A few months ago, a friend of mine bought a new Dell system and with it also purchased a Netgear WPN824 router. He purchased the router from Dell on the thought that if he needed support, he could get it through Dell.
He began having connection issues when using the router with his SBC DSL Speedstream 4100 modem. He would go what we call "link dead" where you cannot go anywhere on the net, either receiveing "Page not found" errors, or blank pages.
However, he COULD still chat via MSN Messenger, which we found odd. He would then reset everything and it would work again, for a while, then die again.
He tried contacting Dell for support, but they would not help, so he contacted SBC, as he thought the problem might be with his modem or DSL line. After trying several possible solutions with SBC, the problem persisted. He then battled with Dell to receive a replacement, and they reluctantly complied.
They sent him the exact same router, except the "v2" of the router. He also removed his modem from the equation, and used his old Speedstream 5100 modem rather than the 4100. So far he has had no problems.
I do not believe he ever tried the new router with the 4100 modem.
Well, he missed his deadline to return the "defective" modem, so he gave it to me to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it, if anything. If i can get it to work, I can keep it. I also have the Speedstream 4100 modem, and I am also experiencing the same problems when I try to use the router - link dead, can't email, but can chat. However, I have noticed that when it goes "dead" it is only for a few minutes and will wake up on its own. When it goes dead, I go into the rotuer control page and try to run a test, and it always works fine.
I will admit, I do not know jack about routers. Where do I start? Is this thing defective? I'd really like to get this thing to work (and maybe learn something about routers as well).
PK
