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Forum Discussion
Why can't I get support? Ticket 16849963
here are the facts:
1) June 14 2011 bought new NV+ and 4 Barracuda 2TB HD from Fry's, checked compatibility list they should work.
2) Spent a week setting it up and some other equipment. Mixed Windows 7 and XP so it took a while to get all the computers to play nicely. The NV+ was on and off the network. I attributed it to my Windows issues, especially the failed homegroup vs XP issues. Eventually I gave up and went all Win7.
3) July 4 weekend began moving my movie collection to the NV+, only transferred for 4 hours and the NV+ went off the network.
4) Multiple tries with Windows configurations (again figuring that was the problem) but the NV+ was unhappy, never more than a handful of movies would transfer. Once on the NV+ they sorted, played and were happy.
5) Tech friend that has an NV+ said that many files may need more RAM - back to Fry's and in four more trips I got RAM that passed testing. Tested all next night and it passed.
6) Slowly transferred the rest of the movies. I have Gigabit network and it was going slow Ethernet speeds. 1.8 TB in three shots got most of them on the NV+.
7) August 7 NV+ off line, reboot restored the NV+to the network.
9) August 12 NV+ off line, reboot restored it and I started looking for reasons here in the forums. Most common reason seemed to be DHCP server not available at the end of the NV+ lease. I increased the DHCP lease time.
10) August 14 NV+ off line. Interesting, the lease was not up so DHCP was not looking like a problem.
11) August 16 NV+ off line again. One more time to be sure.
12) August 20 NV+ off line. Might have been earlier, but I had to travel for work. Still just under the 96 hour DHCP lease time.
13) August 26 NV+ off line. Again might have been earlier. Called tech support and gave up after half an hour trying to get through.
14) Sept 10 NV+ off line. No idea when as I was away from home working.
15) Sept 15 got through to Tech support tier one and they said "although the warranty is five years that is only on hardware, if you have a configuration or software problem we cannot help you after 90 days". Tech suggested reading more of these forums.
16) Now pretty fed up so I am not dedicating a lot of time to this, tried a bunch of ideas I read here, none worked.
17) Oct 5 day off work so I called Tech support, same litany "we cannot help you ... software". Name calling worked to get me a case number and tier 2 support, unfortunately 10 minutes on hold and voice mail asking my case number. No call back in 3 hours of waiting.
18) posting this in hopes NETGEAR or a user actually wants to help.
$1,000 in hardware that I need to boot up every time I want to use it is not much of an NAS.
1) June 14 2011 bought new NV+ and 4 Barracuda 2TB HD from Fry's, checked compatibility list they should work.
2) Spent a week setting it up and some other equipment. Mixed Windows 7 and XP so it took a while to get all the computers to play nicely. The NV+ was on and off the network. I attributed it to my Windows issues, especially the failed homegroup vs XP issues. Eventually I gave up and went all Win7.
3) July 4 weekend began moving my movie collection to the NV+, only transferred for 4 hours and the NV+ went off the network.
4) Multiple tries with Windows configurations (again figuring that was the problem) but the NV+ was unhappy, never more than a handful of movies would transfer. Once on the NV+ they sorted, played and were happy.
5) Tech friend that has an NV+ said that many files may need more RAM - back to Fry's and in four more trips I got RAM that passed testing. Tested all next night and it passed.
6) Slowly transferred the rest of the movies. I have Gigabit network and it was going slow Ethernet speeds. 1.8 TB in three shots got most of them on the NV+.
7) August 7 NV+ off line, reboot restored the NV+to the network.
9) August 12 NV+ off line, reboot restored it and I started looking for reasons here in the forums. Most common reason seemed to be DHCP server not available at the end of the NV+ lease. I increased the DHCP lease time.
10) August 14 NV+ off line. Interesting, the lease was not up so DHCP was not looking like a problem.
11) August 16 NV+ off line again. One more time to be sure.
12) August 20 NV+ off line. Might have been earlier, but I had to travel for work. Still just under the 96 hour DHCP lease time.
13) August 26 NV+ off line. Again might have been earlier. Called tech support and gave up after half an hour trying to get through.
14) Sept 10 NV+ off line. No idea when as I was away from home working.
