I just purchased a WNR3500L router today and I am wondering what I am getting into.
PLEASE help me with your thoughts. 
After browsing this forum for a few hours, I am thinking that I should return the WNR3500L and wait until I have $148 to get the WNR3700
I now am under the impression, after browsing the WNR3500L-Open-Source-Router, part of this forum that:
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The WNR300L is already obsolete. That the forum entries for it are mostly old and it appears that most of the strings, seem to end without a solution.
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That there are limitations specifically to the WNR300L router, when it comes to much of the firmware mentioned. That the WNR3700 might work with it, but therer are issues with the WNR300L.
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The firmware solutions for very basic of issues, like: using the N standard, connections to a USB drive, keeping the router up and consistency seem to be very complicated.
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Complaints without solutions about the shared USB drive access and performance.
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It appears that to get basics done, that several firmware products need to be installed on top of each or somehow combined.
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I think I read some report showing that the use of a shared USB hard drive was much slower under the N standard, than the G standard.
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I am concerned already about getting my switch to work. My impression from the postings is that everything seems to be difficult and takes loads of testing and research about different combinations of firmware.
I feel cautious of spending hour after hour working with the WNR3500L and not being able to get the basics done.
I also am using VOIP phone access with PhonePower and therefore, ahve a Grandstream VOIP adapter hanging off my router. I am wondering if that will be difficult.
I might be TOTALLY off base with my impressions, please let me know (with kindness), what you think.
Thanks so much, 
Jon
FYI:
I am wanted to use the WNR3500L to replace my ole incredibly reliable Netgear WPN824 V2 Router.
Reasons being:
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I want to start using Wireless N.
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Gigabit Ethernet Ports - Have a 5 port Gigabit switch, that I would like to see take advantage of the higher speeds.
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Ability to hang a disk drive off of the router. Don''t have to depend on a particular PC stayting up all of the time.
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Accessability of non-proriatary open source firmware, which I hope will allow for greater performance and flexability.
jolo,
TB's Tomato 9045 USB-ext works just fine for my purposes (stable N-only wifi, stable USB NAS, printer sharing, etc). Kong's modified dd-wrt looks great too. You should try these firmwares and judge for yourself. Each environment is different, so results could vary by individual.
Ivannlbc,
Thanks so much for sharing your experiance and time. I was hoping
to get the type of positive response, like the one you have gave me.
I have seen "Kong"'s helpful activity on the forum and people like that are the ones that are the baclbone of these types of forms.
Do you use your USB port fort a shared hard drive? Flash/SDHC drives are normally FAT32. I wonder if I plan to share a Hard Drive on the router, if I should format it as FAT32. What I like are formats that can be platform independent and I would guess that FAT32 is like that.
I currently have a 1/2GB external USB drive, that I formated as FAT32, connected to my Philips 5900 DVD player. I load it with loads of Divx videos, some photos and some music. Loading files to that FAT32 drive from a NTFS drive is very slow, but when I connect to my DVD player, it works perfectly.
I was hopingto use a drive on the router as a shared backup and shared device between the users of my network, which happen to be my children. They both build PCs and do a lot of work for their friends.
Thank you takewon,
Thanks very much for taking the time to respond. If you know Taekwondo, then I beter not mess with you.
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You are so right about how each situation is different.
I definately would try different solutions, but to start off, I want to replace my router and I need to working solution as my "baseline.
Is it worth loading the Netgear firmware first, then trying other open source solutions? There is a newer Netgear driver (I don't even think that Netgear makes their own drivers anymore.). I know for my Netgear WPN824 v2 router, I had to get firmware from the company makes the firmware and drivers to get newer OS's to work. Netgear just stopped making newer firware/drivers available.
Thanks,
Jon
@ivannlbc & taekwon3dan - Thank you so much for your input and helping Jon out with his first post :)
@Jon - I don't have a lot of experience with Tomato, but I have personally had great luck with DD-WRT on the WNR3500L for most things. The NETGEAR firmware, from my experience, is stable and robust, but I prefer the way DD-WRT works, looks, and feels. I agree with taekwon3dan that you should give one a try, see how you like it, and switch if you do not.
We have lots of guides here that can help you switch firmwares or debrick your router if something bad happens :)
http://www.myopenrouter.com/page/howto
Oh, and if USB support is important to you, we have guides on that how-to page for enabling them.
Here's the one for DD-WRT, just for example.
http://www.myopenrouter.com/article/15696/Enable-USB-Sharing-Over-Your-L...
Hi jolo,
here a few answers.
There are only a few routers out there that have better specs, but these specs cost you. There maybe some routers out there that are more suitable for specific tasks, for example if one needs superior nas performance a wndr3700 or buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH might be better.
The original netgear firmware offers only basic features, but is considered stable. DD-WRT and Tomato give you pretty much every feature which is available on current wlan routers
A few month ago this was kind of true
The problem here is marketing, the numbers only give you values for the wlan standard or usb standard, but they don't name real life performance. Most people think if they have gigabit lan, they can transfer 1000MBit/8 125MB/s, but what if your drive is not fast enough, if the clients network card is software based and cannot collect the data fast enough etc.
