Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I have a Netgear DG834PN. Yes it's old, but it has done the job for us for a good few years now. It has 4 ports on the rear (& so i assumed 4 connections). We have 2 PCs hard wired to this router. We also have 2 iPhones connected via WiFi. My sister bought an iPhone today & connected via WiFi .... so now 5 connections. We can all connect, and my gf & sister are having no problem with the WiFi, but my phone is now dropping on and off. Can this router ONLY accept 4 total connections, be it wired or wireless, or is this problem just a coincidence & my actual iPhone is playing up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjones42455 Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I dont think its your iphone, the router could be configured to only accept x number of wireless connections. You may be able to fix it, but honestly, I would invest in one of the newer netgear wireless N routers, or a linksys. Try seeing if it has a max number of concurrent wireless connections in the settings of the router before you replace it though. Thats about all I can think of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 Thanks. Does anyone know for 100% sure? I can email Netgear, but they'll probably reply within the next, decade. I can't justify throwing money at a new router just to connect my sisters iPhone. Other than this, it works perfectly for what we need. I logged in to the router to view connected devices, but strangely it only lists the 2 wired devices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abecedarian paradoxious Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 It could be that the router configuration for DHCP is set to only assign 4 adresses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 It could be that the router configuration for DHCP is set to only assign 4 adresses. Is this something i can change or is it likely to be a fixed setting?EDIT: Just logged into the router. Going on "wireless settings" lists a laptop (forgot about those) as a trusted station. Then there's 4 "unknown name" devices for available stations. I can't find anything linking to what you said. Is there anything i can set so that devices 1, 2, 3 will ALWAYS be allowed, but devices 4, 5, 6 will have to fight it out between themselves? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kai Y Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Is this something i can change or is it likely to be a fixed setting? It is definitely a setting you can change, if it's a DHCP assignment issue. If the router has 4 wired connections, it can definitely support at least 4 wired devices plus a number of wireless devices... I have never seen a router that accepts only 4 devices on the default settings. According to Netgear's site it "supports up to 253 users". Go into the router's admin page to check the settings. I found the router documentation here... http://kbserver.netgear.com/pdf/dg834pn_ref_manual_11Nov05.pdf look at the picture on page 6-7. The starting and ending IP addresses should be as shown (2 to 254 will mean enough addresses for 253 devices). Also I want to ask if it's only your iPhone having connectivity issues, or is there an issue with the computers as well? If there are also connectivity issues with the computers, it is possible that there are some bugs in the firmware, try to upgrade to the latest firmware and see if the issue persists. Just remember to backup the router settings first before updating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmeunit Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I've never seen a router limited to only 4 connections either. Try firmware upgrade as mentioned, or being that it is an older router, some newer equipment "might" have trouble connecting. We just got some new APs at work and our older Dell laptop will connect, then drop, then re-connect, and drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 I had a look & my settings look EXACTLY like that Except for the "Rip version". "Disable" isn't an option. Mine says "RIP1". All other machines (certainly the wired ones) seem to be fine. I know the PC i'm typing right now is fine. My gf's Galaxy Tab is fine. My sisters iPhone seems fine. My iPhone doesn't want to play. As for firmware version, i have the latest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 Hmm, went into "Wireless Station Access List" Kicked everyone off the network, tried to connect with my iPhone & after a bit of a hiccup, it worked. Doesn't solve the problem though does it. Just wonder if it helps explain something to you guys? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted December 31, 2011 MVC Share Posted December 31, 2011 "Can this router ONLY accept 4 total connections" No this would not be the case, unless you set your dhcp server on your router to only have 4 IPs it can hand out. But then that would only mean it could only hand out 4 leases at a time, static IPs would still be able to work, etc. You sure your broadcasting your SSID? Make sure you are and its UNIQUE. Where you could have issues if say your SSID is netgear and there are other netgear SSIDs in the area - your device could try connecting to those if signal is stronger, etc. You should set a UNIQUE ssid, you should be broadcasting it - and then you should also be using WPA or WPA2 with strong PSK. How many dhcp leases are you set to, a common default is from like 100 to 150 -- so 50 devices could have leases from your dhcp server. How many ips do you show available? But you should be able