Internal details

Figure 3 is a shot of the 834B with its top cover removed. (The scrawled letters on the antenna pods are not factory-issue; I forgot to take the picture before I used my Sharpie!) While Netgear hasn't rev'd the 854T board yet to move the radio from its mini-PCI format directly onto the main board, it has bumped the 834B up to rev 2. The change should have drastically reduced the cost of the product, since the original version used a CardBus radio! (see the old board photos here).

Aside from the integration of the Broadcom Intensi-fi radio onto the board and adding a third antenna, the base design is the same as the original using a Broadcom BCM4704 processor, BCM5325 10/100 switch, 4 MB of flash and 16 MB of RAM.

Figure 3: Inside view

Figure 4 shows the companion WN511B Notebook Adapter internal view, which also uses the Broadcom Intensi-fi chipset.

Figure 4: CardBus board

Tags: 802.11n, Netgear, Router reviews, WiFi, Wireless Reviews,

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