DGND3700v2 - 5G wifi dropouts?

[Greg_R]

Hi. Installed a new DGND3700v2 a couple of days ago. Everything working well except for the 5G wifi. I'm finding that whenever I try to transfer large files (say a couple of 1Gb movies) from my iMac to my NAS the 5G wifi connection disconnects after a random amount of time. Sometimes it disconnects for only a few seconds and automatically reconnects and other times it drops completely and the DGND3700v2 stops broadcasting the 5G SSID (i.e. I can no longer see the SSID listed as an available network on my iMac or on other devices such as my iPad2) for several minutes. No flashing lights on the router and nothing in the router logs. Anyone got any ideas?

Config:

iMac (OSX 10.7.4) <--5G wifi--> DGND3700v2 (v1.1.0.9) <--ethernet--> QNAP TS219P

ps -
- the iMac is about 5m from router - getting transfer rates of ~10MB/s when the 5G wifi is working
- I've tried 3 of the 4 available 5G channels with same result.
- The 2.4G wifi appears completely stable (but is too slow to transfer large files in a reasonable amount of time)
- I've enabled telnet access to the router - are there any processes or logs I could be looking at to better understand what is going on here?

dmesg

just displays the same as the web log page, so nothing useful there.

[w3wilkes]

2 things...

1- Sounds like you may have a defective 5GHz radio.

2- If the 2.4GHz is set up for WPA2 - PSK(AES) with mode up to 300 it should be capable of full speed 802.11n just like the 5GHz band.

Typically you have a stronger signal on the 2.4GHz band and the distance capability tends to be better at this lower frequency.

[Greg_R]

Thanks for your thoughts w3wilkes 🙂

1. ok, will think about swapping it at the shop I brought it

2. Appreciate the heads-up - hadn't spotted the 300Mbps option in the Mode drop-down & thought this might sort my problem out! Anyway enabled it, swapped from 5G to 2.4G connection on iMac, and tried a file transfer - best I could get was ~700KB/s (i.e. similar to 145Mbps throughput). Rebooted the router and tried again, same ~700KB/s, so no good! No speed-up, maybe this is an iMac/OSX issue?

So I still have issue of file transfer that is either too slow, or is fast and drops out 😞

[w3wilkes]

Don't know about the DGND3700v2, but on the v1 there have been many reports at the .17 firmware of connection speed issues. What happens on the v1 is you'd set security as WPA2-PSK(AES), but then when you checked your connection at the PC you'd find that what you get is WPA2-PSK(TKIP) which would limit your connection speed to 54Mbps. I don't have any idea how to check the connection from a iMac.

[Greg_R]

Security was WPA2-PSK(AES). Found the following post on Apple's Forum (Dec '11);

2.4ghz has been limited by Apple to single channel, ie 20mhz, for all wireless products.. it is to stop interference with bluetooth which is so important to other Apple products like keyboard and mouse.. since there is a very limited number of non-overlapping channels.

So no good for me, might either swap it for a new unit or maybe a different brand router (I guess an Apple Airport extreme should work!!)

[Greg_R]

FYI, logged a case with Netgear.

They advised to downgrade the DGND3700v2 to the previous firmware 1.1.0.8 (which was the firmware it shipped with that I upgraded to the latest 1.1.0.9).

Anyway on 1.1.0.8 the 5G wifi appears much more more stable (I was able to transfer 5Gb of data to the NAS with only 2 x 1-2sec dropouts – previously the transfers had timed-out after multiple extended network drop-outs each time I'd tried and transferred < 500Mb) so still dropping out but hasn't stopped broadcasting the SSID as was happening with 1.1.0.9. [ps - Anyone know if there is a change log available?]

Will keep testing and report back.

[Greg_R]

Have just upgraded IMac to OSX Mountain Lion, DGND3700v2 (1.1.00.08) still dropping 5G SSID occasionally & so continuing to test.

Interesting it appears Netgear have pulled the 1.1.00.09 firmware as the router no longer reports it as available and I can't see it on the web??

Hopefully a 1.1.00.10 is just around the corner and will address my & whatever other problems caused the 09 version to be pulled.

[Gigio755]

How do you enable telnet on dgnd3700 V2??

i tried several times with telnetenable but it doesn't work .. 10057 error 😞

on V1 it works .. no way on V2 😞 😞