to handle many more than 4 devices -- now keep in mind wireless is shared!! So if one of them is using up all the wireless bandwidth, then other devices could be having issues. Not in holding the connection, but things might be really slow, etc. You really need to verify what wireless network your connected to, the device should show the MAC address of the AP its connected to somewhere in its wireless status, and then verify this is your wireless routers radio mac, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 Positive about the SSID. Every device was set up to auto-connect anyway. It's only my sisters iPhone that's been different which she just got today. We also live in the wilderness - so no interference from other networks at all. Although the SSID is unique regardless & we're using WPA2-PSK. How many dhcp leases are you set to, a common default is from like 100 to 150 -- so 50 devices could have leases from your dhcp server. How many ips do you show available? I wont even pretend that i know what you're talking about, so i went into my router settings looking for anything that said "DHCP" "Use router as DHCP server" - this box was ticked & this exact page is what Kai linked to in the above post. This was the only mention of DHCP that i found. The connection wasn't just slow, it was non existant. As said earlier, can i do anything within this to enable device 1, 2, 3 priority connection over 4, 5, 6? And to take it further, can i enable devices 1, 2, 3 to have priority bandwidth over devices 4, 5, 6? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kai Y Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 EDIT: Just logged into the router. Going on "wireless settings" lists a laptop (forgot about those) as a trusted station. Then there's 4 "unknown name" devices for available stations. I can't find anything linking to what you said. Not sure what you mean by "trusted station" but I wonder if you mean it's the one on page 3-11 of the manual. I don't think this will help, but it's worth a try. If "Turn Access Control On" is checked, uncheck it (and then click Apply). I am guessing it is already unchecked though. There's nothing wrong with the "unknown name" in case you are wondering, it's just that some devices report a "name" to the router while others don't. It's not a requirement though, and won't affect the functionality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted December 31, 2011 MVC Share Posted December 31, 2011 "Use router as DHCP server" - this box was ticked & this exact page is what Kai linked to in the above post. So you saw this? So that is handing out IPs between 2 and 254 so what 252 possible connections. That is what yours showed? Then its not dhcp issue -- how do you know its not your phones problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 So you saw this? So that is handing out IPs between 2 and 254 so what 252 possible connections. That is what yours showed? Indeed it isThen its not dhcp issue -- how do you know its not your phones problem? I don't, i was just guessing, as my phone has been able to connect to my home network without issue for over a year now. My sister gets her iPhone today, connects to the home network & boom, my phone begins having issues, so i GUESSED that it was to do with her iPhone/the connection allowance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted December 31, 2011 MVC Share Posted December 31, 2011 there is no "allowance" to connections your router can handle as many connections it little cpu can handle, how many devices you want to share your limited bandwidth with, and how many dhcp leases setup to hand out. The only limit in theory would be that your your on a 24 bit network, ie 192.168.1.0 -- so counting the router .1 and broadcast address of .255 you could have .2 to .254 or 252 more devices. Those could be wired or wireless devices. Now it could be your sis phone grabbed your phones IP because router had released the dhcp lease, and then your phone had an issue trying to renew -- when it should of just moved on and gotten a different IP from your routers dhcp server. It could be your phones wireless was just having a fit? Did you try rebooting it? If reading the thread correctly its working fine now anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 It could be your phones wireless was just having a fit? Did you try rebooting it? If reading the thread correctly its working fine now anyway? * I didn't try, no. Didn't think of that lol* Yeah it's working fine now thanks. Anyway, is there a way i can prioritise devices as far as bandwidth goes? Obviously as i pay the bill, i would like to get top priority every time. As my sister likes to live on YouTube & slow my downloads down, i'd like her to be towards the back of the priority list. Can this be done through this router? Or would this router not support what i'm looking for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tha Bloo Monkee Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Check if your router has QoS (Quality of Service). It allows for prioritizing. Don't get too excited if you do have it, because it doesn't always work the way you want it to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spUrr Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Hey Technique, I suggest you check out this http://dgteam.ilbell...index.php?pid=6 . It's custom firmware designed for your router and allows many more diagnostic screens and cool features, I've flashed My GT834 - v3 and everything about it performed more efficiently along with lots of new features! I would be checking out the wlan frequencies of both yours and your sisters phone, as you say the problem started when hers came along.. EDIT: Did you try rebooting it?