| Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router |
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Model: MR814NA
Brand: Netgear
Manufacturer: Netgear
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 715
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Connect to a cable/DSL modem and get wired or wireless Internet access for all your computers
Compatible with most 802.11b wireless networking devices
Firewall, 128-bit Encryption, Parental controls
Smart Wizard automatically detects ISP type, Port Range Forwarding, Exposed Host (DMZ), URL Content Filtering, E-mail Alerts, and Wireless MAC Address Authentication
Compatible with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, Mac OS, NetWare, UNIX, and Linux |
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| Description: |
| The Model MR814 Wireless Router provides continuous, high-speed 11 Mbps access between your wireless and Ethernet devices. Also, the Model MR814 router enables your entire network to share an Internet connection through a cable modem or DSL modem that otherwise is used by a single PC. With minimum setup, you can install and use the router within minutes.The Model MR814 router provides multiple Web content filtering options, plus e-mail browsing activity reporting and instant alerts. Parents and network administrators can establish restricted access policies based on time-of-day, website addresses and address keywords, and share high-speed cable/DSL Internet access for up to 253 personal computers. Network Address Translation (NAT) protects you from hackers. |
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| User Reviews (715 total): |
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Great but NOT compatible with Dlink DCM 200 Cable modem, January 6, 2005
By Thanhvu H. Nguyen (Harrisburg, PA United States)
It works well with my other Motorola cable modem. However when trying with a D-Link DCM 200 , it just won't get the DHCP address. So these two are NOT compatible with each other.
Other than that, no problem whatsoever.
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Nice cheap router, January 4, 2005
By clint (US)
This is a nice cheap router that works well. The good points of the router is:
1. It's easy to setup. (My setup went smoothly and worked the first time)
2. It's thin and fits nicely between my monitor and printer
3. Signal strength is good
4. Its cheap
Bad points:
1. I had a problem where some websites would not work at random. I ended up calling their support which fixed the problem eventually but I think their staff is poorly trained or didnt speak/understand english to well.
2. No security enabled. Their setup wizard is very easy and quick and works the first time which is great and awesome, however if you use it and stop there, you will have no security enabled. Anyone passing by your house can probably see the files on your computer if you're sharing them - plus they can use your internet connection.
3. Short support time frame. (90 days is not long enough)
Overall I like the product, it's great and I recommend it. But do turn on the security features to protect your network. Also if you have any problems, call them ASAP! They only offer 90days of support which really sucks
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24/7 NOT, December 31, 2004
By Richard J. Furnari
I received my wireless router today and it didn't perform correctly. So I removed it went on line to get phone number for Netgear Tech Support(cause they don't give it to you with literature) and I called, once twice, three times and each time ,after answering all their questions, I got disconected. According to the propaganda on the outside of the box the unit came in "24x7 TECHNICAL SUPPORT". Well I'll try again after holidays, apparently they started celibrating the New Year early!
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Unreliable connections - buy something else, December 21, 2004
By J. Gulati (Pasadena, CA United States)
Connections are extremely unreliable - will break every 15-30 minutes and won't reconnect till you reboot the router (despite having set all the properties). My older Belkin router never gave me any problems and I have switched back to my older router. Plus, customer service sucks : they will just give you some vanilla suggestions - such as go to this URL and upgrade the router and you will get the same response all the time (and the URLs dont work some of the times).
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Worst Router Every, December 16, 2004
By Michael (cleveland)
The first router I received worked for about 2hrs until it crapped out. Stopped assigning IP address and could even log into it. Sent it back and received a new one. It works but every once in a while the wireless functionality stops working. I have to unplug it and wait a couple minutes till I can connect again. Only buy if you want a headache.
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Not good, December 16, 2004
By Shufat (USA)
All I can say about this router its not build to last more than 5 or 6 months, and then the wireless feature died all the sudden. I will not recommend this router to anyone
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Poor Choice, December 12, 2004
By Pedro Jalbut (Brasil)
This item was dead on arrive. After calling 2 "techs" that didn't solve the problem, I gave up. Don't buy it!
