all the way around

Support is next to worthless and the install never did work.
After trying to call the support line, hung on for 1 hour and gave up.
Not a good company anymore, but used to be!

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Wireless Router - WGR614

Strengths: Not applicable

Weakness: Not applicable

I have not put it into full operation yet, but the product is good. I checked it out on arrival and it will be configured at a later date after my home office is completely set up.

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Josh's Fantastic WGR614 Cable/DSL Wireless 54 Mbps...

Strengths: Very fast speed, and nice looking

Weakness: setup, and sometimes it may slow down your dsl.

very good product. Great for its price!! I recommend you to skip the software and set it up by yourself, but overall this is a great router and has very good connections and speeds!!

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Never always works.

Weakness: None after more than a year year.

I have used Netgear routers since I've started using routers. The only thing I have had to do with this router is assign a static I.P. address to a NIC when a user is uing SBC as an ISP. Maybe the problems people have with this router is more the person than the hardware. I have bought several of these routers for my customers and no one has called me with any issues.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Super easy to use, configure and install.

Weakness: When I encrypt the network, it tends to drop the signal from time to time. When it is non-encrypted it has never dropped the signal

This is a very good router for an individual that wants to set up a network without all of those head-aches that are typically associated with routers. It is a great looking piece of hardware and configures surprisingly easily. The hardest part of the set up was finding a long enough ethernet cable. With respect to network stability, this router does not drop the signal when it is not encrypted, but it does occasionally drop the signal when it is encrypted. Buy this product from a local store so that you don't have to worry about mailing your product back if it doesn't work for you. Good luck.

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Seems to be dying after 3 1/2 years

Strengths: Worked well until now...

Weakness: 20% packet loss (and download and upload speed only 1/20th speed of Ethernet cable connection.)

I just spent 5 hours trouble shooting this thing. Reset it numerous times; unplugged it and let it sit for several minutes; disabled its firewall; changed its channel; made sure no other wireless devices were on in the house...all to no avail. I can still access the internet at high speeds using its LAN connection. My laptop is sitting a foot away from it and no other devices are nearby to give interference, so not a signal problem. The thing does feel hot, so maybe it is just breaking down? I don't know, 3 1/2 years isn't short, but it also isn't long enough. I'm not going to buy another Netgear product.

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Great Router

Strengths: Reliable, fast connection speed, cheap

Weakness: none

This router provides excellent home network solutions. My previous name brand router quit working, so I decided to try Netgear and this is why I purchased this WGR614 v9. It gave me a signal within 5 minutes from when I got it out of the box, and set up was very simple. I have a wireless printer, blackberry, iPhone, iPod touch, Wii, and two wireless laptops connected and signal has not dropped since day 1. I also have a forwarding port 21 (ftp) and no problem. My FTP is up and consistent. I have this router located in my basement and all connected devices are upstairs on the second floor. Connection speeds up there are pretty fast.
Unlike others, I do provide my own tech solutions. So I never call help desks. This is why I am focusing this review on this actual device as opposed to the company behind and its support. This is a great purchase for $39, and if it lasts no more than 4 years, you get your money worth (also, by then might be time to upgrade).

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Netgear Wireless Router (old version)

Strengths: Easy set up

Weakness: Non really

I am writing on a Netgear MR814 router that I bought in 2003. I am not a techie. My initial setup (5 years ago!) did require a call to Netgear with a simple fix and I was up and running. I've had several pc's connected to it since that time using wireless USB adapters includng MS, a Hawking, a Netgear and a TrendNet on both XP and Vista. No problems until last night when my wireless connections were inexplicably lost. Someone in the neighborhood must have gotten a new microwave or whatever.

Netgear, 5 years after purchase, spent an hour with first and second level support walking me through a fix. A complimentary (!) call (with zero waiting) since I had not called before and not even a sales pitch on updating. Maybe all routers are the same and maybe an Indian accent is a little harder to follow for those of us suffering with "No Child Left Behind ;-) , but Netgear came through for me and has for five years now.

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An Excellent broadcom based router

Strengths: 1. Easy to setup 2. Easy management 3. Broadcom based third party softwares can be ported to this board - DD-WRT, Open-WRT forum has already started working on it. 4. Cheaper

Weakness: 1. Not found yet

This is a good one for the newbies since its easy to setup and configure and as well as for the developer since it provides the freedom to choose third party software to port on it. This is good alternative to the Linksys model.

