A couple of months ago I bought a Netgear FVS318 DSL router beacuse of it's firewall features and because it has 8 switched ports. Now, through Earthlink I pay for the static IP service (which is really nothing more than a reservation in the PPPoE pool based on my username.)

Since I bought the router it has been a nightmare! Bottom line is that at least 3 times a week it reboots itself (for no reason) and in doing so it grabs a new PPPoE address. It's really starting to piss me off!

To prove the point I plugged in my old Linksys BEFSR41 and, drum roll please, it was completely stable for a week. I even went so far as to have Netgear send me a replacement unit. No Change! Maybe Netgear's thinking is that this little "quirk" isn't noticeable to users who don't pay for a static but I've given up on them.

Can anyone recommend a decent -stable- DSL router with 8 LAN ports, SPI and decent logging? I don't particularly want wireless but no big deal if it's a WAP also. I'd also like to keep it under $200.

Any suggestion would be most helpful.

I am surfing though a FVS318 right now and the connection is PPPoE. I have absolutely no problems with this unit. I can't say enough good things about it.

This is the firmware I am using:
V1.3 Jan. 29 2003

If you watch the security log with dilligence you will notice that a few times a week the unit reboots giving you the "Netgear activated" message. This happens regardless of the firmware level (1.4 was supposed to fix this but didn't.) Mine, both the returned one and the new one, usually come up with a date of 01/01/1900 untill it talks to the NTP server.

Don't get me wrong, it does grab a new address everytime. And there's never a time the LAN can't talk to the Internet. But something in it's innitialization causes it to request a new address (not the one I pay for.) The fact that it's rebooting for no reason is unacceptable. Especially since the Linksys worked flawlessly.

through Earthlink I pay for the static IP service (which is really nothing more than a reservation in the PPPoE pool based on my username.)

it reboots itself (for no reason) and in doing so it grabs a new PPPoE address

Complain to Earthlink. You should never get any address except the one you've paid for. The fact that you are able to be asigned a different address is an indication that they've not done their job properly.

OK. I'll shut up now.

It works for me.™

I did, several times. Unfortunately by the time I get to second level tech's I'm exhausted.

You're right about the fact that I should never get a different address but.... The router shouldn't reboot on it's own either.

There's too many hands on the Earthlink side. First level, second level, Verizon (whose lines Earthlink leases in my area), the morons at the local C.O. Long story short I've been down this road before. If I can I'd like to change the things I have control over.

Well, are you sure it's based on your username and not on your MAC address? I've heard of some providers determining that it's you based on that (though it seems to be relegated more to cable), and many of the firewall's these days have the ability to use your original computer's MAC address on the WAN side.

Definitely the username - that's how Earthlink PPPoE reservations are granted. The fact that I was able to switch between the Linksys and Netgear, without MAC cloning, rules out MAC restrictions.

Just for S&G's I called Earthlink. This time their official response was:

"It may be due to incorrect release of IP address by your modem."

In other words my router reboots, requests an address. The PPPoE, server seeing that my modem is still active, is not smart enought to realize that I should get the same address and issues another.

I should just reboot a couple hundred times and see if I can use up their pool

So naturally I asked "How do I correct this issue?"

"Your modem will not release the IP address because abrupt shutdowns etc."

Again I'm back to a need for a router that doesn't reboot.

Damn!

I'd say that it's broken on both ends, but you're right in that your best resolution is to get a firewall that doesn't reboot.

I use an OpenBSD machine running on a Pentium133 and a Netgear switch, but that's probably not the recommendation you want.

Yeah, probably not what you are looking for either, but i use BBIagent running on an ancient 486. It's just a bare motherboard mounted to a rack with two NIC cards and a floppy drive hanging off of it. It boots off the floppy and runs in RAM. It hasn't crashed or had to be rebooted in over 6 years, except in the case of my moving or a power failure, or me updating the software. It's SUPER easy to setup and offeres everything from a print server to bandwidth throttling, firewall protection, you name it. Sweet piece of OS software if ya ask me.

Ahh, another OpenBSD firewaller...