| Netgear WGR614 54 Mbps 2.4 GHz Cable or DSL Wireless Router |
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Model: WGR614
Brand: Netgear
Manufacturer: Netgear
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 712
Operating system: Windows
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Router
WGR614
4 port
54 Mbps
Wireless |
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| Description: |
| Netgear WGR614 802.11g Wireless Router with 4-Port Switch - The amount of homes with high-speed Internet access and multiple computers is growing steadily. Wouldn't it be nice to share that high-speed Internet connection with all of the computers in your home? Wouldn't it be great to also share files between your computers? And wouldn't it be amazing if you could do all of that wirelessly!? Well you can, with this 802.11g Wireless Router. Just add optional 802.11g, or 802.11b, adapters to each computer, connect your modem, run through the easy installation process, and you're ready to go. It even supports the slower 802.11b wireless protocol for increased compatibility. VPN pass-through |
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| User Reviews (712 total): |
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Wireless Networking at a very reasonable price, March 27, 2007
By Equine CPA (Gainesville, TX)
I bought this router after my local internet provider told he could sell and install one for me for $160.00. I decided to give it a try myself. The packaging says it should take about 1/2 an hour to install...it took me 2 hours but I was still happy. Once installed everything is working flawlessly and I've had no problems.
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Good Product, March 26, 2007
By eMask
Bought Netgear after having enough trouble with D-Link, it works good. Netgear has good signal strength across couple of rooms. Doesn't have the re-booting problem like D-link, easy to setup, works good, no issues. I would recommend this product.
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Good router unless you enable WPA, March 25, 2007
By C. Petit (Northeastern US)
This router was very easy to setup. Its web-based interface was easy to understand, although you need to tweak the MAC address you send upstream if you are connected to a cable modem. From a feature perspective, this router provides all of the essential wireless ones---a built-in firewall, MAC address filtering (which allows you to choose specific computers that are allowed to connect), SSID broadcast enable/disable (an invisible Wi-Fi network is more secure), and decent access logs.
When using WEP encryption (which is outdated), this router performs fairly well.
Also, the 4 LAN ports work reliably and well.
However, when I downloaded the WPA firmware upgrade, my router changed significantly. WPA connections are much slower, due to the encryption. More importantly, WPA connections have a tendency to freeze the router, requiring you to push the reset button in the back (unplugging the router won't work).
To be fair, I have the older v1 of this router (there are at least 6 versions of this router, newer versions are labeled WGR614v2, WGR614v3 and so on), for which the only firmware update is labeled as beta. Nonetheless, this renders the wireless router useless to me.
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It's good, March 23, 2007
By Thanigaivelan Manickavelu (USA)
The product is good.. working fine until now..
But it strucks inbetween.. we need to restart it almost every month.
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Works Great, March 19, 2007
By Duane Kellogg
Have only had this for a short time but it is working great so far. Good range and hasn't crashed once.
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So far so good, March 14, 2007
By J. Gumm (Texas)
I read all of the reviews of this item (and MANY other routers) and I finally decided to go with the Netgear because I liked what I read overall and no model of any brand seemed to work well for everyone. So far, I have had zero problems. I took the slow route in setting it up probably and it took me maybe thirty minutes. It has worked flawlessly since then. I would encourage everyone in the market for a new router to read as many reviews as they can find and then make the best choice for their situation. I am using this with one desktop machine, one laptop and a DSL connection. For my situation, this is the perfect purchase. I hope I can still say that in another year or two.
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Wonderful - Easy to configure on LAN or Cable modem., March 14, 2007
By O. Djomby (TX, USA)
Great product
Work fine with Netgear Skype Phone SPH101.
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Bombed, does not serve its purpose, March 11, 2007
By David Rosenbaum (Northern NJ, USA)
Despite insistence it can serve as access point, was unable to set up as such and technical support was horrible.
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Going to Replace It!!!, March 10, 2007
By epjSeattle (Seattle, WA)
I've had the Netgear wireless router for a three months and it has been nothing but a problem. It constantly hangs such that I have to reload each web page. I've checked my laptop and the wireless capability works great. Even when I sit next to the Netgear router, it is constantly dropping the connection. I often have to reboot the router by unplugging it. If I hardwire into the router, the performance is great, but doesn't that defeat its purpose?!?!? This unit is heading for eBay.
