Is there something wrong with Dlink products?

H

housecat

Gawd
Joined
Jan 26, 2005
Messages
753
Why are they so cheap??????

Seriously, I'm having problems with my current Linksys WCG200.. and even though it appears its only been out for 6months.. there are no firmware updates (and this thing needs one badly).

So I'm looking at the Dlink stuff and find the router that interests me, a 802.11g 108mbps 4port rj45 unit... coming up at $30 on ebay new.. and $35 retail shipped.


Then the matching 802.11G card is $12(????!!!!!!!)

Something MUST be wrong here. How does a compnay survive like that. I know its not their only source of income but you might as well put Pringles in those things for chips.





I love a good deal, I use AMD.. but seriously.. thats disgustingly low. Almost low enough I will try some. :)


Their firmware update frequency seems pretty decent. I'm just surprised.

I tend to go for Netgear traditionally, and their stuff isnt even close to that price. My current Linksys equipment is more than both.. but seemed cheap enough.


What do you guys think? Prerably ppl who have had all 3 brands..

I imagine those who have gotten by on these $30 routers think they are god. I would too! But unfortunately their opinion doesnt mean as much as someone whose had it all.

I've only used netgear/linksys so I'm really curious on peoples experiences with $30 routers.........
 
I have had a D-Link router for 3 year now without a single problem from it. The network adaptors that I used from D-Link were flawless for years when I used them. How do they sell so low? I have no idea but as long as they do I will purchase from them.
 
I really like their products as well and when I invest in the future I will probably spend money with them again.

I have bought their 24 port 10/100 switch and it works very well and has good build quality.

We also use one of their parallel port print servers. It is very configurable and I like it a lot as well. It broke recently for some crazy reason so we had to send it back to NewEgg which took probably a week or so (which was a little frustrating) but now it's back and working great. AND as a bonus - the Indian guy I talked to in one of their call centers was actually easy to work with and communicate with :cool:
 
My old school DI-604 (wired) blew and finally has been retired. Whatever though. Seems others experiences are newer. Mine would sometimes drop the connection and speeds were noticably slower than direct connect even when no other comps were up and running.
 
D link rocks plain and simple ive used them for years.
just dont get the DI 604 or DI 624.

right now I have the DI-614+ and I adore it.
also have a DSS-5+.
 
yeah. agreed about the 604 blowing goats.

i dont see how the 624 can be worse than the 614+, even tho my 614+ is rock solid as an access point.

aside from the 604, ive never had issues with any dlink product, much less any netgear or linksys product.

i like linksys the most though, as they open-sourced their firmware, and freedom of code is a very very good thing, as the wrt54g proves.
 
My DLink 524 wireless router kinda sucks. I say that because the newes firmware for it won't work if you enable mac filtering and the old firmware doesnt support some advanced features that i want. They keep telling me that a fix is on the way, but i am still waiting...
 
i've had both the 604 and the 624 and haven't had any issues, so i'm not sure why you say don't get them, I've had bad luck with netgear, and linksys is ok just a tad pricey. Dlink has been great so far.
 
doing in home network setups for a while for people showed me that dlink stuff is ok...alot of my peers hate them...i use them and theyre fine.

currently have a vpn router and a wireless a/g dualband router from them as well. never failed me.
 
Another Vote for D-Link.

I have the DI-604 (for a couple years now) and a 24 port 10/100 switch (new) and both are running perfectly!
 
cool.. good to hear from some of you on this.

i was just a bit in shock at the price.

i like my linksys, i have a few issues with it like it doesnt let you change the MTU on the router ect.. but i spoke with linksys support and they said they are working on a firmware update so it will prob fix most of my issues.


linksys is more money, but im not on a strict budget.. and if i was i wouldnt be into buying expensive computer parts :)

the dlink i was looking at was the 624 specifically for like 30. seemed to good to be true, and most of you said it is cuz that model sucks.

the netgear i was looking at has clear issues so im avoiding that one.. just stick to what i got

i'd go dlink if i ever switch brands tho
 
Im thinking about trying one of these guys, they sound really cool.
D-Link DGL-4300

dgl43002.jpg
 
I think that what people are saying is that the 604 works, but is slower than most routers. This saddens me. What would be a fast and reliable WIRED router? D-Link or another brand.
 
I thnk unles you are on a budget, I'd pick up a Linksys and have less worries. I think alot of the Dlink stuff sounds ok, but they might have more bad eggs than linksys overall.

I just wanted a 802.11g (dont care about 108mbps and all that) and 4 port switch. Just so happened linksys has one of those with a cable modem.. it work sufficiently.. but i'd recommend seperating the router from the cable modem.

