Got another new router today. My LA dropped back to 53db. Touch wood my internet might be fixed now. Brian at support insisted that my router was the problem, but I refused to believe him because I'd already bought a like-for-like replacement and it made no difference. Well I can say now I will NEVER buy netgear again!!!
Thanks for your patience Brian.
What netgear did you have? Also what did you replace it with? I'm thinking of changing from my 834 v3 to something newer.
OK Niall, I had a DG834G v.4 for about 3 years. Worked great. Then one day (about 2 months ago) my LA jumped to 59db from 53db. I also suffered with intermittant packet loss and PPP and Sync drops. I bought a DG834G v.5 as that was the closest I could find to what I had before. LA remained at 59db and all other symptoms. You can see why I thought it must have been my line, and not my internal equipment.
Anyway I've gone for a Belkin N Wireless Modem Router this time. £60 for PC World. LA is back to 53db immediately.
Strange that. I've never had a problem like yours with any of this series of Netgear. I was just thinking of getting something with a bit more kick and security at some point. My sisters other half just got the new version of that router and hasn't had any issues at all with it. A friend of mine bought a fancy black one but I forget the model name/number and he is very impressed with it.
I will say however, you can get the odd duff one and it may not become apparent for a while. I've had one about 5 years ago that was a bit weird, then it suddenly fell over and died :D
For what it's worth, for the time that it actually worked, the 834Gv4 was very nice. Did exactly what I wanted without any fuss. Everyone sells v.5s only now. My advice is to avoid v.5 (based on my experience).
From everything I've read v4 is considered the best as it used a Broadcom chip rather than the Texas Instruments designed AR7 (design now owned by Infineon) which along with support for DMT was the reason I bought it.
Router has been pretty solid but had to reset it a couple of times due to firmware going a bit awry. it definitely seems more stable on ADSL2+ than it did on ADSL.