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Great Price.Had to go thru a long setup..eventually works!!, December 10, 2004
By Akash Shah (Indiana, USA)
Well let's see where do I start here? For starters this router has a great price. I bought it for $ 7 after rebates. Now one can't beat that can you? Now coming on to what this router is capable of doing. Well after many hours of setting's and reading thru the reviews I was finally able to set it up and now it works great.
I opened the router set it up and ran the Setup Wizard CD that was accompanied with the box and it detected the DCHP connection but didn't detect the internet connection. So I figured that there was a problem with the ISP and so had to call the ISP to give them the router MAC address that they required to add so that it would recognize the internet connection. After that I noticed that running the wizard it detected the internet connection but when I tried to type in and open any websites like www.yahoo.com or www.hotmail.com it wouldn't let me open it and instead it would re-route it to some weird www.yahoo.com.org and eventually give the blank page(detect connection).
Thus after reading thru all the reviews and support questions, I tried to fix the problem by myself. I tried to Open the browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) 2. Access the router (usually http://192.168.0.1) 3. Login to the router (User Name = "admin" Password = "password" unless you have changed it) 4. Click on the "WAN Setup" and changed the MTU settings. Usually the Default setting is 1500 but I tried all combinations 1492/1452/1358/1000/900 but all were in vain and I still got the same error. Wired thing is that some pages did open like google news and Netgear's website and my ISP's website and also AIM and MSN messenger. I figured that it was the MTU problem. But even after trying all that it didn't work. So finally it dawned to me to use the Netgear's support. I must say connecting was a pain, but I eventually got one thru and bingo... The guy helped me setup and get it running. By the way I've one home desktop and a wireless notebook that I was trying to get working on.
Now after spending nearly 20 mins' with the support person, I figured it was a DNS related issue. We tried a couple of variations and trying to ping in the command prompt. For that go to the command prompt and type ping www.yahoo.com and see what comes back. If it's pinging than that's good sign. Then on my wireless notebook I went on to the wireless connections properties and went into the properties of the TCP/IP settings. In the Preferred DNS Server I but 4.2.2.2 and in the Alternate DNS server 4.2.2.1 and there it was... My notebook was up and running and so was my desktop.
So what would I say on buying this product? Well it depends on what kind of a person you are. Meaning, if you have the patience and are willing to sort out the problems you might have (and I say might have, coz everyone ain't has the same sort of problems) so yeah if you are willing to take a chance than why not give it a try? And it's not at all expensive in any case. So I would say this product is not the best but it surely is worth buying for its price. I would give it A+ in terms of price. In terms of ease of use and setting up B but overall after it's setup it works just fine.
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Great for a basic, low-tech home network, December 8, 2004
By RPP (Dallas, Texas)
This is a fantastic product for a low-budget, low-tech wireless home network. It's mediocre if you're a highly demanding techie, but if you're just a basic computer user (web, email, shopping) and want a wireless network, I'd recommend this.
INSTALLATION
I installed this in my house for my family to use. Total time was about one hour, from getting it out of the box to having it ready to go. Setup is fairly intuitive on the computers *if* everything goes smoothly, but if you're running a less popular PC or laptop and run into problems, you're probably going to want someone that knows a little more to help out. The router was easy to configure with our newer laptops- two and three-year old computers which came loaded- but was a bit trickier on the seven-year-old laptop running Windows 98. If you're using an older computer, you might need someone who's somewhat proficient with setting this sort of thing up to help.
RANGE
Range is pretty fierce for what it's used for at home. We put the router on top of the desk in our library, and it reaches the entire house- up one level, down one level to the basement, and all around the first floor. I haven't found a dead spot yet, and so I'm pretty impressed with it.
