Netgear router crashes but not on wireless

Delvey

Distinguished Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
16,662
Solutions
1
Reaction score
6,914
Points
3,441
Location
Blackburn
I have a netgear DG834G router. Now recently, my internet connection will stop working, and the only way to reconnect is to unplug and replug in my router. Now the strange problem is, that it only happens for me. I am the only person in the house that uses ethernet cable instead of wireless, and if i enable my wireless adaptor it will work on my PC. Ive reset all settings, changed firmwares to no avail. Its in a well ventilated area and never gets too hot. Is it just knackered?
 
where does it stop working? is your PC freezing up or is the physical adsl connection dropping

check in the logs

can you access the router on 192.168.0.1 when your internet connection drops?

basically you need to determine where the fault is....dosent sound like the router if other people can still work on wireless

has your PC still got an IP address when the problem happens?
 
Still has the ip address when it happens, and interent still works wirelessly, just when wired. Cannot access the router when it happens. Also, my xbox cannot connect either, but everything is fine wireless. Will see if there is anything in the blogs
 
that sounds very odd indeed ...you sure its not something local on the PC...like anti-virus or firewall software, kicking in because its detected unusual traffic

if the router is under 2 years old you could always ring Netgear tech support and get a swap out for a new one, but before you do that, have you got a spare old one maybe, or could borrow one to do a test and see if it still happens
 
Same problem with my NG router ... i'm certain it's a fault (lots of info van be found on the web) but I'm too lazy to replace. I find that re-booting mine once a month sorts the problem out.
 
Same problem with my NG router ... i'm certain it's a fault (lots of info van be found on the web) but I'm too lazy to replace. I find that re-booting mine once a month sorts the problem out.

rebooting only once a month on an ADSL service? ...I wouldnt say thats any different to any others on the market then LOL :) ...I certainly wouldnt replace it, you could be faaarrr worse off ! the ADSL infrastructure itself is not reliable enough to maintain a connection for that long with varying line conditions most of the time, regardless of what you have attached to it


...if you have a DG834G, thats the most prolific adsl router on the planet...kinda like the Ford Mondeo of the router world, and one of the most reliable - you see a lot of people "having issues" because there are probably >10 million of them out there, nearly 50 % of the UK internet users have them...compare that to "ultra relible" business class Drayteks and such like for £200 ...and of course they appear better...because they only sell a few thousand a month, not over 1 million units per month like the big guys :)

going back to the OP, you shouldnt need to power cycle if you a) still have an IP address b) can access the router at 192.168.0.1

when you log in you will be at the status page, click at the bottom "connection status" and in there see what you have - click disconnect/reconnect and it will re-authenticate on your ADSL service ...

but if you can actually do that, then the router is actually working fine anyway, and you have a PC to router problem, not router to the internet,, so Id still be looking locally
 
i didn't reboot the NG router that preceded the one I use now once in 2 years. Maybe I was spoilt! I use zen.co.uk as my ISP who are far more reliable than anyone else I've used. That being said, they do cost more per month.
 
i didn't reboot the NG router that preceded the one I use now once in 2 years. Maybe I was spoilt! I use zen.co.uk as my ISP who are far more reliable than anyone else I've used. That being said, they do cost more per month.

yeah, me too - sometimes mine can go months...the point I was making is that the requirement to reboot, need not be anything to do with the router at all - the ISP can be changing things their end every few weeks too
 
Still has the ip address when it happens, and interent still works wirelessly, just when wired. Cannot access the router when it happens. Also, my xbox cannot connect either, but everything is fine wireless. Will see if there is anything in the blogs

Hi. Did you discover anything? I have a similar (same?) problem - my Xbox 360 won't connect to Live (wireless) the 2nd time I power it up (works perfect the 1st time around) but PCs and other wireless devices (e.g. my phone) connect and work fine. If I power off/on the router the Xbox works fine again wireless but only the 1st time!? The strange thing is that if I go into the network setup options on the Xbox it can still see the router (wireless) but still fails to connect to Live useless I reset the router!? The model I have is Netgear WNR2000.
 
Last edited:
I know this is an old thread. But heres an update, i upgraded the firmware to the latest one off the netgear website. The rebooting had stopped but my xbox 360 and my brothers ps3 are very laggy online. So swapped back to the older version, and the lagging has stopped but i need to reboot. I now have to reboot the netgear 3-4 times a day. Was looking at the Linksys WAG160N as its on offer at pcworld. anybody used it?
 
II now have to reboot the netgear 3-4 times a day.
That is very odd. As has been said there are tens of millions of those Netgears out there and they have an extremely good reputation. I have installed loads of them and have never come across that problem.

I'd be inclined, as has been said before as well, to look at your PC.
 
there really should be no need to reboot at all - I have many customers with those routers running businesses, 24 x 7 x 365 and they are rebooted only for upgrades and other work a few times per year.

and how do you measure "laggy" - how do you know its not somewhere else in the network? where is this lag - between which router hops are you seeing delays to the servers? e.g. are you getting delays from the PS3 to the DG834G or are you seeing delays between the DG834G and the first router on the ISPs network? ...or are you saying that you get a high end to end latency (ping time) to the PS3 servers ?

I wouldnt like to recommend just buying more different router as you may find you have the same issues, and are just £100 worse off
 
Not just my PC, every PC and console on the house. I think its a DHCP error I get but will have to double check. With regards to lag, after upgrading the firmware. I get a good ping on speedtest.net, and full green bars on COD5, but the game jumps alot and when people speak its crackly or misses bits out. This is on both the ps3 and xbox 360. I upgrade to the new firmware, and get the lag, return to the old one, get no lad but need to reboot. I re-installed the new firmware twice to ensure it installed correctly.
 
