Wireless Netgear Router Purchase Advice

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

I have a Zyxel router, which is about 3 years old. I ocasionally have problems with net games on my PS2 and have had issues with video conferencing on my PC.

CompuUSA is having a sale where you can get a 802.11b router for $20 (US) or an 802.11g for $30. The models are -

MR814
WGR614

My question is - does anyone have either of these routers? I would not need to get a wireless card right away, as I already have my home wired. I don’t want to go buy one of these, just to discover I have some of the same issues with NAT that I do now.

Does anyone have any advice on a replacement router for home use? I have an IP assigned via DHCP from my ISP. The problems I seem to have are when my outbound packets get translated with NAT. The original source port gets swapped with a new port number, which apparently doesn’t work with some network apps.

Ideas? Suggestions? ???

Thanks,
Dr A>

#2

I have the MR814, I like it. It works well, handles updating my dynamic IP through dyndns.org or whatever it is. The config pages are better than I have seen with LinkSys.

But for $10 more I would get the 802.11g version.

#3

I’ve heard great things about the LinkSys routers, but have no direct experience with them. I’ve personally got a D-Link DSL-604+, and can’t really recommend it because of the hassles it’s given me.

I do agree, however, that the extra $10 for 802.11g is well worth it. Wireless isn’t exactly performant, so the faster your hardware, the less slowdown you’ll notice! ;D

#4

Ok dokey! Thanks for the input. I tried the g version, as a friend had one to lend me. I still seem to have some issues with Netmeeting, ie it won’t connect to the phone directory. I haven’t tried with games for the PS2 yet.

That will probably determine what happens.

Thanks for the info!

Dr. A>

#5

Some applications needs port forwarding. Eg if you run an FTP server you need tcp port 21 (or whatever) forwarded to you. Netmeeting is somewhat tricky… there was a special Netmeeting module for my router (it’s a single floppy linux router) :wink:

But I guess that you’ll need at least some ports forwarded in order to get it working.

#6

Yeah, I’ve opened some ports on my router, but it doesn’t seem to fix the problem. From what I understand the network interchange is this -

A sends to B - The A source port gets swapped during the NAT process.

B responds to A using the new source port - The router picks up the packet and swaps the packet data, then sends it to A.

B now thinks its supposed to always send on port x - It now sends to A on port x. The problem is that the router now dumps the packets, because there wasn’t a request from A to B for the new data.

Arggh.

Regards,
Dr. A>