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Very Easy to Use, March 9, 2007
By ScubaSteve (Henderson, NV)
I am very pleased with this router so far. I bought it because I was replacing a Netgear router and I thought I knew what to expect. I was happily proven wrong. This was so easy to set up. The part of the set up that took the longest was entering the security settings in the other computers. My only complaint with this is on the desktop that this is wired to, everytime I start IE, it pops up needing to enter the administator name and password, but it doesn't ask it for Firefox. I haven't taken the time to trouble shoot it yet or get a hold of Netgear to find out why it does this.
Other than this one problem, I have been very happy with this router. Wireless works great and is fast.
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Good product, March 8, 2007
By egomez (Mexico City)
I had it working in my house for like 4 or 5 years and it has failed very few times, on those ocassions I had good mail technical support. If I let it on for several days it may fail and i reboot it and thats all. I wouldn't consider it a heavy duty item, but for the price/benefit ration is ok
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unreliable, do not buy, March 4, 2007
By Diego (San Diego, CA, USA)
I've had this router for about three weeks now. It hangs almost every
day, seems to hang more often when there is more network activity.
The only way to recover it is to unplug the power. It's going back to
the store. Do not waste your money, pay a bit more and get a linksys.
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Love It, February 26, 2007
By Scoreman (CA USA)
Register the product to get Online Support with update security firmware provided by its manufacture (Netgear, Inc.) and then you will love it for lifetime.
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Great Value!, February 23, 2007
By Football
I was attracted to this product because of the great price. For $20 this was a great buy. The product looks very sleek with its white design, and it is fairly small and does not take up a great deal of space.
Set up was fairly straight forward. I dont have any experience with networks, and have never set up a wireless router, and was able to get it up and running. The included cd was semi useful. After connecting all the cables and turning on the power, I kept on getting an error message from the program that the cd was running, that it couldnt locate my internet connection. I restarted the comp, and voila, it started working. The onscreen help that shows up alongside the settings was really helpful for setting up security. After a few clicks I disabled my ssid from being broadcast and installed WAP protection. Also, make sure you download the latest firmware from netgear.
The range is pretty good. The router is in my basement, and I am able to get a decent signal on my laptop when it is on the top floor of my house. If your looking for an affordable router, this is a great deal for $20 after rebate.
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DO NOT BUY THIS ROUTER!, February 22, 2007
By rklnwoodwrkr (Rocklin, CA United States)
Troublesome from the first day out of the box. Router drops connection 1-3 time a day. Extremely frustrating tech support from India. Yes, I updated the firmware, first day installed. (Why doesn't this come with the most recent firmware?) Yes, I went through the set up and configuration with tech support. Yes, I registered the router. Although I had to "re register" when I tried to get tech support. Netgear now shows me as having two routers registered, strangly enough, with two serial #'s that match! Resorted to email support to bypass the language barrier. They even want me to disconnect the SPI firewall to try to maintain my connection!! Keep in mind, this router is less than 30 days old when I begin all of this. After 4 weeks of contacting tech support, they finally agree to replace router with 3 options:
1) I pay shipping to mail my junk router to them, within 5-7 days of receiving, they will mail me a new one. I am out shipping, and without wireless service for two weeks
2) I pay non-refundable $17.00 for them to "pre ship" me a router with a box to ship junk one back in. I still pay shipping back to them.
3) For $30.00 they will do as above, but express ship.
Now if the new one has the same problem, I'm out again to replace??
Wow! Admitting their router is junk..and I have to pay half the value of the router to have them replace it when it has had this problem from day one? I wish I would have done more research on this before buying. I will never buy another Netgear product.. EVER!!
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Beware! When it's working, it's darn good. But, getting it working, now that's a challenge!, February 21, 2007
By Engineer Extraordinaire (Rome, GA)
**Update on 4/24/07** It's now April, and this product still doesn't work after 4 months of email exchanges with Netgear technical support. It is taking themn 2 weeks to reply to an email! I give them the information that they ask for, and they reply with gibberish and/or procedures that just doesn't work. It's amazing! I'm keeping it going just for the entertainment value.**
Original post from February...
I've been disappointed with this router because of Netgear's inconsistent technical support and poor instruction manual. I'm pretty technically savvy about computers and electronics, and I've never experienced this much trouble with a device. Buyer beware!
I've been using the router with a Dell desk-top PC running Windows XP Home edition connected to Bellsouth DSL. (I don't think this is too unusual a configuration.) I wanted to be able to use my work laptop at home throughout the house without another hard-wired internet connection. When the Netgear router has worked, it has worked very well. But, getting it to work has been quite a chore. Following is my saga. Draw your own conclusions...
