WN3000RP - purchase and review

After being on hold for 30 minutes, they give you about 10 seconds of hold music and then it goes back to dead silence. Anybody know how long hold times usually are?

It has been over 45 minutes since I called and I am still on hold. I guess I am going to try a different option to see if I can get somebody to pick up. Not too impressed with Netgear support right now.

Not too impressed with Netgear support right now.

Like many things, it ain't what it used to be.......... :(:confused::mad:

O.k., got ahold of them. I think that their phone system is having issues.

I hit the option to contact pre-sales and it connected me to IT Support and they picked up immediately.

I should be able to get it working now, even though they couldn't figure out why I wasn't able to get into the extender configuration page after initial configuration.

I figured out that if you do a ping of www.mywifiext.net, it will give you the IP of the extender. You can then put that in the browser and get it to bring up the extender configuration page. Why it would not bring it up with the URL is just weird. I am going to be setting the extender IP addresses manually and putting labels on them so I know what they are.

They took down that little tidbit of information for future reference. :p

As for the random internet connection dropping, they suggested I use WPA instead of WPA2.... not happening. They also suggested trying a different channel. They said channel 11 is on of the better ones to try. I will test that out. Not really sure it will help.

I also have to figure out why the second extender would not give me an IP address when connected to the first extender.

cuclone3d wrote:
Why it would not bring it up with the URL is just weird.

No, this is intentionally. It's called: "getting to the 'hijack page' ".

As for the random internet connection dropping, they suggested I use WPA instead of WPA2.... not happening.

Try it... If it resolves your problem, then you know what is causing it (maybe too short key life time??).

They said channel 11 is on of the better ones to try. I will test that out. Not really sure it will help.

All depends what channels are in use by other networks in your area. The game is to use a channel that is as far as possible from other networks (both sides).

I also have to figure out why the second extender would not give me an IP address when connected to the first extender.

Cascading repeaters AND using DHCP is really pushing it. Apart from very low throughput, you should really try to solve that problem otherwise (thought about Powerline adapters or plain old cabling?)

Jack™ wrote:
No, this is intentionally. It's called: "getting to the 'hijack page' ".

Really? Then why do they tell you in the setup instructions to go to www.mywifiext.net to make configuration changes after the initial setup?

Try it... If it resolves your problem, then you know what is causing it (maybe too short key life time??).All depends what channels are in use by other networks in your area. The game is to use a channel that is as far as possible from other networks (both sides).

Nope, that is not the problem. It appears to be that this happens when I am trying to cascade the repeaters. Once the second one connects to the first one, it is impossible to connect to the first one AND you have no internet access through the second one.

Cascading repeaters AND using DHCP is really pushing it. Apart from very low throughput, you should really try to solve that problem otherwise (thought about Powerline adapters or plain old cabling?)

For some reason even connecting the second one to the first one totally borks both of them. To get the first one to work properly again, you have to either reset or unplug the second one and then power cycle the first one.

Cabling really won't work unless i want to buy another wireless router or access point that can connect to the main router via cabling since we need the wireless for visitors. The WN3000RP does not support connecting to the router via the Ethernet port.
I can get an O.k.-ish connection to the router with the second one, but I do get some packet loss. I'll have to check some other locations to plug the second one into and see if I get a good enough signal to the conference room where we need it.

We need it to be password protected wireless because it is an outside line and we don't want domain computers being hooked up to the external connection.

cuclone3d wrote:
Really? Then why do they tell you in the setup instructions to go to www.mywifiext.net to make configuration changes after the initial setup?

I'm personally not familiar with this new device and I may therefore have it wrong. But Netgear devices have this feature that when using a URL address, you get (after reset and before applying any settings) into a wizard or other screen that normally assists you in setting up the device. This is called the 'hi-jack screen'. After that initial screen, any further menu access will bring you to the regular menu of the device. To sidestep the initial 'hi-jack screen' you can enter the IP address of the device or the exact menu URL into your browser.

Nope, that is not the problem. It appears to be that this happens when I am trying to cascade the repeaters.

Cascading repeaters means you're on your own, mate.....:eek:

Cabling really won't work unless i want to buy another wireless router or access point that can connect to the main router via cabling since we need the wireless for visitors.

This requirement looks perfect to me for an XAVN2001: Powerline Wireless Extender setup. You also need an XAV2001 connected by patchcable to the router.:cool:

Is one antenna for the receive and one for the broadcast or do they both do the same thing? I'm looking for something like this that I have to put pretty darn far from the original AP. Wondering if I can replace one of the antennas with a high gain one (looks like a little satellite dish) to aim it at the AP to get a stronger signal.

Picking up the WN2000RPT today to see if it will work for me or not so I guess we'll see.

Almost sure no external antenna attachable. Knowledge if 1 or 2 antennae are doing job will not help…

cuclone3d wrote:

Staples has these in stock, I actually just received two of them yesterday. The only problem is, is that the initial firmware is super buggy. After initial configuration, good luck getting back into the configuration if you have the router up and running. It just doesn't work. I am using a Netgear DGND3700 router which we bought at the same time. They also have a major problem if you want to extend the signal with a second extender by connecting to the first extender. It will NOT assign you an IP address. They also have a problem with the Ethernet port on the back of my Dell Latitude E6410. It will not detect a connection, but if I plug it into the docking station port it works just fine. I have also verified that the port on the back of my laptop is functional by hooking it up to the network here. I am also having an issue where these things will randomely not accept the security key and will also randomely drop the internet connection. Seems like they really should have done some more testing before releasing these and should have fixed multiple show stopping bugs in the firmware. I will be contacting Netgear support to see if they have a new firmware that they just haven't posted yet.

+1, it's very buggy. Took me forever to get it working with my WNDR3700. It won't function properly if the AP you are making it connect to is using MAC addr filtering. This angered me like there's no tomorrow since it's one of many things used for security. Also I share out my iTunes on the home network. At sporadic times none of my other computers can connect to iTunes anymore. I spent hours thinking it was something else until I reboot the WN3000RP and it finally worked again. I hope they fix this stuff with a new firmware because I can't just deal with this type of BS and may need to return this thing.