CONSIDERATIONS
Security issues are somewhat of an issue and not very easy to set up, so you might want to look into a hardware firewall, or a software one if you have a lightning-fast computer and can spare the RAM. Although, again, for the average user you probably only need a software firewall (try ZoneAlarm, which is free) and only need to activate it when you're sending information you're touchy about, like ordering things with a credit card. Honestly, I think the average user can get by without one- I don't think that many people are really driving around town with laptops and wireless cards trying to see whose wireless network isn't protected- but if you're touchy about those things, just be aware.
OVERALL
If you're a basic computer user that just wants fast internet without wires, this will do just fine. However, security issues should be considered, and in bigger/older houses it'd behoove you to think hard about how much interference your walls and floors are going to cause before you settle on this instead of a more powerful, more expensive brand.
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Excellent value for the price, December 8, 2004
By EmiratesMac (Abu Dhabi, UAE)
When I bought this it came to $7 after M.I.R, so I figured what-the-heck... In our house it performs slightly better when it comes to range than our Linksys BEFW11S4, and about the same in speed. It was easy to set up, yet very configurable. We use it with both PC notebooks and Apple Powerbooks without any problems. Seems to me this is excellent value for the price if you are ok with just "b"-speed.
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Great price, 3 yr warranty, excellent functionality, December 8, 2004
By Herman (Fremont, ca United States)
Under $10 after rebate can't be beat. It provides all the functions that a typical user would need and then some. If you need some advanced features, think about getting a more complex unit or one of the Linksys models that are based on linux code and have a variety of customizations made for them or forget about consumer level products altogether and buy a business class wireless device.
But don't be fooled, wireless networking isn't fool proof. While many people will be able to get wireless up and running without a hitch, this should not be assumed. Take it from me, I've been working in all levels and job functions of IT for nearly 10 years and still regularly work with users trying to configure their wireless routers.
Here's a few tips:
1. 2.4GHz cordless phones WILL interfere with your signal. If you cross the line of sight path between your wireless device and your router with your 2.4GHz phone, the signal will be affected and may drop. Either buy a 900 MHz phone, a 5.8 Ghz phone or use a wired phone or keep some distance between your 2.4 Ghz and your connection.
2. If you find that you have configured everything correctly for your wireless and you seem to have a strong signal but are still unable to connect to consistenly reach a web site, then you may be experiencing DNS problems. A simple test for this is to ping the website to check for responses and open your web browser and try to connect to a website by using its IP address (can be obtained from ping) instead of it's friendly name or URL. Such as trying to browse to http://216.109.118.72 (which is www.yahoo.com). If you are able to connect consistently to the numeric address, then the problem is likely DNS related. To fix this, you will just need to hard code your DNS entries into the "Domain Name Server (DNS) Address section under the Basic Settings menu option. You can get the DNS address from the Router Status. By default, the Netgear router provides your attached computers with the DNS server as the same address as your gateway, usually 192.168.0.1. which may your result in an inconsistent connection and "time-outs" trying to resolve the URL.
3. If the signal is weak or you are unable to login to your router, make sure you are actually connecting to your own router and not your neighbors'. Log in and check your Attached Devices section in your configuration to see if the name of your computer is listed.
4. MAKE SURE THAT YOU CHANGE THE DEFAULT PASSWORD ON YOUR ROUTER and read up on how to secure your wireless router and take advantage of the security features available to you.
5. Take advantage of support, while you have it. While Netgear's tech support isn't always helpful, it may be one of your few resources if you don't have someone more technical to help you or you cannot find the solution on google. They may also be able to help you conclude whether your router is defective or not.
I could list many other tips and explanations in further detail, but that would just take up too much space.
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Great router!, December 7, 2004
By J. Coleman
MR814v3
Especially easy setup. All I had to do was plug it into the modem and the computer into it, and it worked flawlessly (besides the fact that I had to fix and ethernet setting on my computer that I had messed with before. Wireless also works great, and has many advanced options.
