Netgear DG834 after a failed firmware upgrade

I just tried to upgrade the firmware on my Netgear DG834 V2. It failed. Since then I can't do anything with it. Even the reset switch on the rear panel seems to have no effect. When powered on, the power and test (the "tick") lights just flash intermittently.

Help. Any ideas please?

TIA, Mick W

http://kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/d102417.asp

Thanks Ade. I had already tried that. It often doesn't even produce a list of devices and even when it does list the router, the upgrade then fails with a message saying to turn the power off/on and try again. I've tried that several tiems but with no success. I've tried running it with more than one version of the firmware too. It never gets further then "Erasing EEEPROM" and 0% complete and then gives the failed message.

Any other ideas please?

Mick W

Any other ideas please?

Nope, other than hoping it's less than 12 months old, and you have a copy of the receipt or invoice.
Netgear are quite good at replacing stuff. I once got them to replace an old DG834Gv1 that only had a week left of its warranty, and had been fried by a lightning strike a few doors away (I obviously "forgot" to mention that, though).

Go buy a new router - in my case I'd avoid Netgear because I found their "support" "function" absolutely useless and badly described on both counts.

Which is how I ended up with a new router - The guy at tech support couldn't work out what had gone wrong (like I said, I "forgot" to mention the lightning strike), so he said "I'd better send you a new router"

Well after 53 days of going around in circles with Netgear's script monkeys, I eBayed it and all my other Netgear [censored] and bought another.....

TBH I think all "tech support" staff are useless.
I've never once managed to get an item of equipment working with the help of a support line (usually end up fixing it myself).

I once went through an hour on the 'phone to a Dell "technical" support person. I started off telling him I thought the problem was with the motherboard, and after an hour of him insisting I take out each piece of hardware (one at a time), and swapping about stuff (and at each step, I said "how will that help, I've already told you it's the motherboard"), he finally said "your motherboard has failed, I'll get a returns authorisation for you". Idiots!

Not an experience I've had with 3Com - in fact in 2 weeks they got me a beta release of firmware that fixed my problem - nor with (much to my amazement BT) who answered my pre-sales questions by return of email with comprehensive answers.

Netgear's support kept saying I'll escalate to level 2 support, but level 2 never arrived..... and in fact the issue was resolved by ditching the Netgear.

Don't you just love companies that are so script-bound that they can't recognise when someone has done all the obvious things, leaving just one possibility? I once spent three months convincing Evesham that I had an intermittent fault on a notebook mobo which was triggered by temperature. Eventually they conceded and Mitac (it was a badged Mitac machine) concurred with my diagnosis and swapped the motherboard. Why do we have to fight so hard to get things done these days?