FVS336G Firmware Version: 3.0.3-17

Daedalus01 wrote:

The original poster sounds like he has more of an issue of 90% degradation. I'm sure these routers are performing as best they can with the firmware they have ( not saying the firmware or hardware may not have a flaw or two or issues). Have you considered the factor of more link aggregation. even your ISPs equipment has a theoretical limit of the switching power it can perform at any given time. My office firewall has a white sheet stating that I will get a 5Gbps throughput. Do I fully ever expect to see it even if I had the service to run at that speed. Absolutely not. Distance, location, line quality, environment, firewall rules, port redirects all come in to effect on what kind of performance you can expect to see. To both posters, If you are running a Vanilla config, then I would try downgrading your firmware for testing if possible ( I know the OP is 300 miles away which makes it harder). I also suggest if you have a guaranteed SLA, that you contact your ISP to start troubleshooting the issue. On a 200Mb or even a 60Mb, I wouldn't be running a Netgear 336G. I run one at home on my 30Mb and I do have rules setup and the area has grown in the past two years and I consistently see 20Mb average. I'm running at 66% of what they sold me, but its to be expected. To JRPSupport, you are getting 3-6% and you may have to consider changing hardware /and or vendor. You could upgrade as Adit suggested, or downgrade and see if that has helped. You could enable WAN-LAN dropped packet logging to see if your firewall is dropping them for some reason. Hope this bit helped

I think you entirely missed the point of the 5% overhead rule of thumb in the industry for all those little 'rules' and 'noise'.

I had a 25Mbps connection and with the FVS336G v1 which I consistently scored 24.55 to 24.95 Mbps on speedtest.net with the latest firmware on the FVS336G. Blows your theory of everything out of the water.

Now we finally have 50Mbps service in the area and I don't see anything faster than 35Mbps with the FVS336G v1 or v2. Take the FVS336G v1 or v2 out and hook up directly to the port (Cat5e service to the office) and I see 79-91Mbps. No way you or anyone out there can claim that's acceptable 'overhead' on a router that claims to have a 60Mbps WAN/LAN speed. What petri dish environment would one ever get those claimed speeds at now?

I would expect to get around 57-58Mbps with a claimed 60Mbps WAN/LAN speed but that no longer happens with current Netgear firmware.

FYI, Netgear's claimed 900+Mbps SRX5308 doesn't even break 500Mbps in real world testing. How do you explain that MASSIVE overhead? Maybe Netgear is full of it, yeah?

So since I didn't say that some score right near the advertised speed or over it that I am stuffed? If I were to take you literal in what you posted, the fact that you can see speeds of 79-91Mbps when you have a 25Mbps connection is brilliant. Take it and run. Wait, Did you mean that you have 50Mbps at your office? You only said the area so I'm not sure. So no, it does not blow my theory out of the water as you put it. If you're so unhappy with Netgear, go to Cisco,Juniper,Fortinet,etc. No one is forcing you to use a Netgear at your office ( hell, I don't). Buy a different router and see if the speed increases. If it does, shelve the 336G and keep it as a spare. Or sell it and have a few pints. As for the SRX5308 don't believe everything you read. IMHO its nothing more than a shiny paperweight. I have a seen so many issues with both the hardware and the firmware.

This isn't an issue with just Netgear equipment--Cisco's rv042G has had problems breaking the 100Mbs mark without an elusive beta firmware for years now.

It's just the half-working nature of equipment in this price range. If you want something real and reliable, you have to be ready to spend 2-10x the price of these units.

SamirD wrote:
This isn't an issue with just Netgear equipment--Cisco's rv042G has had problems breaking the 100Mbs mark without an elusive beta firmware for years now. It's just the half-working nature of equipment in this price range. If you want something real and reliable, you have to be ready to spend 2-10x the price of these units.

What are you trying to say? It doesn't really make sense. If the original FVS336G v1/v2 firmware did work and each new update has slowed down the hardware, how is that the same as what you are comparing?

What is the point of listing specs for a product?

When you purchase a product, do you consider the specs when making your decision?

Why after more than two years has a solution not been made?

Why is a product that has had known short comings to its rated specs for over two years still being sold with specs it can not meet?

Why are the level 1, level 2 and level 3 techs at netgear claiming that they will looking into the problem now that they have been made aware of it as if they never knew the problem existed?

I would think this is very misleading and not fair since it starts right from the pre-sales right through to warranty and tech support.

Is it too much to ask for a solution that actually addresses the problem?

All good questions. Why don't you ask Netgear and see what they say. I'm curious as to what the response would be. Since I haven't had any bad experiences other than a FVS114 ( worthless) and a GS724 ver1 dieing, I guess I've been lucky. I know there are a few Netgear employees on here, although most are end-users. Even asking directly you might not get an answer.

WestGigFibre1 wrote:

What are you trying to say? It doesn't really make sense. If the original FVS336G v1/v2 firmware did work and each new update has slowed down the hardware, how is that the same as what you are comparing? What is the point of listing specs for a product? When you purchase a product, do you consider the specs when making your decision? Why after more than two years has a solution not been made? Why is a product that has had known short comings to its rated specs for over two years still being sold with specs it can not meet? Why are the level 1, level 2 and level 3 techs at netgear claiming that they will looking into the problem now that they have been made aware of it as if they never knew the problem existed? I would think this is very misleading and not fair since it starts right from the pre-sales right through to warranty and tech support. Is it too much to ask for a solution that actually addresses the problem?

If the older firmwares worked, then you should have stayed on them. Products in this price range aren't designed for much more than reliable soho usage. I treat firmwares like different 'feature sets' since each one will have a bug that will break something. You find the firmware with the 'feature set' you need and then don't change it unless you have to. And if you can't find a firmware that works, you need to buy a different product (been there, done that).

They list specs as that technically is the best the hardware can perform. Like EPA estimates on fuel consumption.

I look at the specs, but no so much as I did in the earlier days of networking when the specs made a product stand out more than another, and products performed to specs in usual-case use, not laboratory best-case use

Why no solution? Because a solution cost money, and there's not enough money being made from these products to justify good programming. Just farm it out overseas to the cheapest guys you can find, get a fairly stable product out there, and then ignore the outlier problems.

Because those level 1,2,3 techs are trained to behave that way.

Yes, it is shady business, but if you don't like it, buy someone else's product--who ironically does the same thing. This whole segment of the market is like this, and because it is so much more expensive to move to robust products.

Yes, it is too much to ask. If a significant percentage of people wanted a solution, there would already be one by now. Or if sales drop significantly because of the lack of a solution.

These answers are my experience with a lot of smb products from all sorts of different vendors, including netgear.

SamirD wrote:

If the older firmwares worked, then you should have stayed on them. Products in this price range aren't designed for much more than reliable soho usage. I treat firmwares like different 'feature sets' since each one will have a bug that will break something. You find the firmware with the 'feature set' you need and then don't change it unless you have to. And if you can't find a firmware that works, you need to buy a different product (been there, done that). They list specs as that technically is the best the hardware can perform. Like EPA estimates on fuel consumption. I look at the specs, but no so much as I did in the earlier days of networking when the specs made a product stand out more than another, and products performed to specs in usual-case use, not laboratory best-case use Why no solution? Because a solution cost money, and there's not enough money being made from these products to justify good programming. Just farm it out overseas to the cheapest guys you can find, get a fairly stable product out there, and then ignore the outlier problems. Because those level 1,2,3 techs are trained to behave that way. Yes, it is shady business, but if you don't like it, buy someone else's product--who ironically does the same thing. This whole segment of the market is like this, and because it is so much more expensive to move to robust products. Yes, it is too much to ask. If a significant percentage of people wanted a solution, there would already be one by now. Or if sales drop significantly because of the lack of a solution. These answers are my experience with a lot of smb products from all sorts of different vendors, including netgear.

