NETGEAR WNDR3700 Reviewed

[thiggins]

Cisco is well overdue to release a revised (610n v2?) competitor to this.
Will be interesting to see how it compares...

As discussed on this thread, which I know you have read, jalyst, the 610 V2 is a cost reduction version. I would be very surprised if there were a peformance improvement.

Give the "I hope the 610n v2 is better" theme a rest, willya?

 

[jalyst]

There's no need to be antagonistic...

If you look at the timing of the post you've just addressed & my one in the thread you cite...
You'll note that i came to the realisation after the one in this thread that the improvement will be marginal at best.

And irrespective of it being purely a cost reduction I've no doubt most people would be curious about how well it operates.
But whether it gets reviewed or not is of course up to you, as you're the only game in town... ;-)

 

[Delekhan]

Good evening (at least over here in Germany )

I bought the WNDR3700 two days ago and so far it is performing great with one exception - the web interface. It is the most crappy I have seen on a router.

Next step at your own risk!

So what to do? Take it apart and see what you can do. There are six TX9 screws of which four are hidden behind rubber feet. Screw them out and get to the PCB. There is a JP1 connector right next to the Atheros Core - the serial console.

Here is a pinout in case you need it:
1. Vcc
2. TxD
3. RxD
4. Gnd

WARNING: TTL level serial port! DO NOT use a normal serial cable!

What do we see? OpenWRT! I was surprised to see it since Vendors usually have their own Linux bundled together. Having OpenWRT should make it easier to get DD-WRT or something else running on the machine.

I have attached a bootlog in case somebody is interested. Feel free to distribute it in the *WRT forums or somewhere else.

-- Markus

 

[thiggins]

Very interesting. Thanks for the post!

 

[bluegrass]

Awesome find! It won't be long now......

 

[jalyst]

Yeah I was wondering how sparse/limited the web interface would be compared to your typical Linksys one (which is nothing special anyway).
You serious? OMG how lazy are vendors getting nowadays! This makes things a whole lot more interesting, thanks!

Good evening (at least over here in Germany )

I bought the WNDR3700 two days ago and so far it is performing great with one exception - the web interface. It is the most crappy I have seen on a router.

Next step at your own risk!

So what to do? Take it apart and see what you can do. There are six TX9 screws of which four are hidden behind rubber feet. Screw them out and get to the PCB. There is a JP1 connector right next to the Atheros Core - the serial console.

Here is a pinout in case you need it:
1. Vcc
2. TxD
3. RxD
4. Gnd

WARNING: TTL level serial port! DO NOT use a normal serial cable!

What do we see? OpenWRT! I was surprised to see it since Vendors usually have their own Linux bundled together. Having OpenWRT should make it easier to get DD-WRT or something else running on the machine.

I have attached a bootlog in case somebody is interested. Feel free to distribute it in the *WRT forums or somewhere else.

-- Markus

 

[Nivk]

I have bought this router for 110€ just 2 days ago. It is performing better then my wrt610n v1 in all locations so far, even in locations where I was wondering why I paid 150 for the Cisco.
Just wondering since I can't find it anywhere, is there a way to only let it accept wireless N devices? If I set it to "up to 300mbps" I can still connect with G devices..
I have to agree with what was said earlier the web interface isn't really anything to write home about.

 

[thiggins]

Just wondering since I can't find it anywhere, is there a way to only let it accept wireless N devices? If I set it to "up to 300mbps" I can still connect with G devices..

There is no N only mode.

 

[john4200]

incompatibility with Windows Vista?

I have a setup that is nearly identical to yours, with the WNDR3700, an Intel 5300 wifi half miniPCIe card in a Dell laptop (Studio 1737), but I am running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit, and you said you were running WinXP SP3.

I have the same router firmware as you specify in the article. I have the same Intel 5300 driver version.

I have set the Netgear WNDR3700 up to use WPA2-PSK [AES] for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. I triple-checked this, it is definitely WPA2-PSK [AES]. I also have both bands set "Up to 300 Mbps" and I selected channel 01 for 2.4 Ghz and channel 36 for 5 GHz, as you did in the article.

The problem is that I can only connect at 54 Mbps in either the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands (I select the SSID of the 5 GHz band, connect, get 54 Mbps, disconnect, select the SSID of the 2.4 GHz band, connect, get only 54 Mbps). I am only 10 feet away from the router, and the signal strength is "Excellent". I have tried fiddling with all the settings, and nothing I can do allows the connection to be reported above 54 Mbps as viewed in connection status. The Intel Pro Set utility also shows only up to 54 Mbps.

If that is not strange enough, I tried a TrendNet TEW-672GR configured to run at 5 GHz (it cannot do 2.4 / 5 GHz simultaneously, only one at a time) "green-field" and I immediately connected at 300 Mbps.

The only sense I can make of all of this is that the Intel 5300 Vista driver does not handshake properly with the Netgear WNDR3700, but the Intel 5300 XP driver is fine. Also, the Intel 5300 Vista driver seems to handshake fine with the TrendNet TEW-672GR in 5 GHz green-field mode.

 

[dkyeager]

I did order 2 of the wndr3700 and 1 wnda3100. Unfortunately they shipped the wnda3100 version 1 which could be incompatible with the wndr3700 (see http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=41842 ).

The other side of this story could be the improvements in wnda3100v2. Assuming my V1 was not just flakly, my site work showed wnda3100v2 sees other networks as having 15-20% greater signal strength and it also would select the 5ghz band in a more crowded 2.4ghz environment (same SSID). Where no other channels were present, it picked the 2.4ghz. v1 always picked 2.4ghz. I wonder if the wndr3300 would see improvements with the wnd13100v2. Or put another way, which wireless N dual band adapter provides the best performance with the least incompatibilty issues? And does that affect router selection?