Back to real numbers for the wnr3500l now. I did a few tests on the weekend to find out if there is another chance to squeeze out some more nas performance. With my current build using samba network sharing using a 100MBit line:
FAT32 : 4,5MB/s read 5,5MB/s write
EXT2/3: 5,5MB/s read 6,5MB/s write
I've done earlier test with NTFS, there you only have 1,5MB/s. This is because the os ntfs-3g software is not optimized for performance, see:
http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-commercial/performance/
Now 6MB/s seems low, but then compare it to some expensive hardware.
For example: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/29616-thecusn5200nasrevie...
You have to mention, that the wnr3500l only consumes 4W. I'm sure once broadcom offers new stable binary drivers, the performance will get another boost. 10MB/s should be possible.
I guess there have been some confusing threads. Currently you have 4 alternatives if it comes to firmware for the wnr. Netgear, Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT. Netgear is the default and does not void warranty. Tomato, DD-WRT both offer great features + an easy to use webinterface. OpenWRT offers the most flexibility + a foolproof guide to create a custom firmware
WLAN draft N works just great on this thing, and works out of the box with all mentioned firmwares, but don't get confused. WLAN N is per default 1-Stream=150Mbit/s. If you want 300Mbit/s then you need to configure it via webinterface and you need compatible adapters. This is pretty easy too.
I use mixed mode at home with 54Mbit/150Mbit clients and I have never had another router which offered such a stability. I have never seen any connection drop/outage.
Now 2 things you mentioned, VOIP and the SWITCH. I'm not sure what Tomato does here and if it is easily configured with the default netgear firmware. DD-WRT requires manual setup once(not very difficult with a guide), since DD-WRT has almost ahardcoded setup, this is currently necessary because DD-WRT supports VLAN Tagging, which is required for VDSL 25/50MBit lines. VOIP setup depends a lot on your hardware, if you have smart adapters that do most of the work itself it should be no problem at all. If you have dump hardware for example just a simple phone, then you need different hardware. For example a fritz.box has regular telefone jacks, you just plug in a regular telephone setup voip accounts via webinterface and from now on the box will manage all calls/fax etc.
Therefore my recommendation, check if netgear firmware works for you. If not, note down the features you are missing and then ask which alternative firmware might be the best for your requirements.
What a fantastic and thorough reply Kong.
In my opinion, your response is one that should be in an area on the top of the forum as one that is informational and not for discussion.
In my experience, forums generally are about posting difficulties and therefore most of the discussions will be about problems, but when products/software work as expected, forums tend to be less active and certainly less emotional.
You comment "The firmware solutions for very basic of issues, like: using the N standard, connections to a USB drive, keeping the router up and consistency seem to be very complicated." I think is why, when I was searching on items, like "USB Drive", I saw mostly older posts that seemed to not be resolved, with members trying all sorts of solutions.
After reading the kind and positive responses, I am going to keep the WNR3500L and I think I will have a blast, with my son, on experimenting with different options and solutions. However, before that, I will need to find a single solution that will be simple and will work, one that I can always return to. I am first going to install the proprietary Netgear firmware/drivers and see about getting up and running. I will go device by device.
After seeing stability, I will start looking at the open source drivers and moving toward them. I also will do this one by one. I want to understand what I am doing and I find trying to do everything at one time can make things a nightmare to debug. Doing things in a "modular" way (the way learned to code and troubleshoot), I think allows someone to keep moving forward. Slower on the front end, but faster on the long end. Sorry for this idiotic, geeky, It philosophy.
I am going to follow this up, if I may, with a description of what I have on my router today and what I would like to do.
This is too long, but I also want to say that I looked through routers that might be viable options to the WNR3500L and they all seem to have similar issues. There isn't "the" answer out there. In particular I was looking at a Asus router that seems very similar in cost and design to the WNR3500L and I think the comments and potential issues are very similar to the WNR300L.
Thanks,
Jon
I think it is important that I reply to this thread:
Because of the great help of all of you on the forum as well as that great 3500L router I have completed "Part A" of my implementation. Some of the items I have working on the router are new to my network, and I am very pleased.
In my list of networked items below, I do want to say that it wasn't a 1-2-3 process, yet less involved than I thought it might be. I had to get help downloading various drivers, the cool MadCatz N multi-media adapter (it really is a bridge) and firmware as well as re-programming my VOIP phone adapter.
That is to get everything that I wanted to work successfully on my router. Part 1 was to accomplish this be using the propriatary Newegg firmware, which I found extremely good.
I have the feeling that I lucked out with the timing of the newer Netgear Firmware beinf released at the time I started implementing my 3500L.
I thank you all as I will be moving now to some more new territory, but I feel really good about establishing a "baseline", that I can return to, in case. I also know that my router works on all facets.
I will be starting a new thread, to inquire about:
I do have a simple chart, if anyone is interested in seeing it, but on my network, which is on two floors of my house, I have
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Connected to Netgear 3500L Router.