15) Sept 15 got through to Tech support tier one and they said "although the warranty is five years that is only on hardware, if you have a configuration or software problem we cannot help you after 90 days". Tech suggested reading more of these forums.
16) Now pretty fed up so I am not dedicating a lot of time to this, tried a bunch of ideas I read here, none worked.
17) Oct 5 day off work so I called Tech support, same litany "we cannot help you ... software". Name calling worked to get me a case number and tier 2 support, unfortunately 10 minutes on hold and voice mail asking my case number. No call back in 3 hours of waiting.
18) posting this in hopes NETGEAR or a user actually wants to help.
$1,000 in hardware that I need to boot up every time I want to use it is not much of an NAS.
24 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- What is the make and model of the router/switch to which you had it connected?
- The Unrecovered TCP Retransmits should not be that high. There's something on the network that's causing the retransmits to fail.
- Wifey bought me an NV Ultra 4 bay, the NV+ is about full.
Same thing when it is on the net, it drops.
NV+ is only on the laptop we play movies on, and is fairly happy there.
Where should I start to troubleshoot the network? - I'd start with whatever you have it directly plugged into - switch or router or hub. Make sure your cables look good. Possibly try swapping out cables using the same ports and try transfers to other systems. Sounds like either cables leading between network devices are bad or your switch has issues. It's happening to multiple devices. If you're using lan ports on a wifi ap or a wifi router those are known to get flaky under high loads. I use a gigabit switch for wired devices and a decent wireless device (WNDR37000) along with a stand-alone router. I stream to tv's, laptops and phones over wifi but nothing like torrents or any other traffic with tons of connections.
- DOA - start with a cable you know is good, and it should be at least a Cat5e or preferably Cat6 cable as the Cat5 does not have the bandwidth to support the high transfer rates the Ultra 4 is capable of. This does not necessarily mean it will drop off, just not achieve the full speed possible.
Then with the known good cable, direct connect the NAS to a PC and see what the reaction is. If there are no drop outs, then install one of the suspect network devices in the circuit. (Again, with a known good cable) Add each network device in the circuit (switches/routers) one at a time. When the problem returns, you have found the culprit. - I am only having trouble with the NAS devices, file copies and running shared resources on other computers is fine.
I have UVerse with one patch cord running to a 24 port Netgear 24 port Gigabit switch. Changing positions on the switch changes nothing. Changing cables makes no difference. I am trying to see if I have two things doing DHCP and there by getting conflicts but have not seen two DHCP servers up.
I have a few more cables and some time this weekend, will play around. - Have you tried a direct connection between your NAS and a PC? That is the necessary step one.
- I appreciate the effort PapaBear, but please read what I have done in previous posts.
Direct connect to the laptop worked fine. I set the laptop to share the network to the NV+. But that method is slow, especially to copy to and from the NV+.
Wifey is an artist and bought an Ultra which has the exact same problems, dropping off the network. She wants to store her scanned paintings on it and access from wherever.
I am starting to think that either there is no systematic approach or we don't know it. - What are the other network devices (make and model)?
Is the IP address on the Ultra dynamic or static?
The general diagnostic process is to establish a direct connection between the wife's PC and the Ultra. If there is no problem there, then add the network devices one by one until you find the culprit. It could be a damaged cable or an incompatible switch. I have had both in the past. The fact that you have established a direct connection between the laptop and the NV+ proves that it is not the laptop, the NV+ or the ethernet cable used to connect them. Now you need to do the same thing between the Ultra and the wife's computer. - I may have a lead, my Killer NIC.
I doubt you test with those so I pulled it and will test more.
Swapping cables and even the switch does not solve the problem, both drop off the network. But I am using my own computer to access the shares except when the + and ultra were direct to the laptop.
Devices:
4 ea my build Asus P6T, 12 Gb RAM, i7 920 (mine at 4GHz, rest at 3.2GHz), mine with KillerNIC (now removed) others with onboard.
1 Gateway FX laptop 7805u, a few upgrades
all Win7 64 bit
NV+ tried static and DHCP, currently DHCP with exclusive address set on 2Wire router so the same IP is always given (U-Verse)
NV Ultra same as above
HP CP2025 printer same as above
TCPIP IPV6 off on all
I just wish I could reliably repeat the failure :(
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