Follow the guide to configure static routing to solve the NTP server issue. http://www.tp-link.com/en/article/?faqid=560
If you want to use all of those features, why not use it as a router?
Since DHCP is disabled, it is quite normal that some features cannot be adopted.

Thanks, Marvis.

Sorry for a lengthy response.

I know about static routes but none of this operations modes give you the ability to define them (the menus simply don't exist in this modes). I'm also not clear as to where these static route(s) point. My 743 sits in a subnet 192.168.0.x and in this mode does not creates its own. All the other devices sit in this subnet as well. Another 941 (192.168.0.1) is the default GW for this subnet and connects to the WAN.

The reason I'm interested in these operation modes (specifically, I now use the Bridge mode) is that I need all my nodes at home to be in the same subnet (for DLNA/UPNP reasons). If I chose one of the two "router" modes, they will create their own subnet and DLNA/UPNP won't work. I tried these modes hoping that I could assign a different address-range (in the same subnet) to each router, or disable the DHCP server in the 743 altogether. But the main problem is that in these modes, there is a WAN port and it must be in a different subnet than the LAN port which wouldn't be the case. So essentially, I got nowhere.

You were wondering why I would want "all these features" in the non-router modes. To me, they seem completely separate from the operation mode. They all serve one purpose and that is the maintenance and diagnostic of the router which you would want regardless of the OP mode you are using.

The good news however is that your suggestion made me think in a different direction and I was able to solve some of my problems.
Before, I failed to define a deafult GW in the Network->LAN section (you shouldn't have to if the default gateway address is xx.xx.xx.1 in your own subnet). Now I can ping addresses outside the subnet and also get GMT to work (points 1&2 below).I'm still not sure that the 743 obtains the GMT automatically after a reboot but that's another matter.

But everything that depends on DNS is still not working. DHCP server is disabled, therefore if I specify a DNS in its menus they don't have any effect. Furthermore, since in this Op. mode I must specify a static address for the 743 it does not use DHCP request and hence don't get the address of a DNS sever (which would come as part of the DHCP reply). So no name resolution (and therefore no mail-log feature) work.

Maybe that's the most I can get.

Cheers,

Offer