My New Netgear FVX538
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007Ok, here is my problem. I bought this Netgear FVX538 last week. It worked great for the first 24 hours. After that 24 hours, the router shutdown, locked up. The light on the router seem to keep moving like nothing had happened. I got this router to remove the Linux server that was acting up. It was acting up because a heat sink needs to be replaced. Yes, you would have replaced the heat sink. Well, being an older IBM server the heat sink was $150 - $210. It was cheaper to order a new router and fix that server later.
AVOID USING THESE ROUTERS AT ALL COSTS!!! The current (2.0) firmware has a memory leak that Netgear refuses to fix. Their solution is for me to reboot my router every 24 hrs. (I have FVX 538’s, v1 and v.2 hardware, 338 and 318. All exhibit the memory leak behavior and if you use VPN tunnels between routers, you have to reboot every 24 hours. (about 3-4 days w/o using the VPN). The tech support is possibly the worst on the planet. They refuse to pass information up the channel and constantly try and solve the problem with the same idiotic canned answers. 3rd tier support simply refuses to call back, never keeps appointments for trouble shooting and lies about the extent of the problem (everyone who upgrades has this problem). FYI, if you don’t upgrade there are multiple other issues (such as hung static routes and vpn incompatibility). I’ve been a system admin for 20 years, I’m very proficient at networking and routing; and this has been the worst piece of tech I’ve used.
I cannot believe that Netgear would let a product like this to sit there and be a hunk of junk. I have other consults come up and tell me that Netgear is some of the better equipment out there. Well this was my experience with this company and probably my last (At least for business use).
I hope they fix this problem, before is takes them right out of the business market.
So in other words I’m going to send that router back. I’m going to get my new eSoft InstaGate firewall ordered.
