I have a WNR854T RangeMax Next Wireless-N Router Gigabit Edition. Whenever a setting is updated within the router, whether it be a wireless WEP key update, a port remapping, or resetting the DNS servers in the Internet settings, when the setting is applied, the router reboots itself.

When I say "reboots itself", I mean the power light, normally green, goes amber and blinks, and the network connections are cut off on all the computers in the house, wired and wireless, until about 45-60s later when the router is finished with it's reboot.

I had chalked it up to a firmware fault that would be fixed in a later upgrade, but I have had this router model for about a year and a half, through several firmware updates, and still the router reboots itself whenever a modification is made to the settings.

I have recently had to return the router to Netgear when the hardware failed drastically ("no lights" bad), and the new unit, with the latest firmware pre-installed, has the same problem.

A call to Netgear support claims that most customers do no change their settings that frequently, and it should not be a problem, going so far as to say that this behavior is "by design."

I am in a house with several computers connected to the Internet simultaneously, and they all create and receive traffic on the Internet in different ways at different times. The most common occurance is when we want to torrent something on the Mac rather than on the PC, so we need to remap ports to ensure maximum traffic.

This is lame and odd, because I have owned other Netgear wireless router models in the past, and they have always been able to stay connected when a setting is changed. I even have a lame Linksys travel router with one Ethernet port that can't even modify the DNS setting, and it stays online through setting changes.

This is an unacceptable state for Netgear's current flagship router. I consider this "feature" to be a bug in it's current state, one that should be squashed on the next firmware update. If I do not see some sort of acceptance of responsibility from Netgear with a resolution for my router, then this will be the last Netgear equipment I buy.

Cross-posted to forums for Netgear, Maximum PC, Tom's Hardware, Broadband Reports, and my personal blogs that no one reads

Yeah most routers do that. I've had Dlink DI-604, DI-624, DI-634M, and Airport Express. They all do that. I thought it was cool when I set up a Linksys WRT-54G and it didn't. I don't understand why you always have to switch up the port setting though. Just open one port for the pc and one port for the mac then never touch it again. I don't understand what you mean by maximum traffic unless you also tweak the QOS settings as you do it.