DLS line dropping, Netgear DG834PN RangeMax

Hi,

Recently lightning struck the neighbours house, and the power surge killed my good old DG834 v1 router. I am (was?) very pleased with the performance and reliability of the router, so I bought a Netgear DG834PN RangeMax router.
I set it up with the same settings as the old router and everything works fine, except the DLS line appears to drop or not reinitialise after a time of no traffic. When I log onto the router, I still have an IP address (DHCP) and the WAN stats shows the link as still up? When I reboot the router everything is fine. I have tried to tweak some settings but to no avail.

Anyone else experienced the same problem? Cheers.

Hi Ken.

uncannily enough I'm experiencing pretty much exactly the same problem. Am really sorry though... I don't have a fix (as yet).

I've tried the firmware update... and if anything I think that made it worse.

All I can tell you is that from telnet stats... and the stats available via the web interface... my noise margin is fine (D30 U28) and my attenuation is pretty low(D15.5 U9.5)

I am on a fixed 2MB connection though (i.e. no MAX).

What adsl package are you on... and what are your line details (i.e. speeds, attenuation, noise margin)?

I have been playing with the telnet mode settings (I'm not particularly familiar with the commands but there seem to be a range of modes that you can set the modem to, depending on what ADSL connection you have... i.e. adsl 1, 2, 2+, etc). It is just conceivable that you're perhaps running in the wrong mode... but I doubt it... as I think the router may well choose the appropriate mode to start in, unless you manually change it... and that change only seems to last until a reboot... but this is just speculation. I can tell you how to go about telneting, if you want to try and don't know how to.

I can also confirm that range and coverage are both WORSE than my previous DG834G... despite Netgear stating categorically that the PN will enhance existing hardware (so note I'm not using RangeMax adaptors).

My ISP's NewNet and I've raised a ticket about this problem of ours... but haven't heard back from them yet... so if anything good comes from it, I'll naturally pass it on. It's a shame I've not got another DG834PN to just do a quick swapover with...

One thing I have heard is that range, etc can be improved by have the unit vertical, rather than horizontal... but I'm not tried it myself yet. Will have a go tomorrow though...


Cheers,

Gary

Hi Gary. I'm just back from holiday so sorry about the late reply.

Let's see, this is the current details for my line:
ISP: 186k UK (Tiscaly really), 1MB, no MAX
Attenuation: 38.0/19.5
Noice Margin: 22.5/27.0 (hmmm)

I have raised a ticket with Netgear, and I was given a beta firmware to try out. Unfortunately this dropped the wifi all the time so I had to revert back to the latest production version.

I would say that the wifi range appear to be slightly better, at least the same as my old 834G. I have the router standing vertically in my 1st floor study.

I have not tried to change any other settings then what I can see using the web interface. You mention telnet to check/change adsl settings, maybe I should give that a try. Would you happen to know which port I connect to (23?)

Cheers
Ken

Hi Gazza,
I can't egt my DG834G to connect at ALL to Newnet - did you have to do anything beyond what they said in the email?
I don't suppose you have a dump of the .cfg file I could look at do you?
Thanks....Richard