Netgear WGT634U

Started by Mantorok, July 15, 2005, 12:59:40 PM

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pvogel

QuoteHey There...

I understand that once you flash the Netgear, you cannot put the original firmware on. But what happens when you update your ice/netgear firmware? Will I be able to load that.??

I am also not clear on one point. Am I able to load small files to the Toppy? As in new taps etc.

Wayne.

Yes, the firmware can subsequently be upgraded from our website

You can also load new files up to 6MB through the browser-based file manager

Peter

mexiwi

This is not a good solution I was unable to make it work with my wireless network.

I originally bought a refurbished WGT634U off eBay, flashed the ICE firmware okay but it bricked on me without ever working, probably due to bad flash memory - my punt on eBay.

Bought a new Aus unit and flashed the firmware and it never once connected to my wireless network, I was able to plug it into my laptop LAN port and change the wireless settings to no avail, WEP or no WEP, SSID or not. I opened my network completely, SSID not hidden, no MAC access control, no security - no WEP key in ICE setup, SSID and no SSID specified, nothing. If a product won't connect to an open network then it must be flawed.

Nice try but please wake me when there is a decent product available - lucky I only got a Trial ICE membership.

pvogel

If you'd like to send us the Netgear we can test it for you at no charge.  If there is a problem with our firmware we'd like to see what it is.

Peter Vogel
CTO IceTV

mexiwi

QuoteIf you'd like to send us the Netgear we can test it for you at no charge.  If there is a problem with our firmware we'd like to see what it is.

That would have been good but unfortunately the unit has been put to death. Now residing in my wheelie bin in a number of bits.

delbz

Some anger management required? ???

My unit off Ebay is working perfectly. It is connecting to another Netgear Internet router with 128bit WEP. Even if mine failed I would have asked for some advice before breaking it.

mexiwi

QuoteSome anger management required? ???

Quite possibly, I once had a PS2 fail in similar circumstances during a GT3 licence test, I bought a wheel with the neaxt PS2 and it didn't break once.

QuoteEven if mine failed I would have asked for some advice before breaking it.

Yeah - but I'd already been thru all the suggestions made when my first one bricked. I couldn't even get it connecting to an open network, that smacks of incompatibility and I was mighty pissed off.

peteru

Wireless networking can have many compatibility issues, both new and older equipment. The only way to resolve them in many situations is to keep things as simple as possible and use a systematic approach to eliminate one thing at a time. This can be very time consuming and frustrating and is one of the reasons why the ICE firmware is as simple as possible. Every network connection has at least two end points and unfortunately the AP end point is a big complicated unknown quantity in most cases.

In your case, the inability to connect to an open network sounds a lot like there may be MAC address filtering enabled on your AP. Of course, it could be any number of other things.

Either way, it's always a good idea to report problems to the manufacturer. Even if the manufacturer can not help you on the spot, they can become aware of any potential issues and improve the product in the future.

Half the effort of fixing a problem is reproducing it and identifying the cause. Yes, it is more effort to post the router to someone and have it examined, but at least there is a chance of having the problem fixed. I doubt that your rubbish bin will be much help.  ;)

mexiwi

QuoteIn your case, the inability to connect to an open network sounds a lot like there may be MAC address filtering enabled on your AP. Of course, it could be any number of other things.

My initial configuration was with MAC filtering enabled, I added the 2 MAC addresses on the bottom of the unit and then during setup I noticed a third MAC address in the status page in the icebox interface so added that too.

My normal network configuration is SSID hidden, MAC filtering on and WPA-PSK.

I had the initial conditions for this one as SSID Hidden, MAC Filtering on with the 3 Icebox associated MACs in there, and "WEP or WPA-PSK" security. WEP kep was the example WEP 128bit HEX just copied straight from my router management page into router and icebox setup page.

After initial failure I went to WEP only on the router.

Next no security on router and deleted the icebox key.

Next MAC filtering off.

Next SSID un-hidden.

Next SSID deleted from icebox.

Next flying lessons.

Shits me that it didn't work but I can see I'm going to end up getting another one and dammit I want it to work.