I like the linksys because of the open source firmware, some people have taken some of the popular linksys routers to new levels with this.

The WRT54G would be my pick of the litter if i were to buy again. Its a great unit you cant go wrong with.
 
I went and ordered the new D-Link DGL 4300 as it really intrigues me. I"ll post my findings after I use it for awhile.
 
I have the Dlink 624 and what a piece of shit it is. Keeps rebooting on p2p sessions... I'm trying to get IPcop running at the moment, I've about had it with EVERY SINGLE SOHO router. This includes SMC's barricade 8-port and Dlink. All brands are pieces of shit, so yes, there is something wrong with Dlink products.

I haven't had much experience with Linksys, I never owned one, but my friend does. Their latest 4port and 8port routers have a nice web interface, with plenty of options, the best interface that I've seen so far.

I know people have different experiences and there's different series of routers, some good, some bad, but in general, I've seen a lot of complaints about SOHO routers just pussying out when it comes to bit torrent and other p2p like eMule. Right now eMule is killing my router.
 
I've used dlink products in the past and I can say that their cheap stuff is cheap for a reason. Many users on the dlink forums at dslreports will tell you that p2p causes the router to reboot, no matter what firmware or hardware revision you have, on almost any router dlink produced.

their wireless seems to be flakey at times too.

I've come to a point where I'm switching to linksys just to try it out. the opensource is very tempting. if that doesn't work, i'm going to commercial grade. Sure it's 2x-3x more expensive, but it's going to work.

If you have a budget, then look into making a wifi router of your own running a linux distro. I personally haven't done it, but it sounds like it's not a whole lot harder than getting a wifi adapter working under linux (MUCH easier with 2.6 kernel). All the routing stuff is there already, so that's not a big issue.

So, to wrap it up:
NIC: intel or 3com
router: Cisco or linux
Dlink = no thanks.
 
Yeah, commercial stuff would be my next best bet. Though I don't have the cash for something like that now, so its the old PC put to use again...

I was actually expecting the next response to be someone flaming me for whatever reason because of some fan-boism, but I think everyone should agree that a real router (Cisco or whatever), when setup correctly, would be more robust than a sub $100 plastic box.
 
even a sub-100 linux box is better than the dedicated routers. (save the wrt54g, perhaps)

but yeah, a low end cisco (real cisco) will kick the pants off home market routers, at the expense of user friendlyness
 
Having been on sales and engineering side for a few years, I can tell you that I'm sick of seeing defective D-Links.. Their stuff is imported garbage.. stay away.
 
Yeah, well lets see how the DGL-4300 fairs, D-Link may be going in better direction if this model proves its worth after I get it tomorroo and test it for awhile
 
I believe you guys, I'm definitely going to stay away.
The newest netgear seems to have some very mixed reviews..

My netgear RT314 was a great router, but I think I'm safest using linksys, or higher end if not.


And Cisco not user friendly? the Cisco IOS is the best thing ever.. thats what I was trained on and i love it.

Unfortunately I dont know much about the other stuff on the market besides cisco.
I wouldnt purchase that stuff for my home network though... seems a bit excessive, at least for my use.

Linksys gets the job done.
 
Heh come over and train me how to use Cisco IOS, Ciscos stuff scares me to death, im so used to GUI.
 
Just a thought, you could pick up an old commercial cisco router for pretty cheap, an old commercial 10mbps switch, and an off-the-shelf wireless AP (linksys, dlink, whatever).

The stuff that's going to be working the hardest will be commecial grade, while the AP can be switched out every 6 months after it's life expectancy is up.

As soon as I start collecting pc's again (moved cross country recently) i think I'm going to invest in used commecial grade equipment to replace the junk i have right now.

cisco IOS is not something you can learn in a few hours. It is something that with a little guidance, you can understand. There are certain ways of setting things up, and after a while it will just make sense. Unlike a d-link GUI where selecting a setting one way will not be the same at a different part of the GUI.
 
Well, I got my Celeron 533MHz w/ 256MB RAM system up and running with IPCop, it holds up very well to many TCP connections, and I haven't gotten booted off yet. This thing is gonna replace all SOHO shit in my house for now on. The webproxy cache is really useful for those TGP sites... :)

Oh yeah, my Dlink was resetting every 5 minutes even when no p2p sessions were running. Infact I even changed the MAC address on it, renewed the IP through DHCP to get a new IP from my ISP, and then even did a hard factory default reset with a small nail in the pinhole button on the back of it. It STILL reset on me. I seriously think I killed the Dlink unit by pushing it too hard :rolleyes:

Cisco IOS user friendly? I think not...
 
i have a bit of experience with IOS. and while it is straightforward with how it lays things out, its a pain to get set up, especially once you get into static routes and ACL's. and subnetting, too.
 
