DG824M, MA401, MA521 (Netgear in general)

Name: pastyorf

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Product:	Netgear in general
Date:	09/05/04 (271 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Firewall, Lots of features, Good signal

Disadvantages: A bit expensive

You all know the problem. Two computers, 1 Internet connection. A basic cable (I started with serial in the old days), would trail over the house. That soon was replaced with a 10/100Mbit 25meter Ethernet (That actually got ruined, someone tripped on the cable and it tore the network cards and cable apart). Fortunately, we threw out the second older computer and did not need a network for a number of years.

Along came broadband to the village last winter (2003) and I wanted to use the broadband connection on my new laptop. So the only logical step was wireless.

I spent 10 days trawling the Internet for the best and lowest cost solution. Low cost in wireless is nearly non-existent. Low cost being under £50 for everything (ADSL modem, wireless router/network hub). So the best option was for an integrated Wireless Modem router. Or for you who know your netgear gear, the DG824M.

Its sleek, stylish and isn?t too large. At about 25cm by 14cm back and 3 cm up, it can be placed out of sight easily or on a high shelf like mine is.

**The DG824M Stats** (£128)

802.11b 11Mbit/s max
4 port Ethernet
1 ADSL phone socket
1 Splitter
Automatic ADSL setup
13 channels
Trusted PC?s
128bit wep encryption
SSID
Built in Firewall
LAN IP setup changeable and able to assign certain Mac addresses to certain ip?s
Remote Management
Range of around 100 feet, or two joined houses. Place on high shelf away from metal.


It comes in a huge box and has instructions on how to connect it up, but if you?ve bought this your likely not to need the instructions.
It only takes 4 minutes to plug in. I have the main pc on Ethernet port 1 and the other two laptops on wireless.

After plugging it in for the very first time you will notice it appears to drop the connections on all ports, ADSL, wireless and Ethernet every 10 minutes or less. Leave the router plugged in for 3 days contin

uously to the mains. And it will sort its self out. It is a known problem my Netgear and it only occurs in the very first 3 days.

You can still setup the router though. As a default all settings are on the default IP, 192.168.0.1 and the instruction manual has the username and password, which aren't hard to guess, when in default mode.

Change the password and configure your ADSL settings. If you change idle time to 0 minutes, the router will keep the connection for days, if not months, until it is disconnected.

The rest of the setup depends on how paranoid and secure you wish the network to be.

This solution only covered the main computer and the modem though.

So I had to buy an MA401 (£26) and an MA521 (£22) wireless network cards. They are different because they discontinued the MA401 before I needed a second card.

They?re both 802.11b cards, the MA521 card offering a Netgear suit with which to configure the card. The MA401 has to be configured using windows configurations.

When its all connected the network works without any hitches. The longest I have kept the router on is 15 days and I turned it off because I needed a new IP.

Netgear I certainly a solution I recommend to people. The equipment works together, the service from the Netgear website is fast and helpful and the products are good value for money, even if the solution is £180 for 3 products.

Summary: