Hi, I have an iMac and a Netgear DG834G router, which I used to use with BT Internet (it plugged straight into the ADSL socket).

I now have HomeChoice, but the engineer would only set the thing up to run with an Ethernet cable straight from the HC box to the Ethernet port on the back of my Mac.

It works, but I'd like it to go via the router again so that I can use the router's own firewall and, later, add in some wireless devices. Is this possible? I've tried the obvious thing of plugging the Ethernet cable into one port and the Mac into another, but I think there's probably more to it than this.

Anyone willing to walk me through? Thanks!

The DG834G is an ADSL combined modem/router and almost definitely wont work as the "modem" is built into the STB on Homechoice. What you need is a wireless ethernet router which just plugs into the ethernet port on the STB and then shares out dynamic addresses from there wirelessly or wired. Personally I'm using a Linksys WRT54G on my Homechoice and it works brilliantly.

Your router has a built in modem, so you won't be able to use it with HomeChoice as the modem is built into the set top box, unless it's possible to switch off the modem part of the router (unlikely). You'll need to buy a new router - there are suggestion on this forum as to which ones work best.

Thanks guys, it's already heading for eBay. Which is a shame, 'cos I rather liked it...

Hi there. I would be interested to know if you get your router working with homechoice... We had HC installed last week. The wireless router works... ...but only just. Sometimes it is fine and sometimes there is just no connection at all - I am unsure whether this is a HC problem or the router???! Anyway it is worth trying...

What router are you using and what exactly are your symptoms? You find you are getting variable signal strength, speeds, etc, etc? What version of Windows/Mac OS are you using, if XP have you installed SP2?

Wireless stuff does make trouble shooting difficult. At time of no connection if you use a LAN cable to plug into the router you can determine whether it is the wifi bit or the HC service.

Hi - thanks for the reply. We have a DG834G router and I have a g4 running osx10.3.9. The wireless part of the router seems to be running fine (as always has). The difficult bit I think is (amongst all the nasty network acronyms and other gibberish (!)) ensuring that the router goes to the modem in the HC box via an ethernet socket rather than looking to its own modem. To make things more interesting I think I might have changed the ip address of the router whilst in the setup page as now I cannot access this (some error came up when I was fiddling about in there). Oh dear. Anyway my next task is to reset the router (I am hoping I will find a button/pin hole) later to see if this helps... Any other ideas..?

...But of course when I arrive home last night everything is fine. I am beginning to think that this might be an intermittant broadband connection more than anything else... Is this a common problem I wonder?

jonniec - how did you manage to get the DG834G set up in the first place? I found that if I plugged both the homechoice box and my XP machine into the router, I could use the internet with no problem, but an OSX machine plugged into the router couldn't see the internet. Also, the XP machine could see the wireless network, but couldn't access the internet through it, even though it could if connected to the router via a wire.

Did you change any of the router's settings at all? I did nothing to any of them, so I'm wondering if there's anything I can change to get it working, or if I really do need a new wireless router.

Hi...

I have now ordered a Netgear 614 wireless router (as HC supply with their wireless package). I have been advised both on the web and in shops that the 834 technically should not work; it would appear that it can only share an internet connection via its built-in modem and not via something plugged into an ethernet port - the 614 has a specififc modem (WAN?) port (although this is the same socket/plug as an ethernet connection).

...However... I have been able to access the web through the router with the HC box plugged into it, although only sometimes - I do not know why. I have also been told that this might only work with one computer at a time. For some strange reason when connected I could not access the router's set-up page - I can only assume that the connection was bypassing these certain elements in the router. Anyway I gave up playing about with the d*&n thing and have bought a new one on ebay. (Have a look - they can be found quite cheaply.) Hopefully this one will work...

Good luck!

(I was not able to try a windows machine as we do not have one in the house.)

I had the same problem with the DG834. I could get an XP laptop to surf the internet using a wired ethernet connection, but nothing (including my mac running OSX) would work wirelessly. Gave up and got a Linksys WRT54G, which works fine.

thanks - i'm off to ebay...

Yup, the 614 works like a dream...