WN2000RPT - Internet Access Keeps Dropping

Just one more to add to the list of disaffected customers. My configuration is:
ADLS Modem <-> WNDR3700 <-> WN2000RPT. I have a Linux server, a Power Mac and a Network Printer all on the Ethernet ports of the repeater and two MacBooks and a Sony Vaio on the repeater wireless network, and 2 Macs connected to the 5GHz network on the WNDR3700. The original configuration had the WNDR providing DHCP to all devices. I have been experiencing the same dropouts between the repeater and the router as everyone else. However I made some recent changes and it now almost works correctly. I list what I have done in case it helps anyone else.

1. Upgrade the firmware on both router and repeater to latest version. Note that when you do this the repeater won't connect to the router if the SSID is not broadcast as it was in my case. I had to set the extender network on the router to broadcast the SSID. Even after it has connected, if you turn off SSID broadcast on the router it will fail to reconnect.
Note that when I did this all the wired devices worked correctly but the wireless ones still started dropping connections. On closer look it would connect for a while and then lose the IP address. After first losing the IP address it would be able to connect again to the wireless network but almost immediately lose the IP address again. This led me to:
2. Enable DHCP on the WN2000RPT. You need to go to http://X.X.X.X/cgi-bin/hidden_dhcpd.html. The options are very simplistic but at least you can set the IP address range. I was assigning addresses by MAC address from the WNDR which is not supported in the RPT. This means that I have had to manually set some of the addresses I was previously using DHCP for.

This has provided a stable configuration for longer than I have ever previously experienced (an it is still going). However, here's the rub. Being mostly Mac, I extensively use bonjour to advertise services from my servers. Now instead of losing the extender network I lose bonjour service advertisements at a similar frequency to to what used to occur with network dropouts. It seems that the RPT at some point stops forwarding multicast and/or broadcast traffic through the wireless AP. This is not the case on the ethernet ports as all the devices on Ethernet ports can see the bonjour services.

A recent thought that I haven't yet tested is that it might have something to do with the fact I lock the wireless access to specific MAC addresses. Maybe as soon as this is done it breaks multicasting. I will test this out and report back.

As a follow up to my post yesterday on my thought that the MAC access control being turned on caused the broadcast/multicast issue. I turned it off but after the bonjour services coming back initially (due to the reboot), after a few hours they were lost again, so that theory is disproved. I suspect that this behaviour is also behind not propagating the dhcp broadcasted requests/responses.

I have decided to replace my 2000RPT via Netgear support. At one point they offered me the new version (the 3000RPT), but later they retracted that solution! Talk about managing expectations :mad:

I am generally a big supporter of Netgear products, but I feel let down with this product. I will be replacing it (at my own cost) with another manufacturers product.

They did tell me that their 'level 3' engineers will be looking at this forum and releasing a new firmware, but its too late for me - I've already had 8 months of unreliable connections.

Same problem here... I have a Netgear WN2000RPT range extender running the latest firmware (1.0.1.20NA) connected to a Linksys E2000 wireless router (firmware version 1.0.04). I am using WPA2 and have not tried enabling the local DHCP server on the range extender. It seems like I have to restart the Netgear device every day or two to keep it working. When the Netgear range extender isn't working I can connect without a problem directly to the Linksys wireless router. Maybe I should get a plug timer and reboot the range extender nightly...

I put up a post on what I thought the problem was and my experience and it didn't even get posted

As a follow up to my post on November 12 ... The stability of the connection is better, but it still has occasions where the signal deteriorates to the point that response times (as measured by ping) blow out to 10+ seconds and often time out. A reboot, as is usually the case, returned the repeater to fully operational. It has now been running for over 55 hours since last reboot and is still propagating the bonjour traffic. A significant improvement on rebooting at least once per day.

The replacement product has arrived....and experiences exactly the same fault. It's definately a fault with the design of the product.

grahambeale wrote:

I have decided to replace my 2000RPT via Netgear support. At one point they offered me the new version (the 3000RPT), but later they retracted that solution! Talk about managing expectations :mad: I am generally a big supporter of Netgear products, but I feel let down with this product. I will be replacing it (at my own cost) with another manufacturers product. They did tell me that their 'level 3' engineers will be looking at this forum and releasing a new firmware, but its too late for me - I've already had 8 months of unreliable connections.

Same problem here too.

Netgear, will you please at least let us know when we can expect updated firmware to come along.

It is not fair to have such an unreliable product in the field without communicating what is being done and when to make it reliable.

I had the same problem, frequent disconnection from the internet while i stayed connected to the network.

I made this account to let everyone know that the fix i tried has worked and it has not disconnected for 3 days now.

here is what i did:

1.Set a static IP for the extender
2.Set a static IP for my computer

to set the static IP for extender you go to the mywifiext.com and under setup there is IP setting and choose static IP

to set your computer static IP you go to the network adaptor setting and change it from there, should be familiar with it by now try to solve the problem.

Hope this helps!

Hi Guys!

I managed to download a firmware that hopefully solves this issue. :)

You can download it here: http://filejumbo.com/Download/1F7DF7C444E72262
Let me know of the outcome.