I'll make sure I skip the flying lessons if I try it again.

peteru

QuoteMy initial configuration was with MAC filtering enabled, I added the 2 MAC addresses on the bottom of the unit and then during setup I noticed a third MAC address in the status page in the icebox interface so added that too.
Ignore the MAC addresses printed on the box. Instead, go to the "Device Status" page, where you will find MAC addresses for both the wired and wireless interface. You only need the one for wireless.

QuoteMy normal network configuration is SSID hidden, MAC filtering on and WPA-PSK.
Paranoia mode. ;) Nothing wrong with that - if it works. When it doesn't, you can relax a few of these settings to troubleshoot the problems, without making your network insecure.

If you have hidden SSID, you will have to specify it exactly in the icebox web interface. Keep in mind that the SSID is case sensitive and that it should not have any leading or trailing whitespace. To be on the safe side, keep it to alphanumerics with no spaces or punctuation. Something like "My1stHiddenNetwork" is good, but "My #1 network!" is not the best choice.

WPA-PSK is not supported right now. Main reason is poor interoperability between various vendor implementations.

QuoteI had the initial conditions for this one as SSID Hidden, MAC Filtering on with the 3 Icebox associated MACs in there, and "WEP or WPA-PSK" security. WEP kep was the example WEP 128bit HEX just copied straight from my router management page into router and icebox setup page.
That sounds almost right. I find that various vendors have varying levels of compatibility with "WEP and WPA-PSK" mode. Most of the time it does not work properly, especially with mixed networks that have WEP only as well as WPA-PSK TKIP and WPA2 AES clients.

QuoteAfter initial failure I went to WEP only on the router.
I'd suggest the following approach:

Start with the AP configured for:
* MAC filtering - OFF
* WEP - 128-bit key in hex
* Broadcast SSID - ON
* DHCP server - ON

Icebox wireless settings:
* Enabled - ON
* ESSID - blank
* WEP key - 128 bit key in hex
* Address - blank (use DHCP)
* Default gateway - blank (obtained via DHCP)
* DNS server - blank (obtained via DHCP)

That should be the easiest to get working, without making your network insecure.

Assuming that this configuration works, you can further enhance your security by enabling the following features one at a time:

* Specify ESSID on the icebox and turn SSID broadcasts OFF on the AP.
* Enter icebox MAC address in AP access list and enable MAC filtering on the AP.

I'd expect things to work up to this point.

Other adventures you can try, however you are likely to encounter problems:

* Mixed WEP / WPA-PSK mode
* Afterburner / SuperG / Turbo modes
* WDS

This isn't really an issue with any particular product, it's just the current state of the wireless marketplace. Each chipset vendor has different ideas on how to get the most performance out of their product. As soon as you start using anything new, compatibility ends up going out the window. WEP is fairly well understood, WPA is a disaster zone, WPA2 / 802.1x is not mature enough to be properly supported by most vendors.

Good luck with it, I'm sure you'll get it working.

peteru

Just thought of another few things.

1. Physical position with respect to the AP.

When I got my first lot of wireless equipment, I wasted about 40 minutes trying to get things going. As it turned out, my AP was almost directly above the client and the two devices were within each other's blind zone.

Ensure that both devices are at the same height and at least 1-2m from each other. Both antennae should be as vertical as you can get them - ideally parallel to each other.


2. Routing loops.

Once you configure your wireless network properly, you may end up with both the wired and wireless networks connected at the same time. Depending on the exact setup of your home network, this could present issues related to routing loops. The fix is simple. Wait about 30 seconds, power down the icebox, unplug the wired network and power on the icebox. Wait another 60 seconds, then check the web interface of your AP to see if the icebox is on the network.


3. Firewalls and proxies.

Always a good idea to check that there isn't something else in the way, like a firewall rule or a caching proxy.

mexiwi

QuoteIf you have hidden SSID, you will have to specify it exactly in the icebox web interface. Keep in mind that the SSID is case sensitive and that it should not have any leading or trailing whitespace. To be on the safe side, keep it to alphanumerics with no spaces or punctuation. Something like "My1stHiddenNetwork" is good, but "My #1 network!" is not the best choice.

Yeah - my SSID was "Brendan's LAN" which worked fine with my laptop, was changed to "BrendanLAN" for the second attempt.

