Very easy to set up - I printed out 19 pages of instructions on setting up a router from my ISP's website, but the Netgear DG834G configured itself in a few seconds! All I had to do was plug all the connections in, install the setup software and drivers from the accompanying CD, and type in my ISP user name and password.

I also bought a Netgear WG511 wi-fi card for my wife's laptop, and that was even easier to set up - it automatically detected the wireless connection and set itself up. Transmission speeds are consistently 100% (54mbps) from anywhere in the house.

The only problem I had was caused by a new digital cordless phone set that I stupidly installed the same day. A phone call would crash the ADSL modem in the DG834G, but an additional microfilter solved the problem.

Once you're up and running, I'd definitely recommend changing the router setup password, restricting connections by MAC address, changing the routers SSID name, and preventing it from broadcasting it's SSID name - all very easy to do with the setup utility. If you're worried about sensitive data being transmitted, invoke the 128 bit WEP encryption too.

I'd go as far as saying that the Netgear DG834G can avert a divorce - now that we can share our ADSL connection wirelessly!

Just a word to praise Amazon also - I ordered a lot of kit over the Christmas/New Year period on the Free delivery offer, and all of it arrived within 2 working days of my orders.


Setup in minutes   August 23, 2004
175 out of 182 found this review helpful

I do not see why people are saying this is hard to setup. I bought this to replace my Speedtouch 330 USB modem and to be able to network computers a lot easier.

I bought this along with a Netgear WG511 PCMCIA card, a few months ago and I have had no problems. The router did become faulty, but Netgear replaced it free of charge under the 90 day warranty.

I have BT Yahoo! Broadband with 2 PC's and my Xbox (for Xbox Live) connecting via wired connections to it, and a laptop on wireless.

I would say that within 10 minutes all was up and running. And te longest process of the setup was installing the drivers and software for the laptop.

All you need to do for wired connections is configure your ethernet card to TCP/IP (don't worry, this is a lot more straight forward than you might think).

1) For a computer running on Windows XP you need to open up the network connections and right click on the connection that you are connecting through.
2) Right click on this and select proporties, and then slect Internet ProtocolTCP/IP from the list, and proporties of this.
3) in the window that opens, you want to make sure that both IP and DNS are set to automatic.
4) Apply all the settings and you should be able to connect to the router.
5) Open internet explorer and type in the address bar http://192.168.0.1 Then type in the defualt username: admin and password: passsword to enter the router setup.
6) The router will now be able to automatically detect your internet settings and all that is required is to enter your username and password for your internet service and the rest is done.
7) When it has done this, click connect and you will be able to access the internet.

If you require wireless, this is enabled by default, so any wireless card should be able to detect your network.

I hope this helps anyone with any problems, the setup leaflet provided outlines most of this as well.

Believe me, this process will take no more than 5 mins and you will be on the internet a lot quicker than you thought.

As I mentioned before, i use this router for Xbox Live, so anyone wanting this for Live go for it. I have never had a single problem with it, once you have set it up, you plug in your xbox and it will connect instantly.

On a final note, those that are experiencing problems with this, AOL broadband is known for being difficult to work with and network. My recommendation would either be BT Yahoo! Broadband because of the good costomer support and recent price drops however be aware that for heavy users, as of sometime in 2005, BT are introducing bandwidth capping of 15gb/month for the 512kb service and 30GB/month for the 1mb service. For the average user however, this should not pose any problems.

Hope this helped!!


Great piece of kit, recommended.   September 28, 2006
M. Watson (Thame, OXON United Kingdom)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful

Did quite a bit of research before buying this router.After nearly a month I have to say I'm very pleased with it.
I'm on AOL and had no problems using the AOL wizard. Set-up did take an hour as the asdl filter supplied was defective ( that took 50 mins to diagnose by process of elimination), just used a spare I had.
If you are on AOL don't forget to go into the router settings page (WAN setup)and change the MTU setting to 1400.

I have networked two laptops and a desktop which took an hour or two to sort out completely. No problems in nearly a month of continuous operation, very good or excellent signal in every part of our modern , largish semi, and to the bottom of the 60 foot garden.
WPA encryption very easy to set up.

As other have said the router does perform as an excellent firewall too with useful site blocking functionality, although it could do with being a bit more flexible with dates, times etc.

Regarding file and printer sharing : just make sure that each PC in the workgroup has a different name but shares the same network name ( defaults to MSHOME on Windows XP home edition).
I had a lot of trouble getting my PC's to see each other until I tracked the problem down to the MacAfee software firewall I was running. Disable it and all works fine.I have tested the efficiency of the router itself as a firewall without the software firewall running and there is no difference.
I'm a bit sceptical about "set up in 10 mins" claims because for me to settle everything down including file sharing was about 2 or 3 hours in total, but I am not a computer expert, far from it.Quite a bit of that time was down to the faulty asdl filter and the file sharing problem.
So overall, very pleased, makes life one hell of a lot easier.It is great being able to work on the laptop downstairs and print remotely on the printer hardwired to the upstairs desktop. Very liberating.


Update Aug 2008: Still delighted with it !