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Manage the Internet Settings Manually
46
N150 and N300 WiFi DSL Modem Routers
Leave the MTU unchanged unless one of these situations occurs:
• You experience problems connecting to your ISP or other Internet service, and the
technical support of either the ISP or NETGEAR recommends changing the MTU setting.
These web-based applications might require an MTU change:
- A secure website that does not open or displays only part of a web page
- Y
ahoo email
- MSN portal
- America Online’
s DSL service
• You use VPN and experience severe performance problems.
• You used a program to optimize MTU for performance reasons and now you are
experiencing connectivity or performance problems.
If you suspect an MTU problem, a common solution is to change the MTU to 1400. If you are
willing to experiment, you can gradually reduce the MTU from the maximum value of 1500
until the problem goes away. The following table describes common MTU sizes and
applications.
Table 2. Common MTU sizes
MTU Application
1500 The largest Ethernet packet size. This setting is typical for connections that do not use
PPPoE or VPN and is the default value for NETGEAR modem routers, adapters, and
switches.
1492 Used in PPPoE environments.
1472 Maximum size to use for pinging. (Larger packets are fragmented.)
1468 Used in some DHCP environments.
1460 Usable by AOL if you do not send or receive large email attachments, for example.
1436 Used in PPTP environments or with VPN.
1400 Maximum size for AOL DSL.
576 Typical value to connect to dial-up ISPs.
Change the MTU Size
WARNING:
An incorrect MTU setting can cause Internet communication
problems. For example, you might not be able to access certain
websites, frames within websites, secure login pages, or FTP or
POP servers. Change the MTU only if you are sure that it is
necessary for your ISP connection.