I think the shady part of the business model is what ruins any trust in products because how can one know what they are buying if the specs are 'cooked' to sell product. We can't and shouldn't be looking at every product as being a 'scam' made only to make a company rich should we? I would like to trust and have respect for a company's R&D and that in the end is what leads to brand loyalty, right? There's nothing wrong with that, right? I think that after buying MANY $$$$$ worth of Netgear ProSafe products for personal and business use since mid 2002, there'd be some kind of respect from a company but I guess not.

The sad thing is that the early firmware was fast but laden with bugs. Fixing bugs slowed down the FVS336G v1 so when Netgear moved to the v2 why did they not revise their specs when clearly they could do what they v1 did back in Jan 2008?

You're right, it's shady. I wish I could just return the router but I didn't find out it couldn't do what it was spec'd out until a faster speed service was available in my area. That's why I purchased it based on the 'future proofed' higher WAN to LAN speed when it became available.

Sadly, the FVS336G v2 can't do that either and that's what Netgear wants to replace my v1 with to solve the problem, which it won't.

How hard could it be to fix the firmware so it clears the WAN to LAN bottleneck or is this now a hardware bottleneck limitation caused by a firmware that corrects too many bugs and bogs down the hardware in the process?

Daedalus01 wrote:
All good questions. Why don't you ask Netgear and see what they say. I'm curious as to what the response would be. Since I haven't had any bad experiences other than a FVS114 ( worthless) and a GS724 ver1 dieing, I guess I've been lucky. I know there are a few Netgear employees on here, although most are end-users. Even asking directly you might not get an answer.

Netgear has no real answer to any of the questions I ask. Sure there are a few level 2 and 3 techs which will remain nameless for their honesty that have indicated that Netgear has known of the problems with many product short comings including the very low WAN to LAN speeds of the FVS336G v1 and v2 with firmware updates but most likely won't address them.

I couldn't even get a straight answer from them on what (Netgear product) would preform as the FVS336G was spec'd at.

Only solution that Netgear has is to RMA the unit which after three attempts has not solved the problem. When I asked them "so what now?" they had no answer other than to RMA it again.

WestGigFibre1 wrote:

I think the shady part of the business model is what ruins any trust in products because how can one know what they are buying if the specs are 'cooked' to sell product. We can't and shouldn't be looking at every product as being a 'scam' made only to make a company rich should we? I would like to trust and have respect for a company's R&D and that in the end is what leads to brand loyalty, right? There's nothing wrong with that, right? I think that after buying MANY $$$$$ worth of Netgear ProSafe products for personal and business use since mid 2002, there'd be some kind of respect from a company but I guess not. The sad thing is that the early firmware was fast but laden with bugs. Fixing bugs slowed down the FVS336G v1 so when Netgear moved to the v2 why did they not revise their specs when clearly they could do what they v1 did back in Jan 2008? You're right, it's shady. I wish I could just return the router but I didn't find out it couldn't do what it was spec'd out until a faster speed service was available in my area. That's why I purchased it based on the 'future proofed' higher WAN to LAN speed when it became available. Sadly, the FVS336G v2 can't do that either and that's what Netgear wants to replace my v1 with to solve the problem, which it won't. How hard could it be to fix the firmware so it clears the WAN to LAN bottleneck or is this now a hardware bottleneck limitation caused by a firmware that corrects too many bugs and bogs down the hardware in the process?

Yeah it's sad. It's short-sighted thinking that will lead to ZERO brand loyalty in the long run. I know I'm not brand loyal at all in this segment of products. I'll put whatever works into place. I could care less who makes it anymore. In fact, I almost don't care about the warranty either since that's another area people get shady.

Unfortunately, fixing the firmware is like untangling a closet of wires. You have to fix a lot of stuff that should have been done right in the first place. And it's not worth it to them. So, cest la vie to that router as it's not going to meet what you need. Stick it on craigslist to recoup some of your investment, and start looking for a new one. But be sure the new one does everything you want perfectly before you dump your old one--your new one may have more issues than the old one! (been there, done that).