Netgear DG824M reliability problems

I have a DG824M with a number of PC clients connected on wireless and LAN (RJ45) cable.. I use XP and linux and sometimes work from home. My 2 boys use XP on their PC's and also download files using itunes and are heavy users of MSN messenger. I'm connected using the Zen ADSL 8 meg adjustable product. Downstream varies from 3.4 meg to less than 1 meg on some occasions. It appears that when the boys are using msn or downloading, the router slows down then hangs about every 2 hours, sometimes more freqently than that. I then have to reboot.

Yet I can VPN onto my work for 12 hours no problem until they start using the router, There is something about the apps they use that is hanging the router. Has anyone seen this before. I did drop the MTU to 1400 but ut still happens. The router can't take an MTU greater than it's default of of 1458. Is this instability something that happens to all routers (DLink, Belkin etc). I was planning to buy another router but only if that is the only way to solve the probem.

Bit of a long posting I know.

Netgear DG824M set up details are ...

ADSL Firmware Version 53050
Modem Status Connected
Connect Mode VC-BASED
Downstream Speed 2720 Kbps
Upstream Speed 448 Kbps
VPI 0
VCI 38

LAN MTU 1400 (was default 1458)

Thanks in advance.

Downstream varies from 3.4 meg to less than 1 meg on some occasions.

Any idea of your line stats (line attenuation & noise margin), as connection speeds shouldn't vary this much (unless the router is being affected by noise)?

You could try this.

Thanks for the quick reply. Here are the stats as reported by the router ...

Port WAN
Status ADSL
TxPkts 5291
RxPkts 6622
Collisions 0
Tx B/s 17
Rx B/s 10
Uptime 00:38:15

Not sure if this is what you are looking for. This data is on the uplink (ADSL) connection.

FYI I'm currently connected into the test socket on the master BT socket which I did after talking to Zen support. It seems to swing most at night. I don't have accurate stats to back that up though.

BTW, that link is excellent.

re getting stats.

I looked at one of your other postings and saw the the Routestats program. The RouteStats program cannot work with the older DG824M. I guess you are looking for signal to noise and attentuation info etc but the router does not report that - unlike the DG834 which I use at my parents house.

Does this mean you are unable to assist?

rgds

Barry

I guess you are looking for signal to noise and attentuation info etc but the router does not report that ............. Does this mean you are unable to assist?

Correct. Without line attenuation and noise margin figures to go with the connection speed data, it's not possible to make a judgement.
You've most likely got too much noise interfering with your DSL, but it's not possible to diagnose.

If you've already tried the steps I linked to in a previous post (about trying at the master socket, etc.) and that made little difference, there's not much else to be done until you can get a different router on the line, so the missing data can be obtained.

Is the problem with the actual synch speed varying or the actual download speeds (reported by speedtests) or the speed of wireless connections?

I used to notice this type of problem with my DG824m - particularly if you went to sites where there were many small connections (ASDA'a home shopping site was one that caused it), or tried to use MSN messenger for voice/video etc. when it was having an 'off-day'

What would happen would be something would trigger the router's 'Denial of Service' attack protection, which would block the IP address of the supposedly offending site which it sees as 'flooding' your connection.

You could see it was doing this by going into the router admin when the problem was occurring and checking the log page - if this is indeed your problem you would see a stream of blocked notices in there.

There was no way round this (that protection couldn't be switched off in the admin) it would just do it occasionally, and the only way was either to switch off/on or wait a few minutes when it would switch back to normal itself.

Maybe something similar happening with you - worth checking the log when the connection is causing problems...