NETGEAR WNDR4000 N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router Reviewed

[Unregistered]

The 2011 MacBook Pro's are three stream and work in that manner with the latest Airport Extreme.

http://bit.ly/eewsgc

 

[hceuterpe]

Already did that when the manufacturer provided a complete solution. I haven't seen much

I am investigating the change. Got any tips for finding notebooks that support three-stream N?

This is what I tried telling you last year, thiggins over the DIR-665 review.

The 5300 is certified as a 2-stream product. It always has been. It has NEVER to this date been re-certified as a 3-stream product. The 6300 product on the other hand, is certified as a 3-stream product and always has been.

5300:
http://certifications.wi-fi.org/pdf_certificate.php?cid=WFA7975

6300:
http://certifications.wi-fi.org/pdf_certificate.php?cid=WFA9520
HP's 6300 version (probably whitelisted to HP systems):
http://certifications.wi-fi.org/pdf_certificate.php?cid=WFA9632


I wouldn't be surprised that, when Intel advertised the 5300 as 450Mbps, they were probably claiming with some sort of dual-band concurrent setup instead of truly 3-stream. You can't accurately test the speed performance of a 3-stream router with a card that's only certified as 2-stream. That's not fair.

Ideally any laptop with a 6300 card should suffice. The 6300 cards were released along with the 50 series mobile chipsets and the Arrandale dual-core chips @ CES 2010. My Thinkpad T410 has a 6300 card, with 3 antenna behind the screen. If I recall, you added a 5300 into that netbook of yours after you bought. Unless you disassembled the screen and you added that third antenna with the same gain and design properties, that'll skew the test even more. If I recall, you just jammed a rubber duck antenna onto the side, no? Antenna placement, if I recall is far more crucial with 3+ stream WiFi as it's not just horizontal/vertical anymore.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the information, hceuterpe. I'm looking into getting a 6300-based notebook.

I've never claimed that my three-stream tests with the jury-rigged antenna were truly representative of three-stream performance. The only proper three-stream test results are in the TRENDnet TEW-687GA review.

You can't accurately test the speed performance of a 3-stream router with a card that's only certified as 2-stream. That's not fair.

My tests of three-stream capable routers with a two-stream client are fair and accurate representation of the router's two-stream performance. That is how they are described and presented.

When I start three-stream product testing, those results will be presented as different benchmarks.

 

[hceuterpe]

Thanks for the information, hceuterpe. I'm looking into getting a 6300-based notebook.

I've never claimed that my three-stream tests with the jury-rigged antenna were truly representative of three-stream performance. The only proper three-stream test results are in the TRENDnet TEW-687GA review.

My tests of three-stream capable routers with a two-stream client are fair and accurate representation of the router's two-stream performance. That is how they are described and presented.

When I start three-stream product testing, those results will be presented as different benchmarks.

You don't need to go so far as to buy a whole another laptop. A 6300 card is about $32-35. A pair of Tyco internal wireless antennas with coaxial cable and connector are $7 on our favorite auction site. Those basically get crammed into every laptop that doesn't have "poles" sticking out. You could just as easily tape 3 antenna of the 4 antenna on the outside half, the side adjacent to the laptop screen and swapout the 5300 for the 6300. It's less than $50 (card and 2 pairs of antennas). It's also a very close to a real-world test as you are testing with basically the same internal antennas placed about where they should be, and assuming the manufacturer didn't do something stupid like lining one side in aluminum (which some mistakenly do). If you're adventurous you can disassemble the half with the LCD panel and physically re-wire that 3rd antenna to effectively make a real world test. But it's easier to mount the antenna externally.

In terms of 3-stream, the moment you state "3-stream" router, you imply you are testing the 3-stream speeds of said router. I'd say you're going to be more credible if you admit that. Don't weasel out of it saying you're only testing 2-stream after the fact, especially when you claim some manufacturers don't provide anything extra to new 3-stream products. It's like testing race cars, but setting a speed limit of 60mph.

I've read reports that the E4200 and the WNDR4000 can max out @ 140-150Mbps in REAL WORLD tests on a single transmission on a 6300 (not aggregate). That's pretty close to 33% rated speed per stream, and even the same ratio of typical 802.11g 54Mbps speeds.

 

[sangreal]

I've had issues with my WNDR4000 dropping ports down to 10M half or full duplex for seemingly no reason until I restart it. Anyone else have this issue or know if there is a setting somewhere to manually set the ports? Caused quite a problem when it dropped my WAN port since I have a 45mbit connection...