I have had many problems with my di614+, here is the list (not long but annoying)

-Router would reboot on the smallest change, change the admin pw, reboot the router. (just an annoyance). this was fixed in the last firmware update
-If I needed to have a static MAC address -> IP address setup, the router would endlessly reboot, this was fixed in the last firmware update
-Now it's nearly unusable, the router would be active for about 10 seconds then it would drop all traffic to the WAN port, nothing I can do will fix this issue, dead router. I managed to turn it into a wireless bridge to save the hardware a little bit and keep my wireless going.

The router was working great for about 4 months after the lastest firmware update before the last problem. I'm giving up on dlink now, it's annoying and I don't want to deal with it anymore. Currently I'm building a smoothy or a m0n0 wall to fix that problem and get a WAP for dedicated wireless.

I think that D-Link products seem to have a problem handling massive amounts of bandwidth as well. The 4-port switch built into it is alright but I'm going to use a Nortel 350-24t, little bit more power ;-)

Also, the ISP I work for has a modem/router combo (DSL604+), POS...that's all I can say about it. Horrible, so many annoying problems and we know first hand since we troubleshoot the problems. We also ship with a 5-port switch (Not sure of the model #) and it acts more like a hub puking traffic to all ports rather then a switch.

I think you get what you pay for with dlink, it will last you awhile but it will break, there is no fighting it.
 
I got my DGL 4300 last night, and so far Im impressed, D-Link may have a diamond in the rough with this sucker, I'll keep pounding away at it and keep you guys posted. So far, its putting my WRT54g to shame.
 
if you are comparing transferring files over that gigabit router to a 10/100 router, sure its putting it to shame..


how much you wanna sell that 54g for? PM me if you are seriously hating on that 54g.
 
I had a 614+ for a couple years and it worked flawlessly with 3 wireless PCs and one hardwired in a workgroup. Gui and setup is easy to use.

I upgraded to the 624 Gextreme AirPlus for backward compatibility. Now I have a Windows 2000 server attached performing DNS and the 624 does static DHCP. THIS Router just keeps dropping the local connection constantly for both the wired and wireless. No error LOG entries are posted either.

And I can't get VPN to work with L2TP or PPTP. I think the 624 is a lemon. or......
 
I also used to use a DI-614+. It usually had around 2 or 3 computers attatched to it. 2 via wireless, 1 with a cat5 cable. It was good for about 6 months before it started crashing.

At first, it would just start to slow to a crawl. I took a speed test on it and it was returning around 15 kbps on a 768k line. Then, the router would freeze up for a little. After rebooting over and over, the WAP portion somehow shut down. After about 5 power cycles, it would come up for about 20 seconds and shut down again. It just got too frustrating. Now, I try to avoid D-Link whenever I can.

Long story short: buy the dlink if you really want it, but don't expect it to be perfect.



First-time post BTW.
 
IceWind said:
I got my DGL 4300 last night, and so far Im impressed, D-Link may have a diamond in the rough with this sucker, I'll keep pounding away at it and keep you guys posted. So far, its putting my WRT54g to shame.
Click to expand...


It looks just like a 624 with gigabit to me. It says it handles p2p apps well. I've never had any issues with my di624... i beat the hell out of it with bittorrent and games and wireless all at the same time.... ive never had it reboot on me... everything seems to get good performace... do you really thing the 4300 is much better ? Not counting the gigabit part.
 
To me, DLink products have many more configurable features than the competitors. If you're a basic user who just wants to plug it in and forget about it, then any brand will work. But to me, Dlink excels in user-customizable advanced features. Dlink was one of the first of the major inexpensive home router brands to include features such as time-based port forwarding, port triggers, dynamic dns, web-based ping, and security logs which analyse possible intrusion attacks.

The first revision of the DI-604 had stability problems, but after a couple of firmware releases, mine has been rock solid for 3 years.

Working for a small networking business, we deployed hundreds of Dlink wired and wireless routers, bridges, and print severs, and had hardly any trouble with Dlink devices, aside from the occasional power surge/lightning strike which would fry a unit.
 
I have had my D-Link 8 port 10/100 Hub for over 7 years now, routing a 10 client network 24/7/365, and have towed it around on numerous home moves and at least 15 lan parties. I swear by D-Link.
 
Ive been using a Dlink Dl-704P for a few years now, no problems at all. I've also used Dlink nic cards in customers computers, and have had no complaints from them either.
 
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