Networking & wireless: Another NetGear WGR614v6 wireless router problem

Another NetGear WGR614v6 wireless router problem

I did a search here, and there sure do seem to be a lot of issues with this router ... tho a lot of the posts herein are for more common 'how do I configure it' type questions.

My problem is a bit different, and definitely a bit weird ... I just bought this WGR614v6 router to replace my old Netgear router which was going bad.

The first problem was that during setup, I could not get a connection to the router unless I used the patch cable that came in the box ... I plugged & unplugged any number of my own cat5, cat5e, and cat6 patch cords in and could not "see" the router until I finally used the dang blue cable that came in the box. WTH? Is this some kind of special cable?

I have a Buffalo TeraStation (external storage) that was plugged into the old router and accessible from the network then, but now it is not seen when I plug it into the new router. Once again, I've tried each and every patch cable I have on hand and none of them seem to work. I have only one of the NG provided cables, so I can't use that because that's how my pc is connected. I've found absolutely no mention of any special cable considerations for this router, so this is really quite vexing.

Also, I'm having the same problem now with a network printer ... I can't see it on the network, but if I connect it directly to my PC there's no problem.

Now for the really weird part ...

If I launch a Firefox browser, I connect to the internet immediately and without a problem. If I launch IE (v.7), it's a 50-50 proposition that I'll get "page cannot be displayed". I have both FF and IE up & running right now ... FF works, IE alternates between loading a page as expected and getting the 'cannot display' error.

WTH?!?!?! The IE browser just has the default connection & security settings, and this "behavior" only started after I replaced my old router with the WGR614. How bizarre is that?!?

The router has the latest firmware installed according to the admin tool.

I've got Norton installed and he sez I got no viruses.

Anybody care to hazard a guess at what's happening? or suggest some ways to troubleshoot these issues?

thanks in advance