I had a similar problem to you

I asked the question on the Netgear Forum and the reply from an engineer was to:-

1. Backup the configuration
2. Hold the reset button in for over 10 seconds to clear everything
3. Restore the configuration from the backup

Since doing this, my 834G no longer has any problems
 
Not just my PC, every PC and console on the house. I think its a DHCP error I get but will have to double check. With regards to lag, after upgrading the firmware. I get a good ping on speedtest.net, and full green bars on COD5, but the game jumps alot and when people speak its crackly or misses bits out. This is on both the ps3 and xbox 360. I upgrade to the new firmware, and get the lag, return to the old one, get no lad but need to reboot. I re-installed the new firmware twice to ensure it installed correctly.

which firmwares are you using and on which models? I do a lot of beta testing on those boxes and can check the release notes to see if theres anything obvious thats changed that may need configuring differently
 
...I think its a DHCP error I get but will have to double check.

DHCP problems wouldn't cause network latency issues - once your PC has obtained/renewed it's IP address from the DHCP server, DHCP takes no further part in "networking" until your IP lease expires and needs to be renewed - typically once every 12/24 hours on a SOHO router.

If DHCP isn't providing leases properly, you'd get no Internet connection at all on the clients, not a "slow" or "partial" service.

DHCP transactions are initiated from the client devices, not the DHCP servers, so if you so suspect a DHCP issue, I'd start the investigation with the clients, not the server.
 
Firmware version i updated to was V5.01.14 from V5.01.09. The router is version 4. I have tried backing up the settings and doing a hard reset so will see how it goes
 
interesting - 5.01.14 did add some new protocol support like IGMP and LLTD, but nothing untoward.

Id obviously use whichever firmware works best for you on your ISP - only upgrade if you see it will fix specific issues you are having

for gaming purposes, Id keep an eye on the number of UPnP port maps (look on the UPnP page) a game client is opening and see if theres any correlation there, when you start percieving "lag" - it could be that a particular game is having problems opening the correct ports, so sometimes they default to tunneling in other protocols, which adds lag to the games response. Get a list of which ports are supposed to be open for your game and double check in the router when you are playing it.

it could of course be a red herring and poor coincidence - to get to the bottom of these types of issues, you need to be able to replicate the fault at will, under scientificically controlled test conditions ...otherwise you can be chasing your tail for quite some time and not get anywhere, other than frustrated :(
 
I know for my xbox 360 i allow it as the DMZ, so shouldnt have a problem with port opening? Tried the backup settings route to no joy
 
surely a modern bit of kit like an Xbox supports UPnP (Microsoft have a test certification for it for routers specifially for the Xbox!)

having it in the DMZ leaves it wide open to hackers/mischief makers ....and judging by the amount of rubbish that probes my router each day im surprised that your Xbox stays up as long as it does

DMZ should be last resort, UPnP should work fine these days (it was designed for controlling router firewalls on the fly to save consumer hassle)

Id get it out of the DMZ, enable UPnP and give that a go

the router you are using has been through MS certification for UPnP etc
 
i use UPnP anyhow, will take it out the DMZ anyhow. It seems to occur when nodody has been using it for a few hours eg overnight. As long as there is a PC etc connected it works fine
 
Am having the same problem with my v1 DG8234N.

Worked fine for ages, then I upgraded from 1.01.06 to a later version (this was about 9 months ago), then I experienced exactly the problem being described above.

I had a wired PS3, wired 360 wired original xbox and 2 wired PC's (some via a switch). Didn't matter which one was being used (could be just 360 could be all of them, could be one using the switch could be one wired directly)

3 or 4 times a day the wired connections would stop working but the wireless worked 100% fine, only way to get back was via a reboot.

Reverted back to 1.01.06 and the problem went away.

Last week we brought another 360 and having two going through the same router using UPnP meant that whichever one got turned on first had an open NAT and the other had a strict.

I read a review on XBox Live The Guide : Help and advice plus Xbox games news, chat and more

where it said the DG834N didn't support two 360's with open NAT. Before I gave up, thought I'd see if there was any new firmware.

1.02.15 seems to be the newest so I gave that a go (doing it properly, resetting the router by holding the reset switch for 10 secs after the upgrade etc).

Excellent news, UPnP now seems to be working properly, both 360's have open NAT's.

BUT:

I did this Saturday evening.

3 times Sunday we lost the wired ports but the wireless was fine.

4 times today (Monday)

Driving me nuts. Do I get a new router, do I go back to the old firmware but not be able to use 2 360's on live properly or do I simply go mad instead???

edit: when it happens, cant log into router, its as though the 4 ports on the router have simply stopped (lights still on though). Son was on his 360 (wired directly) when it last happened, I then turned on my PC, dead for me too. Daughters screaming at us because she's having no problems on her wireless laptop and doesn't want to be thrown off yet again while we reboot it.
 
Last edited:
Oddly, re the above post, it seems to ONLY happen when the wireless connection is in use???????

Daughter on her laptop, the wired connections hang randomly regardless of what combination of wired devices being used. When they do hang, wireless still carries on working fine.

But when no one is using a wireless device, the wired connections don't hang at all.

Could of course be coincidence, but from today's usage, that seems to be the pattern.

If it helps, my router is set to Channel 11 (N), there's currently 3 other networks found by my wireless devices, ch 1 (g), ch 6 (g) and ch 11 (g)
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom