| Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router |
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Model: MR814NA
Brand: Netgear
Manufacturer: Netgear
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 716
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Connect to a cable/DSL modem and get wired or wireless Internet access for all your computers
Compatible with most 802.11b wireless networking devices
Firewall, 128-bit Encryption, Parental controls
Smart Wizard automatically detects ISP type, Port Range Forwarding, Exposed Host (DMZ), URL Content Filtering, E-mail Alerts, and Wireless MAC Address Authentication
Compatible with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, Mac OS, NetWare, UNIX, and Linux |
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| Description: |
| The Model MR814 Wireless Router provides continuous, high-speed 11 Mbps access between your wireless and Ethernet devices. Also, the Model MR814 router enables your entire network to share an Internet connection through a cable modem or DSL modem that otherwise is used by a single PC. With minimum setup, you can install and use the router within minutes.The Model MR814 router provides multiple Web content filtering options, plus e-mail browsing activity reporting and instant alerts. Parents and network administrators can establish restricted access policies based on time-of-day, website addresses and address keywords, and share high-speed cable/DSL Internet access for up to 253 personal computers. Network Address Translation (NAT) protects you from hackers. |
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| User Reviews (716 total): |
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Good router, May 4, 2008
By Helard G. Ballon Hennings (Michigan, USA)
Excellent router that has served me without a hitch for 3 years. A G router has now replaced it, but I still use this as a backup and portable router.
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DON'T BUY NETGEAR!!!!!, March 14, 2008
By Netgearsucks (California)
If you buy anything from NetGear, you do it at your own risk. Their customer service is non-existant. I bought one a little over a year ago. It never worked right from the begining. They kept blaming my DSL service. Even when I told them I had no problem with the DSL connection when it was connected directly to the computer, they blamed the DSL provider. Now after exchanging emails (The only available customer service)for 4 days, they finally admit that the problem is hardware, but since my unit is now out of warranty there is nothing they are willing to do. Go to their customer support forums and see for yourself all the people who purchased NetGear garbage and now cannot get them to stand by it. I wouldn't take a NetGear product if you paid me to take it.
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MR 814 Doesn't Hold Up, January 10, 2008
By Kevin
Bought the MR 814 and within 2 years it's antenna or transmitting capability died. Netgear replaced it with the same model since it was under warranty. 3 years later it's dieing again. Not under warranty. It's used constantly so not sure if it just burns out or what. Used all day long on one iMac and then by additional Mac and Windows PC as well as iTouch.It now transmits intermittently and occassionally will just stop transmitting. Unplugging it seems to help it regain it's transmitting power. Started with Lynksys originally but could not get it to work with Windows PC. That's how I ended up with Netgear. It was pretty much plug and play.
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do not order from these people, December 27, 2007
By Future Dr. (Bay Area, CA)
after receiving an item that was inoperable, i was forced to pay the shipping costs and received a 20% refund. bad business.
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Not for high speed broadband, September 14, 2007
By mrsfixit (Tannersville, PA)
I have had this router for several years. I had DHCP disabled, and have been using it solely as a wireless access point for my laptop.
It was plugged into the LAN port of a D-Link wired router.
To make a long story short, I just upgraded to 15 Mbps cable.
When I tried downloading, the D-Link choked my 15 Mbps down to 5 Mbps.
I re-enabled DHCP on this one and tried it. Same exact problem.
I then discovered the WAN ports on both routers are 10 Mbps- NOT 10/100. 15 into 10 doesn't go.
This router is outdated.
I also discovered when downloading a large file just now with 1 machine- that it cut off internet access for my second computer, and my laptop.
It would not load any web pages. I could get email, but not load a web page.
Then halfway through the download- it dropped the connection completely.
So it is unable to balance the load for more than 1 machine at a time.
My old D-Link never did this. It may be slow, but I never had an issue downloading on 1 machine while using the 2 others.
Having never used this as my primary router before, I never realized it had these problems.
Now I know...
I don't imagine many of these are for sale anymore, but do yourself a favor- no matter how cheap it might be- get something else.
