# Netgear WNR3500



## smiddy

Hi Fellow DBSTalk.com-ers,

I bought one of these puppies and it is doing some wieird stuff. I was wondering if anyone else has one and would like to confer on this? I did go to Netgear's site, but there doesn't seem to be any help there.

The weirdness: The router will reset itself for no appearant reason.


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## Draconis

Odd, have you tried updating the firmware on the router? Or making sure the power plug was secure? 

(Only things I can think of, other than returning it.)


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## smiddy

Yep, there isn't anything greater than what has been released initially for firmware.

What is Power Plus?


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## Draconis

I meant plug. Curse these fat fingers.


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## funhouse69

While I do not have one of these units a friend of mine does and is having some strange issues with it as well. 

Whenever he connects to it with his Dell Laptop which is "G" it will connect up no problem but then the connection will drop off every 10 minutes or so and will reconnect after a few minutes. 

He also has a Powerline Setup in his house acting as a bridge to his recording studio which works perfect with no drop offs whatsoever. I know this is wired compared to wireless but thought it was worth mentioning. 

The really strange thing is that his friend connects with another laptop and will never drop the connection (also "G"). His laptop doesn't have any issues with "G" Routers. 

He's gotten the unit replaced a few times to no avail. It's a real head scratcher :eek2:


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## smiddy

Ratara said:


> I meant plug. Curse these fat fingers.


You hd me there scratching my head. Yeah, it's secured tightly.



funhouse69 said:


> While I do not have one of these units a friend of mine does and is having some strange issues with it as well.
> 
> Whenever he connects to it with his Dell Laptop which is "G" it will connect up no problem but then the connection will drop off every 10 minutes or so and will reconnect after a few minutes.
> 
> He also has a Powerline Setup in his house acting as a bridge to his recording studio which works perfect with no drop offs whatsoever. I know this is wired compared to wireless but thought it was worth mentioning.
> 
> The really strange thing is that his friend connects with another laptop and will never drop the connection (also "G"). His laptop doesn't have any issues with "G" Routers.
> 
> He's gotten the unit replaced a few times to no avail. It's a real head scratcher :eek2:


I was using my work computer a Dell G conection and this occured too. I did change the channel from 6,10 to 4,8 and that fixed that one. The reason I did that is I saw that N doesn't work unless you use 8. I have not had a drop with it there on wireless. However, when nothing is connected I get resets about once a day.


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## Kevin Foster

I was pretty excited about the WNR3500 and have always been a loyal Netgear customer so I purchased it as soon as it was released.

After initially setting up, everything seemed to work fine. I noticed though that when using channels 6/10, I was being disconnected every 10 minutes or so while using my Dell notebook. Switching to 4/8 corrected that though (as another user mentioned here). Since then though I've noticed another problem that sounds similar to what you're experiencing.

I connect my notebook and my XBOX 360 to the WNR3500 and for the most part things work well enough. The problem I'm having though is that after about 4 or 5 days my wireless connections will cease to work. I can still connect to my ported connections fine but my notebook/XBOX 360 just can't detect the network. I can fix it most of the time by resetting the network but sometimes I have to go in and change/save some settings to do a more thorough reset.

I haven't seen anything from Netgear addressing this issue. There was a new firmware patch released on March 11:
kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/d103265.asp

But the updates are insignificant. I must say it's funny that one of Netgear's selling points for their new routers is "Automatically adjusts to the needs of Internet, voice, video and gaming applications (QoS)" but if you check out the known issues for the WNR3500 you'll see "QoS does not function (high priority traffic doesn't get obvious prioritization when bandwidth is limited)." -- Oops?

Hopefully they'll get around to fixing the more serious problems with the WNR3500.



smiddy said:


> Hi Fellow DBSTalk.com-ers,
> 
> I bought one of these puppies and it is doing some wieird stuff. I was wondering if anyone else has one and would like to confer on this? I did go to Netgear's site, but there doesn't seem to be any help there.
> 
> The weirdness: The router will reset itself for no appearant reason.


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## Kenkong586

I don't have this particular router, but I do have a Netgear wireless G router and my wireless connection drops quite frequently. I've changed the channel on it a couple times and that seems to help a little for a bit, but then it goes back to needing to be reset pretty much every time after nothing has been wirelessly connected for any period of time. Rarely it'll drop while in use. I resorted to only having my everex laptop and Wii connected via wireless and that along with another channel change has helped bring it down to a few resets a week. As mentioned earler in the thread, I have to issue with anything wired to it during these wireless down times. So it must be a global netgear issue.


