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[setecio]

I've read here and in other places that the Netgear DG834G is good for connections when the adsl signal is weak.

However there is now a v4 and thus a v3 v2 and v1. I think the v3 is a different chipset to the v2, not sure about the v4 .... but does the suitablility of the DG834G for weak signals, apply to all versions of it ... does anyone know? Thanks.

[roseway]

I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that V4 is just new firmware for the V3 hardware. V3 uses a Broadcom chipset, and V1/V2 used AR7. All of them seem to be pretty good at holding on to poor signals, but it will depend on the particular line so there's no guarantee.

Sorry to be vague, but I don't think there's a single right answer.

[kitz]

There seems to be some confusion right now over the chipsets of v3.

Despite earlier reports that the v3 had a broadcom chipset Im now not too sure and it could well appear that at least in some v3s it has a different version of the TR7 chipset.

v4 is reported as being broadcom.

If anyone has either of these routers you should be able to check by telnetting into the shell

-> sh
# cat proc/cpuinfo

should hopefully produce something like
cpu model : BCMxxxx V0.0

[roseway]

I think that command would be

   cat /proc/cpuinfo

(i.e. there is a / in front of proc)

[kitz]

oooh thank you eric.

either command seems to work

[roseway]

The way Linux commands are parsed is that, if the full path (including the leading /) isn't specified in a directory parameter then the path is taken to be relative to the current path. So if your current directory were (say) /home/kitz and you typed the command without the leading / then it would be parsed as

   cat /home/kitz/proc/cpuinfo

and you would get a 'File not found' error.

Putting the / in front defines the path absolutely.

If the command works either way, then the initial current directory must be the top level, i.e. the / directory.

That's the end of today's lesson folks. You'll be tested on it next week.

[kitz]

Thanks eric.

As you know Im not a linux bod - and found out a load of stuff about my router by simply "poking around" and playing  in the CLI - due to the absence of their being any documentation at all for it.

lesson learnt

[mr_chris]

My 2p worth...

It seems the DG834 series always seem to start in the root directory so usually either command will suffice. But unfortunately the default prompt does not tell you which directory it is currently in. For further info, you can find out the current directory by typing

   pwd

at the prompt, and you'll get something like this:

# pwd
/
#

which tells us we're in the root ( / ) directory.

[roseway]

That's worth more than 2p

[mr_chris]

3p?

Btw forgot to mention, it's probably safer always putting the initial / before referencing any path names, just to make sure they always work, every time

[kitz]

Got this response this morning from one of the guys at Zen, which possibly shows where the confusion may be.

"Ok. Technically the DG834Gv3 does have the broadcom chipset as it uses it for the wireless connection. the Version 4 is the only one that doesn't use the AR7 chip. "

[mr_chris]

Ah, interesting. I always thought the V3 used the Broadcom chipset for ADSL too! Cheers for that

[roseway]

Me too.

[kitz]

Seems like most references until fairly recently were saying it was a broadcom.

Possibly the confusion occured because it did have a broadcom chipset in which Netgear were apparently using for the wireless part only.
 afaik its only after the advent of the zen AR7 report that this appears to have come out "in the open" it certainly wasnt on the list which they released on 2nd Oct either.

Info Ive got has come from one of the guys at Zen and a couple of customers in the zen forum who kindly checked via the shell command for me.  - Thanks narsty & John_ON.

The v3 chipset shows as MIPS 4KEc V4.8
and its apparently a TI AR7 TNETD7200ZDW

Theres a full list btw of the AR7 chipsets here
Obviously v3 of the Netgear also now needs adding on to that too.

[mr_chris]

Looks like it's been changed on this list which I think is where everyone is getting their lists from.

I changed that when the item first appeared to say v1 and v2 only, it's now been changed by "Narsty" (!) to clarify up to v4.