Remote troubleshooting DG834G - is the box dead? Or am I missing something?

[Chris_Noble]

My 89 year old dad has a DG834G ADSL Modem Wireless Router - about 5 years old, I guess - but no idea which generation. I'm remotely troubleshooting a network connectivity problem - which is as fun as it sounds.

He connects an iMac running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

Until a couple of days ago it worked faultlessly, bar the need for power cycling every year or so.

The initial problem involved failure if the Mac to connect - he got a message saying that the network needed a WPA password and then on entering the password he was getting a connection time out error (I presume he was entering the password correctly.)

I walked him through the standard Mac troubleshooting - deleting network locations, setting up connections from scratch, restarting the router etc. But no joy.

At that point I requested him to reset the router to factory defaults by pressing the reset button for 10 seconds plus.

I expected that he would then see a vanilla, unsecure NETGEAR network appear that he could connect to, allowing me to get into his machine through Logmein and finish setting up the router via the Web interface.

No go. Although he Mac can see neighbour's networks it can't see a Netgear SSID (in fact he claims that the old network name will momentarily appear). However he has definitely held the button in until the test light has lit (he has tried physically resetting several times).

All lights are green, the test light has gone out as expected.

Any ideas gratefully received.

[jmizoguchi]

DG834G ADSL Modem Wireless Router - about 5 years old, I guess - but no idea which generation.

Bottom of the router. If the labels does not state V# then you have V1 models



I would try to reflash the firmware but been remote I say you need may need to just have him buy new router. Possible there is corrupte firmware or hardware issues

[Chris_Noble]

Thanks, I'll get him to check tomorrow. But from your reply, it sounds as if i) the exact version won't make much difference ii) I haven't missed any obvious troubleshooting steps?

[jmizoguchi]

you have to take account that unit is 5years old too..

since reset is done I would say 9 out 10 it had bad internal wireless.