My old router has been getting steadily less reliable lately. It's about 7 years old, so no real surprise there. So I decide to get a new Netgear AC1750 R6700v2 router to replace it. I don't need anything fancy, but it looks like a solid, well reviewed piece of hardware.

So I hook it up to my laptop and configure it with my ISP settings - I have a static IP through AT&T, so I have to set IP, gateway, DNS, etc manually - and switch out the old one after it's configured.

Well, everything seems to be going along swimmingly. My desktop is working normally, my server is online and visible on the internet, and....my laptop isn't working. No browsing capability at all. Hmm. Well, can I ping out? Nope. Can I ping the DNS server? Oh, I can. Hmm. Can I ping other IPs? Yep.

Ok, DNS issue. My desktop and server have set IPs and DNS, so that's why they're working.
What DNS server is the router assigning via DHCP? The router's IP. The router isn't forwarding DNS requests to the DNS servers specified in the router configuration.

Ok, get on chat with the folks at Netgear to see if there's just a setting I'm missing somewhere.

Nope.

That's (apparently, according to 'Carl' on the online chat) how it's designed. If you have a static IP for an internet connection, then every device on the LAN side must have DNS specified. The router won't forward DNS requests.

Well. Guess I won't be buying Netgear products anymore.

I have 5 netgear routers laying around here and never had that issue

I have both a Netgear Modem and Netgear Orbi Mesh Router system. No problems with about 25 connected devices. These include Macbook, Apple TV, Fire TV, Smart TVs, 5 IP Cameras, Nest, Receiver, Wireless Printer......

That's brain-dead and I find it hard to believe NetGear actually did that. I'd head on over to either NetGear's own forums or the appropriate forum at DSL Reports and ask about that.

If it really is true: I'd send/take it back. That's just broken by design.

That being said: I've been underwhelmed with NetGear routers and access points. Great network switches, though.

Yeah, it's really stupid. A few searches turned up a lot of DNS issues with Netgear routers. I've already arranged for it to go back to Amazon and thanks to Prime 1-day shipping I set up a Linksys as a replacement. While the web configuration interface isn't that great, it's working perfectly from the start.