QuoteOnce you configure your wireless network properly, you may end up with both the wired and wireless networks connected at the same time. Depending on the exact setup of your home network, this could present issues related to routing loops. The fix is simple. Wait about 30 seconds, power down the icebox, unplug the wired network and power on the icebox. Wait another 60 seconds, then check the web interface of your AP to see if the icebox is on the network.

I thought that may have been an issue with my first one so the second time I used a direct connection to my laptop which had it's wireless disabled and was isolated from the network.

How long should it take for the unit to succesfully negotiate a connection? At one stage after I changed the settings page it came up with a green band and "associated with network BrendanLAN" but on the status page it said the wireless failed. But that only happened once. Can it take a while for the dhcp to allocate an ip?

I did also try specifying a fixed ip with the second unit via telnet into the DHCP server of my router. But no good so I deleted that.

Quote1. Physical position with respect to the AP.

A lot of the time the unit was sitting beside the AP on my desk when I was trying to set it up. When connected to the toppy it's about 5m away thru a wall.

Might take my laptop out to the lounge and try setup from there with a bit of distance.

Hmm - I can definately see I will be going out and buying yet another one this weekend.

One thing I will do is download the ICE firmware again to make sure that isn't corrupted. How long should a restart of the ICEd unit take, the normal Netgear firmware took a minute or two to initialise, the ICEd one seemed to start within a few seconds (power light goes from yellow to green) - does that sound about right?

mexiwi

[size=36]SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!![/size]

Thanks peteru

IceBox mkIII is now connected and working.

Set up exactly as you said above

QuoteStart with the AP configured for:
* MAC filtering - OFF
* WEP - 128-bit key in hex
* Broadcast SSID - ON
* DHCP server - ON

Icebox wireless settings:
* Enabled - ON
* ESSID - blank
* WEP key - 128 bit key in hex
* Address - blank (use DHCP)
* Default gateway - blank (obtained via DHCP)
* DNS server - blank (obtained via DHCP)

And worked first time.

The other things I did were:
- Re-downloaded the Ice firmware
- Changed my wireless channel to 1 (was on 6 and neighbour has an open network on 11)
- Turned my neighbours SSID off (tee hee, but they shouldn't have it unsecured)

Now to play with it for a couple of days.

gomax

 Hi All

My experience with setting up WGT634U (WasGonnaThrow634metresUpwind):

1. Tried to flash IceTV, page error on browser.
2. Tried to flash Netgear firmware from 1.4.1.5 to .10, same result.
3. Reset router, nothing but power light flashed from orange to green continuously, left off for a week.
4. Searched on google for answer.
5. Found on on Netgear forum http://forum1.netgear.com/support/viewtopic.php?t=7406&highlight=wgt634u
6. Successfully flashed .5 to .9 Yippeeee!
7. Successfully flashed IceTV firmware.
8. Setup router using defaults from IceTV howto.
9. Connected to IceTV servers.
10.Data transferred wirelessly to Toppy.
It's not where ya come from, it's where ya at !

recur

So what Ice have effectively done is knobble a quite useful product and turned it into an application specific gateway?

Why would providing the ability to reflash the unit back to a NetGear image be too tough to provide?

I've seen Optus make this possible with dumber devices (DLink DSL300), where they just replaced the web front end for the box, but left the original content available so if you knew the right URLs you could still access the material.

I've just bought a Netgear WGT634U through one of our distributors to have a tinker with. They seem to have 40 odd of these in stock still, wholesale buy price is about $155.

I'll see how it goes with the Toppie, but I'm less than impressed about having to run a separate bridge in the lounge room for the XBox, PS2 and my receiver, when this NetGear unit could have done the job of both units.

We don't need the routing functionality on the unit, just bridging the LAN ports to the wireless interface would have more than sufficed.

Hopefully this stuff will get ironed out when / if a dev kit for this gets released.

pvogel

The Netgear firmware was not easy to work with. and it cost us a small fortune to get the functionality we have.

The open source will be released any day now. There were some bits that we would have liked that Netgear could not get for us.

There are a number of improvements to the icebox, including the one you mentioned, that would be great to see.   I hope the open source developers will be able to help out!

Peter Vogel
CTO IceTV