Netgear WGT634U 108 Mbps Wireless Media Router

I use pretty much use all Netgear stuff for my home network, including a couple of wireless router/access points. I picked up the WGT634U when it first came out thinking I'd be able to extend the range of my wireless network, plug in a monster USB drive for backup and file sharing, and then turn off my home file server.

To quote the great Homer... Doh!

I guess I got what I deserved for going on the bleeding edge and not waiting to see some reviews. This thing has one MAJOR design flaw that makes it basically useless for me... you can't write files on it when it's formatted as NTFS, and formatting as FAT32 limits you to 32GB under WinXP! Not only that, but files are limited to 4GB in FAT32. That makes this thing pretty much useless unless I really want to maintain 10 partitions on my 300GB drive and find a backup program that will break the file up into 4GB chunks. That's just not going to happen.

I purchased this Netgear WGT634U router to work with a laptop with built-in Intel Centrino wi-fi at 54mbps, another PC with Netgear WG311T 108mbps PCI card, and finally another one with a plain RJ45 100BaseTx card. The RJ45 plugs via a cable directly into the one of the 4 available RJ45 ports. The broadband to the internet plugs into another port (5th one) dedicated to uplink. My setup uses PPPOE, and the router upon bootup had a wizard that automatically detected this type of connection and asked for login details. (this router has a built in webserver that serves pages just for configuring it via a browser). Because I have a mixed speed setting (54mpbs and 108 mbps), I chose the 108mbps Auto setting, which will allow multiple speeds to connect to the router. The 100BaseTX computer by default uses 100mbps. In summary, I was able to get all three to connect and share files and printers (make sure you add an account with the same account and password on all your three...Read more

Hello - I have been a fan of Netgear products for many years. I feel, unfortunately, that their products are being released with more and more bugs. This is by far the worst I've ever owned.

I got an ill feeling when I opened the box, and the first thing that comes out is a bright yellow sheet of paper saying to be sure to check their website for any bug fixes before using the wireless capabilities. Hmmmm....

Then I hooked it up and ran security scans from GRC.com. The router fails - it has ports 13 and 21 WIDE OPEN for all the world to see. In addition, the default is to respond to all pings from the internet.

Then I upgraded the firmware as advised and tried the wireless. First, there is no WPA on this router yet. They claim it will come later. Then it would not reliably connect with my 108mbps Netgear wireless card even though the boxes said it would. It would fail authentication for about 2 minutes then all of a sudden would establish the connection.

And the...Read more