 

[hceuterpe]

I've had issues with my WNDR4000 dropping ports down to 10M half or full duplex for seemingly no reason until I restart it. Anyone else have this issue or know if there is a setting somewhere to manually set the ports? Caused quite a problem when it dropped my WAN port since I have a 45mbit connection...

Where did your ethernet cables come from? Could be they are of low quality...

 

[sangreal]

Where did your ethernet cables come from? Could be they are of low quality...

I'll look into trying other cables, but I don't think that is the problem. I haven't had issues with other routers, and this has happened across multiple ports on the wndr4000 using different cables. They're all CAT6 for what it is worth.

 

[stevech]

Where did your ethernet cables come from? Could be they are of low quality...

Very Unlikely.

 

[claykin]

Where did your ethernet cables come from? Could be they are of low quality...

I'm guessing firmware bug.

 

[cc666]

Adapter

I have a 2 year old Asus gaming computer. I went on Amazon and purchased
the 6300 for 35 dollars, poped it in (has 3 antennas) and I now connect at
450 mps with the Netgear WNDR 4000.

I can tell you from experience the 4000 is better than the E-4200. I returned 2 E-4200 because of slow down in time that only a reboot would rectify. I have the WNDR 4000 running now 15 days without a reboot and NO slow down. Flawless.

Also the E-4200 just feals cheap compared to the 4200. The following is my measurments WNDR 3700 v1 vs WNDR4000. All I did was switch the routers, did not move any computers, location exactly the same. These tests were before I put in the 6300:

File Transfers downloading and uploading same file (1.25 gb file) avg 10 runs
3700 - 87 mps avg Download
4000 - 119 mps avg Download

3700 - 74 mps avg upload
4000 - 82 mps avg upload

All tested with same Asus computer on 5.0 GHZ. Router upstairs - computer location down 1 floor and to far left of home.

After installing the 6300 the connection was 450 and speed went to 140 mps.

Here is a screenshot of my connection for the non believers.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AQ0JLJRM

Charlie C

 

[claykin]

I have a 2 year old Asus gaming computer. I went on Amazon and purchased
the 6300 for 35 dollars, poped it in (has 3 antennas) and I now connect at
450 mps with the Netgear WNDR 4000.

I can tell you from experience the 4000 is better than the E-4200. I returned 2 E-4200 because of slow down in time that only a reboot would rectify. I have the WNDR 4000 running now 15 days without a reboot and NO slow down. Flawless.

Also the E-4200 just feals cheap compared to the 4200. The following is my measurments WNDR 3700 v1 vs WNDR4000. All I did was switch the routers, did not move any computers, location exactly the same. These tests were before I put in the 6300:

File Transfers downloading and uploading same file (1.25 gb file) avg 10 runs
3700 - 87 mps avg Download
4000 - 119 mps avg Download

3700 - 74 mps avg upload
4000 - 82 mps avg upload

All tested with same Asus computer on 5.0 GHZ. Router upstairs - computer location down 1 floor and to far left of home.

After installing the 6300 the connection was 450 and speed went to 140 mps.

Here is a screenshot of my connection for the non believers.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AQ0JLJRM

Charlie C

What are you trying to show in your screenshot? The link speed sure shows 405Mb/s which is good and indicates it sees your 3 stream connection.

The bandwidth meter in the lower right for one doesn't say what its measuring and isn't very clear on speed (they used all lower case characters) so are we reading MB/s or Mb/s.... Anyway, it sure looks like you got 3.16MB/s download which is the same as 25.25Mb/s. Not really fast.

 

[cc666]

Claykin

Claykin
The only thing I was illustrating is showing is the 450 mps connection.

The bandwidth monitor is not what I am showing as thats just
indicating internet traffic and not the speed downloads I have
documented.

Charlie C

 

[claykin]

Claykin
The only thing I was illustrating is showing is the 450 mps connection.

The bandwidth monitor is not what I am showing as thats just
indicating internet traffic and not the speed downloads I have
documented.

Charlie C

Can you share real throughput with us? My WNDR3700 on 2.4 and 5Ghz bands will connect @ 300Mb/s but my max sustained throughput is about 7.5MB/s. I can peak close to 10MB/s but thats for very short bursts.

I was kinda hoping I could get 10MB/s sustained but that seems like a pipe dream.

I've tried using the following and all had the same end result

WNDR3700V1
WNDR3700V2
DIR-825B1 (also w/DD-WRT) - This router never got above 4MB/s sustained

Intel 6200
Intel 6205
Atheros XSPAN 2x2

 

[Josh42]

I just returned a WNDR4000 after three days of use.

