Netgear DGND3300 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N DSL Gateway

Sounds like I had the same experience as quite a few others. In case anyone is still wondering, the flashing red/green power light on the modem means that the modem needs its firmware re-flashing. My guess (and it is only a guess) is a bad batch of modems have been shipped 'blank' - with no firmware at all - and pressing the reset button does absolutely nothing.
I solved this problem by reconnecting my old modem (not totally dead, fortunately) and downloading the firmware from the netgear site. When you reconnect the new modem and try to open firefox (maybe explorer too) you get a message telling you the modem needs the firmware and to locate the firmware file to upload to the modem. Click on browse, locate the download file and click upload and Bob is your Mothers Brother! Don't use the set-up programme though, it doesn't help when it comes to uploading the firmware. Once the firmware was added in my case the modem came to life straight away and the set-up was nearly complete.
Thus - in steps
1. Connect your old modem (or use another computer somewhere) to visit Netgear (the American site) and click on support.
2. Put in the product details: DGND3300v2
3. Click on the downloads tab on the product sheet page.
4. Chose the second option (the non-German one) DGND3300v2 Firmware Version 2.1.00.41NA & WW
5. Chose the users outside North America option
6. Save the .img file somewhere - maybe your desktop is the best place? Of course, if you are on another computer it might be better saving onto a USB drive.
7. Reconnect the new modem and turn it on. MAKE SURE YOU CONNECT YOUR COMPUTER/LAPTOP VIA THE SUPPLIED ETHERNET CABLE.
8. Power up the modem again, don't worry about the fact that the light is still flashing.
9. Open firefox (or perhaps Explorer but I never tried it this way) and get the message about your modem.
10. In the box on the error page browse to where you saved the .img file and click upload. The screen will change.
11. Sit back and watch your router light up like a Christmas tree! You can now run the set-up programme if you want (I didn't bother).
So - its a nice modem, good range and it proved that the aerial had gone in my old one by virtue of the fact that the laptop now works wirelessly again! However, naughty points to Netgear in abundance for shipping defective product and clearly not doing batch sampling. Its your reputation you damage Netgear and Belkin are no doubt happy to sit back and watch!

This unit was purchased to replace a DGN834PN router that was dropping connections too often after five years of steady service. The unit is in beta, lets just get that clear first. The Firmware is barely there, and there are some horrendous formatting issues on its admin screen, particularly the LAN setup page.

The bugs aside (and there are quite a few, so don't buy this if you aren't prepared to wait for a good firmware update) its not bad in its core offering of a good N-rangemax signal. Its not possible to keep the SSID hidden on N and still maintain a steady signal, but thankfully you can still use WPA2 and MAC access lists if you want control over who is allowed in.

Good features:
- guest bg and n network segments, for when you have visitors and you want them to surf out, but not on your network
- port forward and firewall rules as per 834PN router, namely configurable and flexible
- auto firmware update check, though can get annoying at every login
- you can turn off the flashing blue lights by touching the dome down for 1-2 seconds
- it has two SSIDs, one for b/g and one for n - but both share the same WPA2 key!

Bad things:
- The bg / n split via SSID is not matched by any other wireless configuration options, so they share the same backend. You cant harden the N range and keep the bg flexible
- The firmware is in beta (sorry netgear, it is!)
- Older wireless kit has trouble joining the network (and by old I mean 802.11b kit!)
- You can't hide the SSIDs without both b/g and n signals dropping out regularly - which is odd as this was fine on the 834PN

Am I satisfied with the upgrade from the old router - well yes. I knew what I wanted, a good quality N-spec router (draft of course), that has great coverage and allows as much MIMO flexibility as possible for the multitude of devices that connect to it. It has good coverage on N, has nice low power consumption, and the guest WAN feature is a great idea. And its black with lots of colourful LEDS (yellow, green and blue)

** UPDATE ** May 2010
The latest firmware is now available, and I can confirm that the router behaves like all other Netgear routers. This is now a GOOD BUY.

Recently bought, I had the latest version of the firmware already installed, so no flashing-red light problem or first generation buggy firmware.
Very quick set-up, creates two networks: B/G network on 2.4ghz and an N network on 5ghz - you can't have N on both, but you can switch 5ghz off to get N on 2.4ghz. It even came with set-up instructions for BeThere/O2 customers like me which was a nice touch, seeing as they like to have a different network setup to everyone else.
iPhones and wifi printer work on the 2.4ghz network with laptops and PCs on 5ghz... all connect together fine.

I seem to be able to get a real-world throughput of about 75mbits of real data on 5gz N which is in the ball-park of what you should expect on 300mbit WIRELESS (that's around 4.5MB/sec transferring between two PCs on the same network - around 9MB/sec total). Don't be one of these people expecting 300mbits of real throughput like it's a full-duplex wired connection, it simply doesn't work that way.

Negatives...
USB port is not powered, so a USB drive has to have it's own power - you can't just connect a USB pen drive.
Also, the USB transfer speed is quite low indeed, around 2.5MB/sec I get. I don't use it as a media server though. Have not tried connecting a printer.

I still give it 5 stars though because what I bought it for was a fast solid connection, which is what I get.

Note you can switch the lights off by holding the button down for 2 seconds and releasing. The lights go out about 2 seconds after that.