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One of the best purchases I have ever made, February 6, 2007
By itvguy2000 (Mountain View, CA United States)
I bought this a long long time ago after having problems with Linksys products. It has worked flawlesly for several years now.
It has traveled across Europe with me. I could go on and on, but the point is that it just works. Every time. Business Travel. New home. New computer. New service provider.
This may be one of the best purchases I have ever made.
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Outdated, January 19, 2007
By M. Slimmer
My problem with this otherwise good deal was its propensity to lay down when I started opening a lot of connections (e.g. p2p).
It also had a problem with yahoo!mail account. Don't ask me how this is possible. The router should be transparent at that level but I can tell you : with the Netgear there was a problem with connection getting reset to certain yahoo servers and the problem went away with a Linksys and direct connections.
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Great price, won't last long, January 12, 2007
By Mm (Illinois)
It was great for about 1 year, after this time it starts lock-ups. I need to reset it every day, looks like heat related problem
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Acceptable for the price paid, August 7, 2006
By Superdog (Huntsville, AL)
I got this router around 2 years ago (v2 version) and it worked pretty well most of the time. There were occasions when it would just stop working, and it took multiple reboots of the router and cable modem to get things going right again; fortunately this was pretty infrequent. When I moved and changed to another service provider, this router just would not work right. Nothing I tried would fix the slow and almost nonexistant connection it gave me; I ended up replacing it.
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Can't deal with the timeout issue, August 5, 2006
By C. Spencer
With my ssh connections into my home system and chess club connections, I'm timed out after some period of time around 5 minutes. I did not have this issue when my pc was connected directly to the highspeed cable bridge. I liked netgear products in the past but this issue is a little more than annoying.
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Horrible router DO NOT buy!!, July 31, 2006
By No more Netgear!
I've had the router for a little over four months. It constantly freezes and has to be rebooted or hard started. If you try online gaming it stops about every couple of hours. Tried my DSL without the router and it works great. Take a little advice if your looking for a wireless router and are considering Netgear, KEEP LOOKING!!
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not broken yet, but close to it ..., July 6, 2006
By Alton Yu (San Francisco, CA)
My experience with netgear products are good, but with this box, it seems that I get disconnected a lot, which is not the case when I had my D-Link AirPlus DI-614+. Too bad I downgraded. Just thought a new router would be better, but it isn't.
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Was great while it lasted, June 24, 2006
By Brian A. (Chelsea, MA USA)
I bought this router sometime in 2002 and it worked great since then without any problems. I found it easy to set up and configure. A couple days ago, the wireless portion of the router failed. I still have a wired connection, but my wireless network is now gone. I have 3 wireless devices that use my network and they all report a loss of signal. Nothing in the browser-based router setup/configuration/status screens indicates anything is wrong with the wireless. A couple hours of troubleshooting has taken me nowhere. So, I guess these things don't last forever! 4 years wasn't bad for what was at the time a very affordable router, and I'm satisfied.
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Broken after less than 2 years, May 24, 2006
By Isvara
Bought this router and had no problems with it (liked it even)...until it stopped working one afternoon. Now i'm inclined to not buy from Netgear again. If they can't build a wireless router that works for at least 2 years, I don't have much faith in their products.
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POS, May 23, 2006
By K. Prewitt (idaho)
Bought this back in march to replace an aging linksys BEFW11SR. I was thrilled at first. I plugged it in, did the initial configuration and it worked. 6 weeks later I couldn't access the internet - initial thought was to reboot everything. So I did and still nothing worked. Put linksys router back in and everything worked just fine. Never buy Net gear again. I would give it 0 stars but thats not an option. UNFORTUNATELY!
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In nonstop use for years, February 28, 2006
By kmole (Phoenix, AZ)
I've had this router for a couple of years now, maybe three. I used it with DSL and then I moved, and now it's hooked up to a cable modem. In all that time I've had an xbox wirelessly attached nearly non stop for over 2 years. I have had two computers connected by wire and often 2 laptops wirelessly. All of this in a pretty large 2 story house. I've rarely had to power off or reset this router and every device I use can find it without problem.