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so so, December 6, 2004
By ds1738 (USA)
it works, but signal strength not too good. I put it in one bedroom, and my laptop can get connected in the other bedroom, but not on the porch. My laptop can get signals from neighbors all places, so it should not be the problem of the laptop, and I believe it's reasonable to hold the router responsible.
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Does work with VPN, December 2, 2004
By L. Cheng (Watertown, MA United States)
I had to make a couple minor tweaks with my company's provided home networking instructions, but no problems tunneling through with my corporate VPN.
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Works with Checkpoint VPN software, December 1, 2004
By gadget psycho (Bay Area, USA)
Contrary to another reviewer not ALL VPN software has difficulty working with this router.. Checkpoint VPN-1 software works fine with this router.. The Cisco VPN software DOES have trouble working with this router.. So if you are using Checkpoint, you have a GREAT deal with this router.. Much more stable than the Linksys that I have had to switch to for my new VPN software. Especially with the recent price drops on it..
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Better than DLink DI-514, November 30, 2004
By woolf (California)
I'm using both a Netgear MR814 and a DLink DI-514 at home. Although this router has less features (firewall filter rules with time schedule, parameter tuning on wirelss signal transmission etc) compared with the Dlink model, it's far more stabler than DLink. I have to reboot my Dlink router once every three days to keep its wireless signal alive, I don't need to reboot this Netgear router since I bought it (four months ago). I feel this is a very solid low-end wireless router, ideal for home usages.
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The worst device I have ever had!, November 27, 2004
By Fredric Pierce (Huntington Beach, CA)
This Netgear MR814V3 (meaning version 3) router has so thoroughly messed up my network, it's just unbelievable. I tried to replace an old Apple Airport base station with this router. I have a Dell with a Microsoft USB Wi-Fi adapter, an iMac with an old Airport card, and they all worked fine with my old Airport base station, but I wanted some more ethernet ports. I hooked up the Netgear and everything went to pot! After fiddling and fiddling, I got the Dell to talk to it wirelessly and the iMac to work on one of the Netgear's ethernet ports, it wouldn't work on the Wi-Fi at all. But that's not what I wanted, and the thing kept dropping the connection. I emailed Netgear's customer support, and guess what they said! They would be happy to help me if I would pay them $30!!! It seems there is some fine print INSIDE THE BOX, that says support is only free if my whole network is Netgear equipment. The box says "24/7 Technical Support" on the outside. OK, so I am only paying $20 for this thing, it is now unreturnable, I give up. I put the Airport back into my network, I pulled the Netgear out and tried to put my network back like it was. No soap! My iMac can't seem to find the Airport base station and the Dell periodically drops the connection. This Netgear thing has screwed up my whole system! Wow! I guess I'm on my way to the Apple store to get a new Airport, instead. I hope they can give me some clues on how to fix the iMac's Airport card.
Unless you have an all Netgear system, DO NOT buy this (or any other) piece of Netgear equipment.
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Very easy to set up and operate, November 25, 2004
By SKS (Stamford, CT)
I installed the Netgear router with a cable modem along with a Netgear USB wireless b adapter. The setup took me about 10-15 minutes in total. It works flawlessly.
Performance is within the expected range. But when WEP 128-bit security is activated, you can expect a performance drop of about 10% overall. For a cable modem connection, the drop is really not detectable.
Highly recommended.
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MR814 A breeze to set up., November 24, 2004
By hesser (Dallas)
This router is great. The setup is the simplest ever. I received the MR814V3. It took me about 10 minutes to get on the Internet and about 15 minutes to get the wireless connection going. I have a belkin 6020 card for my laptop. I am about 50 feet away from the AP and I get 11Mb. As I said this was a great purchase for $40 minus the $30 dollar mail-in rebate. Go Netgear.
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Soooooooo easy to confgure, November 23, 2004
By A. Shrivastava (Austin, TX USA)
It took me less than 10 minutes to setup my desktop and laptop including setting up security. This is so easy. Can't get a better deal than this.
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