This is an update to my previous review shown below. Less than a month after installing and setting this unit up, it started dropping the connection with my router. After over an hour with tech support, they determined the unit defective. They sent me a warranty replacement unit which exhibited the same annoying trait...dropped connections after 24-48 hours of operation. The unit sits only 20 feet from the router, shows 85% signal strength and is not affected by other electrical, electronic or microwave devices. Save your money and don't bother buying this product. It is a waste of time and money.
Initial Review: After trying numerous WIFI range extenders and experiencing lousy performance and incredibly useless tech support, I took a chance on this Netgear unit. What an incredible unit this is! I had it set up and functioning in less than 15 minutes, AND, I didn't even have a second computer for the wireless setup as suggested in the instructions. I actually set it up using my iPhone browser. I set the unit in the middle of the house, with my router at one end and the iPhone at the other (125' away). The signal strength on my iPhone changed from no bars to a full signal strength set of bars. This Netgear unit is awesome! NETGEAR Universal WiFi Range Extender WN2000RPT
This WiFi extender has done everything it has advertised. It was easy to set-up and recognized quickly by my lap-top, 5 minutes top for set-up. I now have two iPhones, two lap-tops, TV (wi-fi), desktop PC, and BlueRay hooked up to it. The four additional ports are priceless. Obviously not running all at the same time, but acess has been ideal. I've performed speed tests and it's speed is slightly slowly than original signal, but not by much. From my research this is a common trait of extenders.
Only suprise was that it didn't "extend" my network like my brain would think. Instead of picking up a weak signal, strengthening and broadcasting, it acutally broadcasts as another SSID. Not too big of an issue after inserting all the security passwords into the wireless components for the 1st time. After that, connection is transparent when the wireless devices pick up the strong signal.
Highly recommend product.
Bought it yesterday, got home and install it. No cd installation whatsoever, it connect to the existing wifi automatically. Installation manual is pretty clear but easy. What makes it good is this one has 4 port in the back and I use this to connect my PS3 and dish receiver, wifi for my laptop. It can be configure to mirror the security of the router.
I bought the Netgear WN2000RPT primarily to get a wired hub away from my Dlink DIR825 router. As a bonus I found that the WN2000RPT signal strength is much better than that of the Dlink router almost anywhere in the house and reaches much further, such as a kids bedroom and an outside patio that had been troublesome. For that it deserves 5 stars. However, its setup after a few days reached a point of me screaming I was going to send it back, only to decide to try "one more thing". That miraculously turned out to work. I'll spare you the contortions the Extender and I went through along the way, but I have quite a lot of experience with networks and this thing drove me to despair.
So here are a few pointers that hopefully may help you:
- my unit does NOT reset to factory default however many times I push the darn reset. That may in fact have
been the main part of my problems, but it would not surprise me if other units suffer from the same.
- the WN2000RPT is a 2.4-GHz device (which, by the way, is the reason that some users complain about not
being able to 'see' the 5-GHz channel of their dual-band router). It took me a while to remember
that I set up my dual-band Dlink with 11g-only on the 2.4-GHz channel and 11n-only on the 5-GHz one.
Thus make sure that 11n is also offered on the 2.4-GHz channel from the router for a fast connection.
- The Setup Wizard for the WN2000RPT is pretty annoying because (a) it does not allow you to branch to the
manual setup right at the start. It allows you to go there at the end, but I frequently lost access to
the Extender before getting to that point. Use 'http://www.mywifiext.net/cgi-bin/index.html' to try to
jump away from the Wizard to the manual setup. And (b) what the Wizard tells you is not exactly what is
happening, especially in giving the impression that you are connected to the Extender at times when you
are not (keep an eye on those lights on the Extender).
- Where for me things got really difficult is when the whole setup process seemed to work (i.e. readily
found router, set up name for extender's network, set up security and password etc.), but then went
into the final configure where instructs you to connect to the new Extender network. That appeared to
work (nice strong signal), but consistently would fail the 'authentication' resulting in a network
connected with 'limited access'. From that point on it would take many tries (even using a wired
connection), power cycles, futile resets, and shutting down the main router to restore a connection
with the Extender to get into its setup menu. Even to the point that I might get a connection while
the 'Authentication' was ongoing, only to lose it after it failed. I probably spent more than a day
messing around like this, most of it waiting/trying to talk to the Extender either wired or wireless.
- Anyway, to jump to the solution: the main problem appears to have been the "maximum compatibility"
WPA-TKIP+WPA2-AES security setup of the router. I suspect that something daft happens in that the
protocol accepted between the PC and the Extender conflicts with the protocol chosen between the
Extender and Router. The only setup that worked for me (apart from an Open net) was to configure BOTH
the Router and the Extender to WPA2-AES. Bingo. Life has been sweet since.
So maybe I should have sent my unit back and maybe I would have received one that actually resets (which should trigger the setup menu). But, "come on Netgear": using a wired connection there should be a way to reliably get to the setup menu. Also a "Factory Reset" /menu/ option would be have been nice. But now that the WN2000RPT finally is working, I am impressed and it is exceeding my expectations - Netgear - Range Extender - Extender - Repeater'
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