All in All, for the money I spent on this, I can't complain at all. It works, it doesn't fail, what more can you ask for in a wireless router.
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Working fine for over a Year!!, February 8, 2006
By Wernergu
What is everyone talking about here?!! I have had ZERO problems with this router since I bought it in December of 2005. YES, your ISP usually is the problem!! I have had all kinds of issues with my Cable Internet Service, but no issues whatsoever with this router. I also purchased the Wireless antenna to go in the back of my laptop and have no issues with two users on-line at the same time (desktop & laptop). My only regret is that I payed a LOT more for this router back then and am surprised to see how inexpensive it has become. You make the call, but I recommend this router, especially at these prices.
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Disposable Internet, January 15, 2006
By benzolamas (Austin, TX)
I got this router because it had a HUGE rebate. I mean huge. So I wasn't expecting much, except for it to work. Well, it did work. For a grand total of a few months and then mysteriously stopped. I spent a few days tinkering with it and low and behold I found the problem! The Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-port cable/dsl router is a piece of crap! I called customer service and they claimed it was my internet provider. I plugged my computer into my DSL modem and that seemed to work, so I tried the router again and to my surprise it still didn't work. I bought an Apple Airport and have had no problems since... THE END
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Worked while it lasted, December 29, 2005
By armie (Purdys, NY USA)
I bought this router, it must be at least two years ago. I used linksys in the past with no problems. However, their customer service is sooooo bad (which in the end is the same thing for netgear) that I decided to switch for my first wireless router to netgear.
The product worked great! At the time, I had windows and linux boxes connected. No problem for about a year and a half. So I recommended another netgear router to my mother-in-law when she needed one. We live in the suburbs and sometimes get power loss. I'm guessing that this is also associated with a power surge. Anyway, although my mother-in-law's router was plugged into a power surge protector, when she lost power the wireless part got messed up. One of the computers (connecting wirelessly) would continually drop packets. I did all of that power cycle nonsense to no avail.
Then, I lost power in my house as well. Again, it's connected to a surge protector, but when the router came back on, every computer (wired and wireless) was fine except for one mac os x powerbook connecting wirelessly. So again, the issue was wireless. And the problem was the same. If you ping the router, it typically drops over half the packets. This had nothing to do with signal strength, as it would happen even if I was right next to the router and had an excellent signal. Even grabbing text web pages was next to impossible.
I'd struggle to work like this. VPN access to my job was a joke. Connecting wired worked, but my desk is set up with no ports near by and it's impractical for me to connect wired without doing major work. Kinda why I got the wireless in the first place! Then, all of a sudden, one day everything was fine. About another six months of no problems. I completely forgot about the issue. Then one day, packets were being dropped again (on the same powerbook). I have two windows machines connecting wirelessly (no problem), and a wired windows machine (no problem). I don't currently have any linux boxes connected. And my mac connects fine ANYWHERE else! Did all the typical stuff. Firmware upgrades, power cycles, yada yada yada. Even if I used a battery backup, they generally make the software to shut down the operating system gracefully, not things like routers and monitors. The thinking is that it should be fine as long as it's protected from surges. Needless to say, technical support is a joke. They were SO happy to find out the problem was with a powerbook. "Oh, yeah. Must be their problem." And would often hang up before you could even reply, "Hey, the wireless protocol has nothing to do with which operating system you're running!"
What's most annoying about all of these routers is the fact that I haven't found one that's consistent and has good customer support (just going by the reviews, that is). No matter what the vendor, some report great success while others report nothing but problems. Makes it really hard to say, "Ah ha, that's the one to buy." Anyway, I just bought a linksys wireless g. Hopefully, this will work out.
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Router will drop connection/no firmware updates, November 29, 2005
By EC (Maine, USA)
It is true what others have noticed about this router. Every once in a while you will have to power it down to regain connection to your wireless PC. I have continually checked Netgear's website for firmware updates for this router and there have been none.
When it is working and can maintain a connection it seems to be a nice product, but for a telecommuter like me, it is annoying to have to power cycle the router every couple of hours to regain my VPN connection.
I guess you get what you pay for though.
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