The issue I had was repeated drops of clients on the 2.4Ghz range. This included an X41, Toshiba and a Samsung TV. If I waited 5-10 minutes or rebooted the router the devices could connects again. Unfortunately, I was unwilling to live with that issue and nervous about trying a second unit.

The same drops do not happen with the DIR-655 I was replacing.

I just got this wireless router and am having the same issues. I'm wondering if it's a setup issue or a router bug?

I have a 2.5ghz private network with AES (and a guest network running on the 2.5 as well) as well as another network running on the 5.0 (which is really annoying to have 3 different networks when people ask me which one to connect to).

But I constantly have to update settings in order for people to be able to sustain a connection to the router.

 

[hceuterpe]

I agree

You should take a screen shot of a file transfer from WLAN to LAN. Connection speed is mostly meaningless when making a claim of how fast your WLAN connection really is. Make one computer wireless to another (wired). Let the transfer stabilize then take a screenshot of the file transfer window (if you're running 7, otherwise don't bother). Include the networking tab of the task manager with its graphs.

Don't try this with the USB drive, though. Especially if it's NTFS formatted.

 

[Unregistered]

Drops on 2.5ghz

WNDR 4000 in Canada that also drops connections to all devices connected via 2.5 after the firmware update. 5ghz works without any drops. Have to physically turn off power to restore connections.

 

[MarkDGaal]

I by no means know of the "proper" way to test Wireless LAN throughput, but I would like to contribute to this discussion. Below is a screenshot of a test right after installing the router last night. Note the 22MB per/sec; this is transferring multiple files via Samba protocol connected to only the 5ghz band using a Macbook. (transferring a single file resulted in 15MB per/sec) FYI this is using WPA2+AES. This is through 2 walls 25 feet away and I have yet to experience a drop using the 5ghz radio.

 

[insertrealname]

Updated information on 5300 certification

This is what I tried telling you last year, thiggins over the DIR-665 review.

The 5300 is certified as a 2-stream product. It always has been. It has NEVER to this date been re-certified as a 3-stream product. The 6300 product on the other hand, is certified as a 3-stream product and always has been.

5300:
http://certifications.wi-fi.org/pdf_certificate.php?cid=WFA7975

The 5300 seems to have been recertified on June 1, 2011 as a 3 stream device; the link to the updated certificate document remains the same.

 

[Unregistered]

Voltage

Hi,
could you guys in the US, who already own WNDR4000, check the power adapter rating? Is it rated 120-220V or 120V only?

I live in Singapore (we use 220v here) and planning to purchase the router from the US, so this is kinda important to me.

Thanks

Yes it does got one 2 months back

 

[njweb]

I have a 2 year old Asus gaming computer. I went on Amazon and purchased
the 6300 for 35 dollars, poped it in (has 3 antennas) and I now connect at
450 mps with the Netgear WNDR 4000.

I can tell you from experience the 4000 is better than the E-4200. I returned 2 E-4200 because of slow down in time that only a reboot would rectify. I have the WNDR 4000 running now 15 days without a reboot and NO slow down. Flawless.

Also the E-4200 just feals cheap compared to the 4200. The following is my measurments WNDR 3700 v1 vs WNDR4000. All I did was switch the routers, did not move any computers, location exactly the same. These tests were before I put in the 6300:

File Transfers downloading and uploading same file (1.25 gb file) avg 10 runs
3700 - 87 mps avg Download
4000 - 119 mps avg Download

3700 - 74 mps avg upload
4000 - 82 mps avg upload

All tested with same Asus computer on 5.0 GHZ. Router upstairs - computer location down 1 floor and to far left of home.

After installing the 6300 the connection was 450 and speed went to 140 mps.

Here is a screenshot of my connection for the non believers.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AQ0JLJRM

Charlie C

I am sorry your experience with the E4200 was not good, although you seemed to like it originally...

My Linksys / Cisco E4200 has been flawless - no dropouts (5 or more months so far without a reboot) and perfect pingtest.net test results.
I do see several people posting here about wireless dropouts with the Netgear WNDR4000, however, which I did not see in the E4200 thread.
Add to that the fact the E4200 came out ahead in Tim's tests overall and I will stick with my E4200.

The E4200 also looks better, but I just consider that a bonus.
If the WNDR4000 were better than the E4200 I would get the Netgear, regardless of looks.