* Yeah it's working fine now thanks. Just seen this but do check out the firmware i mentioned.. especially if you are looking into bandwidth quota management :shifty: :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spUrr Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Also cheak here http://www.siteguru.co.uk/be/netgear/ for those hard to find modded netgear firmwares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKAngel Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 u sure your phone isnt set to a static ip and when hers is connect yours tries to connect on same ip? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Spurr - thanks for that. What sort of new features do you get? I downloaded the link but i'm wondering what it actually provides you. DKAngel - no i'm not sure tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technique Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 I've been told that it's bandwidth limiting i should be looking at & not QoS. If this is the case, how do i go about this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spUrr Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 What sort of new features do you get? I downloaded the link but i'm wondering what it actually provides you. As shown on this page http://dgteam.ilbello.com/ Latest release: 1018 Changelog MAIN FEATURES PLEASE REMEMBER TO FOLLOW RIGHT BLUE ON-LINE HELP GUIDE FRAME ON EACH ROUTER CONTROL PANEL'S WEB PAGE TO ACHIEVE BETTER COMPREHENSION OF NEW FEATURES. Some networking & netfiltering vanilla kernel optimizations made, reducing kernel size & resources usage. Some math code uclibc optimizations made on GT/PN models. Original Busybox OS totally replaced by one of the latest available versions, with some useful new features & code revisions needed to achieve better integration with router control interfaces. In particular, many useful commands oriented to: networking management, binary file treatment, router statistics, file editors, script manipulations and debug/upload purposes have been added. Latest physical ADSL driver available for respective models, with eventual PhyReXt impulse noise protection tecnology support for Broadcom models. New shell execution Command: a powerful filter developed by DGTeam with dedicated nvram libraries which gives the possibility of saving/modifing settings and executing all the various instances directly from the shell command line. Digit: command help to see all its available features. Enhanced iptables-based modular binary Firewall, revisited and improved, with built-in modular structure. Iptables ruleset is written into a temporary file called /tmp/rules_dgteam and then executed as Bourne Shell script at the end of the preliminary preparation step.All the applied rule commands may be read/consulted digiting: rc firewall create cat /tmp/rules_dgteam and the complete ruleset in use can be read digiting firewall dump. New firewall modules: Url block based on common url-string checkout module, with the possibility of enabling/disabling block as scheduled and to setup more than one trust ip at a time; Firewall SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection Firewall), with manual separated module activation (PORTSCAN/TCP/UDP/ICMP) and sensing parameter regulations; Custom ALGS (Application Layer Gateaway Services); Possibility of deactivating whole firewall (firewall + NAT) or NAT only, inverting default inbound rules policy; Dns (possibility of adding a maximum of 4 custom dns servers); PAT (Port Address Translation) in-rules (possibility of redirecting external connections from a source port range to a different destination one); Vpn (possibility of discriminating external VPN access in the same way of router access modes); Natloopback (included into vanilla kernel with some vanilla rules bug fixes); Reaim proxy (de)activation (ICQ, MSN, AOL port redirecting); Icmp (ping) LAN/WAN/kernel based (de)activation (router may drop ping packets also from LAN side); IM ports block: possibility of totally blocking Instant Messaning clients (same feature present on firewall rules). Custom rules: possibility of appending a user-defined ruleset as a script. [*]Web interface code style & frameset revisited, with full Tigra slider control integration, new frames added on left column to improve panel browsing (links and logout), the custom favicon, some new gifs realized by Kussolino and new customized top frame logos, including Paypal donation button. [*]Additional customized Web CGI interface, containing all procedures needed to process old and new web panel page forms: Setup wizard, Advanced ADSL settings, Wireless Schedule, Block Sites, SPI firewall, PAT Rules, ALG services, Schedule, Username and password Setup, Access Mode Setup, Diagnostics, WAN setup, TCP/IP parameters setup, Dynamic DNS, Advanced DHCP Settings, UPNP, SNMP, VPN, Wake On Lan, Custom Setup. [*]Advanced ADSL settings, with smart adsl multimode, SNR regulation, parity bitswap, trellis bit, sra, sesdrop, i24k, CoMinMgn, PhyReXt activation and so on, enabling also impulse noise reduction technology support (PhyReXt) on Broadcom models. [*]Advanced ADSL test (tones, medley) useful for diagnostic purpose (instance directly taken from latest original sources on eng web panel). [*]Wi-Fi encryption modes: WPA AES, WPA2, WPA2 + WPA, WPA2 802.11 Radius added on all models. [*]Wi-Fi mac address based WDS mode added