PS: Minor cons: Cat 5 patch cable (may be techically correct given it is only 3 feet, but cat 6 would have been better marketing). The lights can be hard to see when the unit is wall mounted. The power cable into the wndr3700 also seems to easily disconnect (start to fall out).

 

[Unregistered]

2.4 bridge affects overall 802.11n speed?

The more I read, the more confusing it gets with all the bands.

My question(s):
I can set up a bridge with 2.4 GHz only, right? Will this be unaffected/unaccessible by 802.11n devices, i.e. forcing them to use the 5GHz only? If so, will the performance of the 802.11n devices be much affected by not being able to use the 2.4 GHz band?

In other words: Will it be faster to use the 2.4 band to bridge the two floors to the DSL access and have a "independent" 5GHz WLAN upstairs, or is it better to just let all the 802.11n devices connect to one WNDR3700 in the basement, using all available bands?

Would there be a speed difference if I swap the bands, i.e. 5GHz bridge and 2.4 WLAN? Meaning: Is there a big quality difference other than the 5 being less crowded?

Even rereading my questions confuses me. I hope and assume you understand better. Thanks!

The Olchemist

 

[thiggins]

The Intel drive defaults to not enabling 40MHz operation in 2.4GHz, but that would give you at least 130 Mbps link rate.

Does the setup work with no encryption?

I'd also reset the router to defaults and see what your connection rate is.

 

[thiggins]

I can set up a bridge with 2.4 GHz only, right? Will this be unaffected/unaccessible by 802.11n devices, i.e. forcing them to use the 5GHz only? If so, will the performance of the 802.11n devices be much affected by not being able to use the 2.4 GHz band?

Yes, you can set either radio to act as a bridge. Devices will not be able to connect if you check the Disable Wireless Client Association checkbox in the repeating setup.
Note, however, that not all client devices are dual-band. If they are, you will probably find reduced range using the 5 Ghz band.

In other words: Will it be faster to use the 2.4 band to bridge the two floors to the DSL access and have a "independent" 5GHz WLAN upstairs, or is it better to just let all the 802.11n devices connect to one WNDR3700 in the basement, using all available bands?

You may get higher throughput using 2.4GHz, since 5 GHz signals weaken more when going through ceilings and walls.

Would there be a speed difference if I swap the bands, i.e. 5GHz bridge and 2.4 WLAN? Meaning: Is there a big quality difference other than the 5 being less crowded?

If you live in an area with many neighboring networks, then you might get more usable bandwidth by using 5 GHz. But this might be offset by the reduced range of 5 GHz.

Only way to know is to experiment and see what is best for your situation.

 

[john4200]

The Intel drive defaults to not enabling 40MHz operation in 2.4GHz, but that would give you at least 130 Mbps link rate.

Does the setup work with no encryption?

I'd also reset the router to defaults and see what your connection rate is.

I reset to defaults and was able to connect at 130 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 300 Mbps at 5 GHz.

So then I went through all the settings I had used before, one-by-one, checking that I could still connect at 300 Mbps after making the change. Finally I found the culprit, under Advanced / QoS Setup:

Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multi-media) Settings (2.4GHz b/g/n)
Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multi-media) Settings (5GHz a/n)

I had disabled WMM for both bands during my original setup, since I don't need any QoS for my use. But factory default is to enable them. If they are disabled, the maximum connection rate is 54 Mbps. After I enable them again, I can connect at 300 Mbps. This looks like a bug in the WNDR3700 firmware, since I cannot think of any reasonable explanation for this behavior.

 

[thiggins]

I had disabled WMM for both bands during my original setup, since I don't need any QoS for my use. But factory default is to enable them. If they are disabled, the maximum connection rate is 54 Mbps. After I enable them again, I can connect at 300 Mbps. This looks like a bug in the WNDR3700 firmware, since I cannot think of any reasonable explanation for this behavior.

Yup. Sounds like a bug to me, too. I'll see what NETGEAR has to say.

 

[tipstir]

Tim,

No internal shots for router? I see a lot of hop la over it over the net.

Processor MIPS 680 MHz
RAM 64 MB
Flash Memory 8 MB

Still a draft N product

Also how is that the ports from WAN to LAN and LAN to WAN are greater than prior routers. Has the rules changed?

 

[thiggins]

No internal shots for router? I see a lot of hop la over it over the net.

Already had them in the preview.

Still a draft N product

Nope. All "draft" gear is grandfathered to "final".

Also how is that the ports from WAN to LAN and LAN to WAN are greater than prior routers.

Do you mean routing throughput?

 

[tipstir]

Already had them in the preview.

Didn't see this preview linked on the full review but thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

All "draft" gear is grandfathered to "final"[/URL].

So this means that all routers sold right now are Standard N. I only mentioned the draft N as most retailers show it as Draft N product still.

Yes throughput WAN to LAN and LAN to WAN.

 

[thiggins]

Didn't see this preview linked on the full review but thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Second word in the review.

So this means that all routers sold right now are Standard N. I only mentioned the draft N as most retailers show it as Draft N product still.

Yes. Retailers / packaging hasn't caught up yet.

Yes throughput WAN to LAN and LAN to WAN.

No difference in test procedure. The DIR-685 ranks higher. Higher performance is due to the Atheros processor.

 

[tipstir]

Second word in the review.

Yes. Retailers / packaging hasn't caught up yet.

No difference in test procedure. The DIR-685 ranks higher. Higher performance is due to the Atheros processor.

Doesn't the DIR-685 use Ralink RT2880F 2T3R and WNDR3700 uses Atheros. But in the prior routers these tend to start degrading or overheat. Ralink been pretty stable.