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Good, put don't use a server

Strengths: DHCP Address reservation, WPA encryption, easy interface, firewall

Weakness: Don't use too much load

I had this for about a year. After I added a computer (server-like) that was always on with Remote Desktop, it apparently couldn't handle the traffic on the v4 version. I upgraded the firmware but the router continuly restarts itself and won't maintain a connection for more than 1 minute for most parts of the day. It's a clean design, but the hardware seems to be lacking.

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Garbage

Strengths: Looks, setup.

Weakness: Quality.

Well it looks like yet another Netgear product of mine has died. Started buzzing (annoying!!!) about 3 days before it went completely dead. I guess Netgear is trying to save a few pennies using the cheapest parts. At lest this one lasted more than a week.

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Netgear is Crap!

Strengths: Signal strength is not bad, get full signal throughout the house

Weakness: drops connection, VERY POOR tech support

NEVER NEVER NEVER buy this product or any other Netgear. You might as well throw you money out the window. I have had this product some time now and it has never worked correctly. Spent many hours on the phone and through email with tech support. I have problems with the device dropping connection, slow connection and no streaming capabilities (chopp video or no video) I am able to pick up an open Linksys router from several houses down with no problems. Stream media.. everything works. Netgear claims that I am having wireless interference so they will not help me! They want me to set up a site survey! I know it\\\\\\\'s not my actual internet connection because when wired it works just fine. If I had wireless interference than the open Linksys would not work. By process of elimination - Netgear is a piece of crap! Shame on you Netgear for stealing peoples Money!!

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Good Router

Strengths: Ease of use. Reliability.

Weakness: Documentation is weak; range is not great

I am not a real computer geek but was able to set this up and get it operating within a short time, even though the documentation is less than fully helpful. We have 2 computers, a printer and a range extender plugged into the router and one desktop and variety of laptops in and out of the house. Router does a fine job with all. The router is on the first floor, left side of the house and the range extender was needed for the signal to reach the second floor on the far right side of the house (so up a floor and then about 35 feet away). Has worked reliably since we bought it. Had much worse luck with Linksys and D-Link.

About 4 months ago, having had such a good experience with this router, we bought another for my parents. Again, easy to install and set up and no problems with operation.

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Netgear WGR614

Strengths: easy setup, rich feature set

Weakness: none so far

I have very good experience with Netgear MR814 for over 5 years. So when the MR814 started to misbehave for unknown reason, I chosed to stick with Netgear brand.


WGR614 doesn't disappoint me. Actually, I am very pleased with it easy setup (similar to MR814) and good performance. With uPnP support, my WinXP box detects the router automatcially and reconfigured itself (WOW 8-).


Just like MR814, WGR614 is very reliable. I haven't have to reset the box since I plugged it in the first day which is about 3 months ago.

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Disappointment From Netgear

Strengths: Easy to set up, looks nice, works well when it works.

Weakness: Constantly freezes, especially when you are doing something that uses lots of bandwidth.

When I got the router, it was on sale at Staples for $40, which is fairly cheap. When I first installed it, there were absolutely no problems. Eventually, I noticed that I would lose my connection in the middle of something, or that while surfing the internet the sites wouldn't come up until I hit refresh half a million times.

Well, it wasn't hard to figure out it was the router. The blasted thing's lights blink as if it were having a heart attack but I can't even ping the router. Unplugging it is the only way to reset it at this point. I noticed it happens a lot whenever I download using Bittorrent. My brother had the same router and his stopped working completely.

Looking at other reviews, I'm not about to go through the pain it is to get another router, especially if it is another router that won't even work. Disappointing, since Netgear is normally a reputable company in this field.

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Run away

Strengths: Looks nice

Weakness: Doesn't work

Worked when I first bot. Had cable. Hate comcast, switched to DSL. Used their free modem. Tried to reinstall WAP... had disk, followed instructions. WAP prompts for PW. I can't remember. Reset router. 1 1/2 hours later, 5 or 6 complete repowers, I hurl WGR614 in digust at my floor with such force it hits my Kinesis contour keyboard and smashes it and the router.

Yeah. I think I'll get something else.

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Cute but impossible to set up

Strengths: attactive

Weakness: Instalation CD is useless, slow, incomplete, written in bad English. Support takes 24 hours to get an Non-English question that you already explained.

