I bought a FVX538v2 from eBay as im a great fan of netgear products. This is to replace my ISP supplied router which lacks any VPN functionality. My preference is often for slighly older commercial grade kit as its normally more reliable and has alot of historical support information. Router runs on v3.1.1-08 firmware.
I have an FTTC modem which requires a PPPoE connection with user name & password. My ISP provides a DHCP connection so my WAN1 setup is very simple as a result. Connection is 80/20Mb and it looks like the 538 can handle this... when it connects.
Only WAN1 is configured, and the mode is NAT. I dont have any VPN setup yet. I have one port opened and thats it. The 538 acts as DHCP server for the LAN and i have DNS proxy enabled.
I have found the connection to my modem is prone to drop after anything from miuntes to hours. Other times it takes a few shots of removing and insertng the WAN network cable before i get a link.
If i drop out the 538 and plug in the ISP supplied modem all issues go away, i get a solid connection first time. As such im pretty sure all my cabling is OK, the modem & phone line, and LAN is all good.
So, i feel i am at either looking at a setup issue or a hardware issue. I see from research online WAN1 and WAN2 use different ethernet controller IC's so i plan to try setting up on WAN 2. (Wife watching something on Netflix via ISP supplied modem just now so tinkering is a no-go!)
I have seen faulty capacitors upset network equipment with switching power supply noise/ripple affect ethernet stability in older Netgear kit, so i may look at a cap replacement excersise.
Any tips on possible setup issues would be helpfull.
It appears that you have an intermittent WAN connection with your router. I have some questions to help us isolate the issue, I have listed them below:
1. When you lose internet, does the LED on the WAN port still light up?
2. Can you still access the UI interface when you lose the internet?
3. Do you still get a Public/WAN IP?
This product has been EOL (end of life) and was replaced with the SRX5308, unfoturnately there are no newer firmware versions that we can test.
Thanks for the promt response, ill answer the queries in the same order:
1. Yes, the WAN LED is lit as soon as the RJ45 cable to the modem is plugged in
2. Yes, i get full and normall access to the UI (locally obviously) with the connection down
3. No, the connection state remains "Disconnected" When it does connect i get an IP address, DNS etc all from the ISP.
I know, i was wanting to trial a product before investing in a newer unit. I work on the theory that if it was good enough for a business or corporation a few years ago then its good enough for me!
For reference, i replaced the PSU and capacitors and thats not had any effect. I was able to get a connection but i was finding the connection slow (getting about 45-50Mb/s downstream) so i disconnected and tested against my ISP supplied router and was getting about 70Mb/s down).
After plugging the 538 back in, it just remained disconnected - it wouldnt make a connection at all. I rebooted, but to no effect. Running back on the ISP supplied unit.
WAN to LAN throughput for this model should be about 90Mbps, so I'd say the speed you are getting is quite slow. I'd do a factory reset and test the internet connection without any settings (except for the PPPoE login details of course). Were you able to test the WAN2 by any chance?
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this.
I have tried a factory reset and only setup the PPPoE login details. The connection was stable and reliable for the next 48 hours during which i also acheived the speeds i would expect.
I then setup my two port forward rules and after this, whilst the connection remained stable, the speed did drop by 10-15Mbps download WAN1 to LAN. This was even with no traffic using the rule.
I tried with WAN2 and found the same thing.
Ill likley pop this unit in the spare parts bin and look at getting a modern version.
It seemed like it was the port forward is causing the speed issue, but the dropouts issue needs to be isolated for us to know the cause. If you need more help, please feel free to posts.