Problems began right out of the box. It promises quick and easy installation...just insert a set-up CD with Netgear's Smart Wizard, then follow the instructions, and in just a few minutes you should be up and running. This was not the case.
At first, the wiz seemed to be progressing just fine, but then at a critical step, it just hung. I started over, taking extra care to ensure that I followed every instruction, but the same result. There was no documentation in the box to fall back on, so I had to call technical support.
It took time to navigate through their technical support process...you have to punch in a bunch of numbers and register the product. But, eventually, I got to a live human being, albeit someone obviously not American. This in and of itself is OK, but the accent made it very hard to understand them. Moreover, this person was not very helpful. After about 20 minutes, the router was still not working and no solution seemed likely anytime soon. I was frustrated.
I ended up calling back later, and the second person was easier to understand and even better was exceptionally helpful. After about 20 more minutes, we got the router working.
All was well for about 2 weeks. The router worked flawlessly. Other family members could use the desktop PC while I used my laptop. We could surf from both computers at the same time without any noticeable loss of speed. Just one minor nuisance in the form of a log in screen that popped up every time I turned on my desk-top computer. But, it really worked great.
But, alas, one day the router just quit working for no apparent reason...maybe a power outage...I don't really know.
I had to go back to technical support because the process for getting the router set-up is just not intuitive or logical. Without a working set-up CD or good documentation, you're just on your own. And, I couldn't remember enough of how we did it the first time around to get it working again. So, as I say, back to technical support.
This time around I made notes and printed out two key MS Explorer screens that were part of the set-up process. All was well for several months. Then, the router quit again about 3 weeks ago.
So, I pulled out my notes and upon close inspection found that one of the Netgear screens that I printed out truncates the right side of the Explorer screen, and this included the last digits of the IP address which I had to know in order to get the unit working again. I was stuck.
I tried downloading the manual for the unit from their web site. It's the most unhelpful users manual that I've ever read. The basic set-up part essentially says "Follow the Smart Wizard" which doesn't work. The advanced set-up part assumes one can get to the router's set-up screen which I'm unable to get to for some reason. Therefore, I had to go back to tech support.
But, bummer! I'm now outside the free 90 days phone tech support window. So, I had to choose between paying $37 per 30 minutes of phone support or getting support via Netgear's web site. I opted for the later. It's been three weeks of back and forth across their site, and the router still doesn't work. They've given me procedures to follow that simply don't work. Note that when I answer their questions or report what has happened when I try to follow their instructions, it typically takes 2 days to get a reply back. And now, two nights ago, someone new took over my "case" and informed me that the problem is that I've never registered the device. Naturally, this is baloney. I had to register the router months ago to get tech support in the first place! And, of course it's really beside the point anyway. So, I'm frustrated again and considering throwing the router in my electronics recycle bin and buying a new one.
A user needs a step-by-step procedure for setting up a device like this. After all this time and effort, Netgear has been unable to provide this to me.
Good luck!
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My second buy and failing again, February 18, 2007
By Gatsbi (Los Angeles, CA)
I bought the second one after the first one died on me because it is very easy to set up (plug it in and it starts to work) and cheap.
However, router has some serious heating problem (really, it's burning hot!)...
And my second router is starting to failing again after a couple of month of use (random disconnection).
If you reset by turning off for a while and restart it, it becomes ok.
But after a day or two starts to fail again.
In addition, can't even go to the router setup page for securing the router. Most of the time, it just redirects you to netgear's home page...
Now, let's see if I get that random disconnection on submitting this review...
Yup...
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Netgear Router, February 16, 2007
By Michael D. Witte
Product has worked great. I had problems setting it up though because I own a Mac. The installation CD dldn't open up. I had to call tech support twice, once for the initial set-up, and then again to incript the wireless. Tech support was excellent though, and free for 90 days.
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Gets VERY HOT, February 11, 2007
By JoeSchmoe155 (NY USA)
This is WGR614 v6. I can't comment on reliability under load and long term - I only used it for a day, but it gets ridiculously hot even without any traffic traveling through it.
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Obsolete overheating trash, February 6, 2007
By Jesse N. Viviano (Cary, NC USA)
My experience was with the first version of this router (which was released in March 2003), so some of my concerns may not apply to the latest versions.