I bought this WGR614 v6 on the recommendation that Netgear made good products. After a week of fighting with it, I can't get it to work in wireless mode. The Setup CD is a sad commentary on offshore sourcing. Their support gives you poorly written instructions to by-pass the CD, but they are no where complete. You are told to plug cables into ports that do not exist. They respond back to ask you to repeat the question. I would have taken it back, but bought it on a trip and am no where near the store.
Their web page is full of comments that it is plug and play, easy to set up, etc. Maybe for someone with more than 25 years of computing. Even the web page has mayn grammar mistakes.

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Think I am lucky ... obviously ....

Strengths: Easy to config, security

Weakness: Range, thru'put

I am using v5 (German version) and the thing just works. I am per se critical on technology and HW but I have to be honest and I am more-or-less power-user with 2 wireless and 4 fixed line but no probs - 1 year up time ... guess I am just lucky ... but the next piece of replacement kit MUST be faster !

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NetGear WGR614 Cable/DSL Wireless 54 Mbps Router

Strengths: Price, size, ummm I guess thats it.

Weakness: Original Firmware, connectivity, Support, Feels cheap

You get what you pay for. An item that is not great, but does get the job done.

This would be a great router if you are first getting into the networking wifi seen. It's ease of use and price are great incentive. The bad news is that it has a lot of flaws such as in the firmware. Sometimes I would get 65-70% connectivity when the laptop was right next to the router. So if you do run into problems, upgrading that should be your first priority. Also, if you do run into problems don't count on the support team at netgear, first look at on-line forums.

The last thing you should be aware of is that the unit feels light and cheap, so the wires that connect to the unit always seem to pull the unit back on the desk. In otherwords, the unit is so light that it tends to follow where the cords try to settle to.

All in all, this is a great if your on a budget and don't use the internet all the time.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: sleek and small. easy set up.

Weakness: range and strength of signal.

I have my router in my finished basement, and get no signal on my second floor. The strength of signal varies from 1 mb to 54 mb when I am just a few feet away from router.

Maybe I don't have it set up correctly. Tech support was not much help to me.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Easily configurable

Weakness: none found to date

I have yet to try the 802.11g but the 802.11b works well with my SMC wi-fi cards. The configuration was easy and I was up and running in no time.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Easy to setup. Is AppleTalk compatible on the wireless end. Lots of neat features that over shadow the lack of basic options and quality.

Weakness: There are now 4 versions. The earlier version are all missing something substantial, by version 4 they got it all. My unit is slowly deteriorating in performance and can not connect to AOL.

I called Netgear sales before purchasing the WGR614 and was told that there were no limitations. That was far from the truth. Now there are 4 versions within 6 months you have to ask why. I found out that the newer versions now live up to the advertised specs if not exceed them. AOL is now reachable through the later versions, not in the earlier. And they have increased the range.

They have outsourced their tech support to India and due to the cultural and linguistic incompatibilities tech support is spotty at best. The tech reps follow a list of problems and if your problems isn't on the list they can't help you, sometimes they can't even understand you. My version 1 unit is now showing signs of periodic failures in connecting to my ISP and other connection problems. After blaming my ISP and going through every trick in the book with them, we discovered it is the 614 router that is causing the problems. I am constantly having WAN and LAN server connection problems and the save setting option will no longer produce a file that can be used to restore the previous settings to the unit. When it did work it was a great feature. So all in all make sure you get the latest version unit and never need tech support.

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Netgear WGR614 Wireless G Router

Strengths: Ease of use and setup. About 10 minutes to set up including the time it took to open that packaging. Ok, I know something about networking, but pretty much anyone would not have a difficult time.

Weakness: None yet, getting pretty good throughput about 60 feet away; about 68%.

It's getting too easy to set these networks up. Out of the box and up and running without any brain taxing instructions. I like the 54 Mbps speed moving and sharing files from my notebook to main computer while I am on the deck by the pool. Internet by the pool, love it! You might opt for the the older 802.11b technology at a slight lower price and use the 11 Mbps transfer, but for a few bucks more you can enjoy much faster file sharing. I am glad I went for the 54 Mbps Router. It's cool!!

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Netgear WGR614

The Netgear WGR614 is a wireless-G network router aimed at average consumers looking to set up a home network for surfing the internet, email and basic media streaming. Netgear’s WGR614 is rated for wireless connections up to 54 Mbps, and has four additional Ethernet 10/100 LAN ports on the back. Users can protect their privacy with a variety of methods, including high-level WPA2-PSK...

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