Netgear → WNDR 3700 (Firmware update)

Did anyone else get a firmware update today? (Sept 13th, 2013 for those who read this days or months from now)

Firmware Version
V1.0.0.30_1.0.27

What's new about it?

Stock firmware on the WNDR3700? Too limiting. OpenWRT or dd-wrt . . . Trust me, you'll be much happier.

Didn't get pinged with this version when I logged in...

On my V1, I still have:
Hardware Version WNDR3700
Firmware Version V1.0.7.98NA
GUI Language Version V1.0.0.64

I wrestled with DD-WRT for 2 weeks on my backup 3700, could never get it to work with NAS and it had really poor wireless range, something I couldn't live with.

I'm sure everyone has a differing experience, but mine was dismal, and I really had hoped it would work as the reporting was fabulous.

I just picked up the new firmware for my v3. No obvious changes that I can see.

I don't use the NAS feature on my 3700, but the range is fantastic. Getting NAS going on my WNDR4500 was no harder than getting it working on the stock firmware, though, with significantly better performance.

Okay, now you have my curiosity sparked.

I too have a WNDR4500 in standby mode. What firmware did you load on it and did you see any improvements over the stock firmware?

The version I'm currently running:

DD-WRT v24-sp2 kongac (c) 2013 NewMedia-NET GmbH
Release: 07/23/13 (SVN revision: 22115)

Kong's latest version is now at 22290, but I haven't been home long enough to bother installing it. Most of the improvements are in the additional options it provides. I've noticed no degradation in performance or incompatibilities with any wireless devices, and the range is significantly improved. I've noticed that my phone now connects when I pull my truck up next to the garage, which it never did with the stock firmware (there are 5 wood frame and wallboard walls between the truck and the router, one of which is the firewall between the garage and house).

I can also remotely administer it securely with ssh using public/private key authentication and encryption, and configure things like my PAP2T-NA remotely without having to set up port forwarding. I'm also looking into setting up a VPN between my primary and vacation homes. This stuff just isn't possible with the stock firmware.

Firmware can be found at »www.desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC/

I'd strongly recommend you take a look at the dd-wrt Atheros SOC forum to understand what you're getting into. Once you've performed the initial flash it's clear sailing, but it's a good to understand the recovery process if something bad happens.

General WNDR4500 thread: »www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/vi ··· t=145503

Latest AC3 thread: »www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/vi ··· t=173982

Thanks for all the information - I know it took some time to weed through all of that!

I'll let you know how it goes..

I updated to this and DNS forwarding stopped working intermittently. Tried downgrading and DNS is now broken permanently. Netgear support have been somewhat unhelpful.

Well, installed the Kong version on my 4500 and so far, I am impressed. How I got the Samba running, I have no idea. I was frustrated last night with that portion and this morning swapped the 4500 back in to service and to my surprise, everything just worked.

The range is equal or better, the assigned static dhcp clients really work and the NAS drive access is much faster. I'm using a 2TB HP drive.

Question for you, I have /var/log/messages turned on. Do you email those to yourself via a script?

And again, thanks for all the links. Took me a bit to put it all together, which seems inherent to dd-wrt.

I don't do anything with /var/log/messages except look at them once in a while.

The latest version, most likely the one you're running, trades some performance for reduced latency in the LAN to WAN link. You won't notice a bandwidth issue until you hit 100Mbit or so, though.

As far as Samba is concerned, I know I had to reboot the router after the upgrade was complete because something wasn't working quite right. I don't think it was Samba, but sometimes a reboot really does fix things

Doc - check out this discovery... »[General] Grandstream 502 Fax and DD-WRT

Hah, cool! I don't have any Grandstream hardware, and I do use uPnP on a couple of devices and haven't had any issues. Great detective work, sir!