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## smiddy

Kevin Foster said:


> I was pretty excited about the WNR3500 and have always been a loyal Netgear customer so I purchased it as soon as it was released.
> 
> After initially setting up, everything seemed to work fine. I noticed though that when using channels 6/10, I was being disconnected every 10 minutes or so while using my Dell notebook. Switching to 4/8 corrected that though (as another user mentioned here). Since then though I've noticed another problem that sounds similar to what you're experiencing.
> 
> I connect my notebook and my XBOX 360 to the WNR3500 and for the most part things work well enough. The problem I'm having though is that after about 4 or 5 days my wireless connections will cease to work. I can still connect to my ported connections fine but my notebook/XBOX 360 just can't detect the network. I can fix it most of the time by resetting the network but sometimes I have to go in and change/save some settings to do a more thorough reset.
> 
> I haven't seen anything from Netgear addressing this issue. There was a new firmware patch released on March 11:
> kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/d103265.asp
> 
> But the updates are insignificant. I must say it's funny that one of Netgear's selling points for their new routers is "Automatically adjusts to the needs of Internet, voice, video and gaming applications (QoS)" but if you check out the known issues for the WNR3500 you'll see "QoS does not function (high priority traffic doesn't get obvious prioritization when bandwidth is limited)." -- Oops?
> 
> Hopefully they'll get around to fixing the more serious problems with the WNR3500.


After I updated the firmware to the March version everything works perfectly now. You may want to download it a try again. I had to download it from the website and not through the router.


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## smiddy

Kenkong586 said:


> I don't have this particular router, but I do have a Netgear wireless G router and my wireless connection drops quite frequently. I've changed the channel on it a couple times and that seems to help a little for a bit, but then it goes back to needing to be reset pretty much every time after nothing has been wirelessly connected for any period of time. Rarely it'll drop while in use. I resorted to only having my everex laptop and Wii connected via wireless and that along with another channel change has helped bring it down to a few resets a week. As mentioned earler in the thread, I have to issue with anything wired to it during these wireless down times. So it must be a global netgear issue.


I'd recommend checking the firmware. Mine made mention of the specific issues I was having and they are all fixed now.


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## smiddy

Man, this problem has reared its ugly head again. I brought my work computer home again to do so _home_ work and sure enough, disconnection. This time however there was new software on the Dell Laptop so I'm near certain that is part of the issue, but the weirdness is now it brings down the Wireless side of the router only and the wired side is ok now. I am still investigating thought and it appears that as noted above, some of my other wireless connection couldn't reconnect and I had to adjust them to work (read: change a setting and change it back then it works, weird!).


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## LarryFlowers

What is it with wireless connections.. I have never ever been satisfied with them and I have never found them to be truly reliable and even when they work they are painfully slow.

I have the LinkSys WRT600N. I provide wireless access on it for other people who may need access to the internet in the house.

I don't use wireless for any of my stuff anymore including my laptop. I have hardwired everything and provided a couple of extra network cables to hook my laptop to.

If for some reason I must use my laptop wirelessly, I have an AT&T air card. I just have real problems with wireless connectivity ability. I laugh every time I hear someone talk about giving up land line telephones for their cell phone... I would rate cell phone reliability at about 50% compared to land lines... about the same as a wireless router connection.


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## smiddy

I am trying real hard not to be cynical, but alas I am leaning towards hardwired everything too.

I may give the Linksys WRVS4400N a shot as a last resort. But at $209.99 and seeing as I spent $150 6 months ago for this POS Netgear Router, I am having fits coming to grips with what to do.


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## Chris Blount

I had that exact router. It worked fine for a while and then it started to reset itself. I then started to do some research on the internet and discovered that after about 6 months, many users were experience complete failure. Netgear refuses to acknowledge the problem. 

I returned the Netgear and purchased the Linksys WRT-330N and couldn't be happier. It works perfect, has excellent range and no resets whatsoever.

Netgear has really gone down hill in recent times so I will never purchase their stuff again.

I know you spent a lot of money on your Netgear router but if I were you, I would sell it on e-bay while it still works and go with another brand.


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## smiddy

Thanks Chris! I looked at Netgear's site and this piece is not being advertised any longer. :nono: I will be moving on to a Linksys router...


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