on GT/GTB models (instance directly taken from latest original sources on eng web panel). [*]Device Mode instance (present also on original releases but unlinked on web panel menu). [*]Schedule instance completely rewritten with many bug fixes (midnight restart, day change, timezone, wrong GMT fuses on htm page, etc). [*] Full working sequential (present-to-next day overlaps checkout) Wireless Schedule instance, with indipendent day-by-day schedule times database. [*]Openssl crypto library encryption support libs, including all the most advanced cipher algorithms, making it possible to enable SSL support on many networking applications used such as https, snmp, ntp, vpn, ddns, wget over https (ewget) and more, ensuring the best security way of sending critical data informations through internet. [*]OpenNTP BSD with SSL support (replacing original ntp client), with multi server/pool support acting also as LAN/WAN NTP server (joining exixtent pools, etc). [*]Change Username and Password (from the same web panel htm page). [*]Four configuration modes, available also from remote login: Http (mini_httpd, deactivable); Https (mini_httpd, deactivable) with SSL support (rsa+cert PEM key encryption needed); Telnet (utelnetd) with a compatibility code fix made by James67 for dos/win clients; Ssh (dropbear multibinary (keygen + daemon), supporting downloadable rsa key encryption for a secure console line connection). All configuration daemon clients have been updated to their latest custom stable release. To reactivate an interface from console command line, digit: command manage http local on for http; command manage https local on for https; command manage telnet local on for telnet; command manage ssh local on for ssh/dropbear. As web panel, also command line interfaces are restricted to login access for security reason, in particular: Telnet login username is the same of the web panel (can be modified); Dropbear login is always root (can't be modified). Password is the same for all the interfaces.[*]Diagnostic page extended with many useful commands: ARP-ping; MTU size finder script (find out largest MTU value available for current network); Advanced adsl driver informations and bit error rate test (Broadcom models); Netstat conntracks monitor; Firewall status (iptables rules dump); Stored settings (with some statistics about nvram memory usage, etc.); Running processes monitor; Router tasks; Loaded kernel modules; Kernel stats; Kernel informations (dmesg); Show crontab; RAM memory optimization (with 3 hours interval schedule option); Router shutdown (puts router in deep standby mode: manual restart required). [*]PPPOE relay bridge feature present on all models. [*]IGMP multicast proxy daemon (binary taken directly from built-in N2000 vanilla target filesystem). [*]Advanced TCP/IP settings, oriented to: web browsing speed-up, VOIP optimization and P2P management. Settings available are: timestamps, conntracks limit extension, keepalive, probes, tcp conntracks established timeout, tcp/udp/voip/icmp timeout, tcp syn cookies protection, arp force broadcast on wan link (for broken providers). [*] Multi client Ddns Updater, developed by Eric Paul Bishop (Gargoyle), with SSL support and the possibility of choosing up to 15 different ddns providers (most of them support https). There is also the possibility of adding more. [*]Advanced DHCP settings, with extended dns list (up to 4 addresses), full static lease reservation ip (fixing some orig bugs), dns list broadcastable over dhcp, lease time manipulation & other dhcp user-defineable options. [*][NEW] Net-snmp multi-mibs agent (with basic features, SSL support & user-defineable options). [*][NEW] Openvpn (in place of vanilla Pluto-Openswan), supporting SSL & LZO data compression & many other user-defineable options. [*]Wake On Lan client, with auto broadcast ip determination and udp port setting (executable both from web panel, where it's possible to select the mac address from the dhcp address reservation list, and command line). [*][NEW] Possibility of creating full User-defined Scripts/Rules to be run up at some router's key events, making its configuration absolutely flexible: Boot, ADSL (re)connection, Wireless (re)start, Firewall (re)start, Schedule crontab. [*][NEW] Many applications recompiled against their latest versions (with some code optimizations): Linux ATM libs, Bridge-utils, Iproute2, Pptp, Quagga, Dnrd, Rp-pppoe, Udhcp, Nbtscan. [*]Added DGTeam official links on web panel. [*]Default settings updated with more firewall services and some variable adjustements. [*]Some other minor stuffs & fixes. [*]Different adsl physical driver versions splitted one per img firmware. [*]All web panel languages supported (on separated img firmwares to save internal flash space). N.B. Some custom fre/deu web pages are written in english language only (due to their structure they are comprehensive too anyway). We are still waiting for users who want to work over fre, deu, (also eng) translation revisions: all the help received will be appreciated... Further probes... WI-FI features extension; Physical LED management; QOS & mangle; Low-level code tuning; Various & eventuals... ___________________________________________________________________ You can always flash your current firmware/restore settings back on to router if you don't like it :rolleyes: I've never had a problem with mine and it also has helped me to pinpoint and fix a couple of issues with new clients in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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