Routing performance: C (Might not apply to later versions)
This router is somewhat of a bottleneck. It felt a tiny bit slower than my first Internet router, a Linksys BEFSR41 v1.0 (which is really old compared to today's technology), but was noticeable only when I really thought about it. However, its performance and the performance of the Linksys BEFSR41 v1.0 is somewhat noticeably slower compared to a Linksys WRT54GL. This performance may have been hampered by the probable fact that my cable modem might only support 100Base-T4 and not 100Base-TX, while the WGR614 probably supports 100Base-TX and not 100Base-T4. 100Base-T4 uses all eight wires in an Ethernet link, slowing the signal symbol rate down in order to make the signal reliable enough for Category 3 (voice phone grade) cable. Unfortunately, it forces half-duplex communication. 100Base-TX uses only four of the eight wires in an Ethernet connection, requiring Category 5 (data grade) cable for reliable transmission and reception. The upside is that full-duplex communication is enabled, potentially doubling total throughput and eliminating time-wasting collisions if only switches are used. Therefore, the cable modem and WGR614 tried to initiate Fast Ethernet communication, but kept failing until I had to handicap the WAN port to force it to use 10Base-T in the Web-based configuration utility, forcing my cable modem and the router to talk to each other in a low-speed mode with no choices of variants to cause problems with.
Ethernet switching performance: F (Might not apply to later versions)
When two devices are trying to communicate with each other on the Ethernet LAN, I found out that this device is a serious bottleneck. Backups from one computer to another took long amounts of time compared to the time they took when either a Linksys BEFSR41 version 1.0 or a Netopia 3347W 802.11b wireless ADSL router with four-port switch was used as the switch in between the source and destination computers.
Security: C (Applies to all versions)
This router is capable of WPA-PSK using TKIP encryption. This is OK for today, but is not as secure as WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK using AES encryption. WPA is basically a stopgap standard for the time when 802.11i was unfinished in order to provide some real security until the time 802.11i was finished. 802.11i was finally finished and has gotten the marketing name WPA2. TKIP is basically WEP with a patch that masks away all attacks known to WEP. This mask is considered a masterpiece of retro-engineering because it brings real security to legacy devices. The problem with TKIP is that it is not as strong as AES encryption, and the worry that there are attacks left to discover in WEP that were not known when TKIP was discovered and therefore punch through both WEP and TKIP. Competitors like Linksys's WRT54GL have WPA, WPA-PSK, WPA2, and WPA2-PSK with both TKIP and AES encryption, making WPA-only devices obsolete. What is infuriating is that in all of the major Wi-Fi chip makers' 802.11g products integrated AES hardware designed to add 802.11i compliance when the standard was finished. Many manufacturers have failed to do the right thing and use this hardware to implement WPA2 or WPA2-PSK on their 802.11g products.
Reliability: F (Likely applies to later versions, as their cases look like they are not well-ventilated, like this version. However, there is a small but significant chance that I could be wrong.)
This thing has a habit of crashing due to overheating. When you look at the packaging, it looks aesthetically pleasing, but its design makes it overheat. You are practically forced to stand it up to try to make it easier for it to dissipate heat due to convection currents. Fortunately, this is easy to do, but it will still occasionally crash and gets really hot to the touch even when it is stood upright on its side so that it can take advantage of convection currents to dissipate heat. Netgear redesigned its packaging for versions 5 through 7 of the hardware. This redesign looks like it will help the router dissipate heat better when it is stood upright on its side, but will make it overheat faster when it is placed flat on a surface. I would rather have an ugly but functional router than a beautiful but malfunctioning router. If I wanted a piece of art, I would go to the mall and buy a small statue or painting instead of a beautiful but malfunctioning router. Linksys's router designs, like its BEFSR41 and WRT54GL, prove that something can look good and work well.
Wi-fi performance: C (Might not apply to later versions)
It has great range. However, it is difficult for other Wi-fi cards to connect to it in WPA mode. However, once a connection is established, it never drops the connection unless it crashes or loses power. It has no problems synchronizing in WEP or no encryption modes. I have had no trouble connecting to a Netopia ADSL router nor a Linksys WRT54GL router with my wireless card in WPA-PSK mode, so WPA-PSK support on this router must be buggy.
Conclusion
Netgear might have fixed the instability, performance, and overheating performance in later hardware revisions. However, even the current version's lack of WPA2 support renders this product obsolete. Get a router that can support WPA2 and looks like it has enough ventilation to keep itself cool enough to prevent crashing.
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