Ethernet:
Jon's (me) 64 bit PC (Vista and Ubuntu). - 2nd floor
5 port Gb switch that connects with a Cat6 cable from the top to bottom floor
Grandstream Phone Adapter - great VOIP phone service from Phone Power .
Motorola Cable modem, connected to Comcast Broadband.
USB2 From 3500L
"ReadySearch"? WD 1.5 tB hard drive, that is shared across my network. (will pray for eSATA in the future), works great.
Ethernet Gb 5 port Switch - Downstairs
Usually two or so computers for my 23 year old CS student who also does part time software development and PC/Laptop hardware repair/maintenance.
Wireless Upstairs
Nintendo Wii
Jon's Win 7 Laptop (will be dual booting with Ubuntu shortly) - Running a internal Wireless N adapter on custom Notebook.
Wireless Downstairs
XP Windows PC, with Netgeat Internal Wireless Adapter (14 year old son's).
Might be one or two phones running android.
MadCatz Wireless N Game Adapter - connected to a Xbox 360 (I was able to remove an annoying Ethernet cable with this. The adapter works on MORE than an Xbox 360.
Occasionally additional Wireless and Ethernet connections if my 26 year old software developer comes over and some friends come by.
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Thanks again,
Jon Temple
Thanks for the update, Jon - I'm extremely glad that you have gotten your setup perfected. Thanks goes out to all the great members here who have helped you out!
Thanks Pete to you and everyone.
I hope that sometime I can share my experiences to help others so that they "won't have to re-invent the wheel".
This is the end of the first step for me. I am wanting to move my major computers to Ubuntu and end reliance on Proprietary Environments most notably Windows as much as possible.
For this, my 23 year old son and I are working together. While professionally, I have worked with Unix for many years, on enterprise environments, setting up and networking with Linux is a different animal.
That and upgrading my router's to open source firmware.
Thanks,
Jon
Tony,
Thanks for your comment. However, their can be loads of reasons why the open source firmware doesn't work for you.
What exactly are the problems you are having?
I also are in the process of commiting to Ubuntu (Linux), as much as possible and away from propriatary software and especitally anything Microsoft or Apple.
In general, I do a lot of multimedia encoding and decoding. I can tell you that without question, the open source software is far superior to commercial software for listening, watching, encoding and decoding. Also Firefox, especially with its commitment to Global Insustry Standards, is the best browser on the market.
I expect to be doing some tweaking and engage the help of members of this forum and do not expect everything to work perfectly the first time. Then again, I had a bunch of tweaking to do with using the Netgear firmware, which I may add is excellent.
I do feel great that everything "works" and therefore have a solid baseline to work with.
Thanks for the advice Tony and please share your issues with us.
Jon Temple
Hi Tony,
Now that is interesting, since both firmwares use the closed source broadcom wireless driver:-)
Therefore a difference in range can only achieved by different settings.
Which would also explain the disconnection issues. I know a lot of folks, that messed up range as well as stability by setting TX Power too high. In fact TX Power under dd-wrt is per default (71) very high and can cause problems if the router is in a warm location. Tomatos default is 42. I usually recommend to set is as low as possible and increase it until signal strength is okay. This way overheating is not happening and therefore stability at 100%.
Why are these drivers closed source? Doesn't Netgear realise this is a violation of the GPL?
Since the interest in firmware for routers largely came about as a result of Linksys opening up the source code for the 54G, it seems strange and perhaps illegal for the source code for these drivers to remain closed.
This hurts my brain.
Netgear, please update your policies and open up the source code for this hardware. If you want to point the finger at broadcom, then please speak to broadcom on our behalf, and perhaps suggest that if users can't get access to code that they desire, Netgear may have to use an alternate vendor for the chipset used in future routers...
Kong, you said "with new binary drivers from Broadcom" - but will there be any?
I must admit, I feel pretty screwed over. This was marketed as an "Open Source router", and they don't even have source for the wireless chip they use!
Well, I learned my lesson, I'll newer buy a router with Broadcom chips, and I will check first that is fully supported by OpenWrt. The word scam lies on the tongue. Saying a router is open source without wireless chip sources is like saying a car runs great when it doesn't even have a motor.
Aren't the latest Broadcom drivers for .24 kernel? That's just like 11 revisions ago.. Even if they do release a new binary blob (and I have my doubts about even that) what version can we expect it to be compiled for? And then we are probably stuck with that, it obvious they don't really care much about giving support for the product...
I have the same feeling as the OP right nw, I must admit.
Sorry for reviving old thread, but I thought this the best place for this post, it doesn't really make any sense to make another "future of WNR3500L-thread
Broadcom released their drivers for N chipsets at the beginning of September. Since then, firmwares for the WNR3500L have been able to be based on the 2.6 kernel
Yay, more closed source/binary drivers.
Broadcom, your business policies are reminiscent of the Dark Ages.
Could you please stop torturing us, and just release the source code to your drivers?
We promise not to laugh (much).
Now.... I am pretty new to fully utilizing the potential of my router and I dont have a problem with using ddwrt but when will I know if there is a new update. Im sure this is probably a dumb question. I just purchased the Netgear 3500l today