wired routers

I have a ton of D-Link products: a router, two wireless devices, four NIC's, a switch, etc, in various network settings. I really trust this company's networking products. I bought this router to share a DSL connection, and so far, it works fine. This is really a breakthrough router in terms of the price and the performance and features one gets. By default, the router acts as a DHCP server on the local LAN, and you set the router to obtain an IP address on the WAN side (DHCP, static, PPPOE, etc). One thing that confused me was that Earthlink (via Covad) used PPPOE, but the Broadmax modem they gave us took care of all that. The modem was actually a DHCP server assigning private addresses on the 172.16.0.0/16 subnet. In other words, my DSL is being NAT'ted twice--an unnecessary inefficiency. Thus, remote administration of the router doesn't work because of the DSL modem's own NAT firewall. But this isn't the router's fault at all.

Now to the caveat. The router is configured totally via a web interface. This is very good since all modern operating systems can configure the browser--no special software is required. Thus a pure Unix or Linux network can use this router. But there is a major flaw in the web-based interface. I am blind. I use a special program, called a screen reader, that interfaces with Windows and Internet Explorer 6 to verbalize the screen. The program cannot interpret graphics on the Web. It relies on the W3C standard of labeling images with alternative text, which the screen program verbalizes in place of the graphic. This is particularly important for graphics which are hyperlinks, as one can imagine. The problem is, all the hyperlinks in the administration interface of this router are images, and these images are not labeled properly with any alt= attribute. This is so easy and requires adding a short bit of code to the HTML, yet D-Link overlooked this now widespread, famous, and basic accessibility rule. I have wrote to D-Link about this, and they can correct this in a firmware upgrade, but they have not responded to this at all. The initial oversight knocks my rating down a star, and D-Link's lack of a response (after a week) knocks my rating down another star, so my rating is subject to change.

I have had two DLink routers and both have died from overheating. I use my router every day, about 3-5 hours altogether, only doing normal web surfing and minimal to moderate downloading. The first router completely failed, had lasted about 2 years so I thought it had a good run. Bought another Dlink, because hey they *are* cheap. It's been a little over a year and the thing is overheating just like the first one. You can feel the heat just rising off the cheap plastic box. It works intermittenly and will probably fail completely soon. Besides spending money twice on something that died so easily, I had ALWAYS had trouble with the advanced features such as opening up ports and even using the DMZ feature. I could never get my router to open up correctly to outside traffic. I'm going to go with a Linksys, hoping it will last me a little longer and will perform more reliably.

I got this little router some time ago, from an online store to set up a home network for the family. I got it because it was cheap and its 4-ports and 100Mbps speed would be adequate for our needs. We have a Ameritech DSL connection, which works just great by itself to my mom's PC. Now, I am an experienced and trained computer technician, and know how to set up networks. However, once I set up our three-computer network a day ago and put this router in it, it has been a real nightmare from the first second. I cannot share files or access other computers on my home network. The firewall is tricky and a nightmare--it blocks access for file sharing.The web-based configuration is nice, but it could be a little bit more streamlined, plus better and more documentation for it would help. Now for the big bummer---about every hour to 2 hours, my computer's connection to the router will freeze up. Yesterday evening it happened 4 TIMES and I had to restart the router each time. (Finally after the last lockup, only having used it for less than 24 hrs I just yanked the power plug out and unplugged all my cables) I had first thought it was my cables, I redid them to make sure they were perfect but the problem still happened even when I tested and certified the cables. I then realized it is not my computer, my modem, or my cables, it is that little box they labeled a "router"! I am very unsatisified with this cheap plastic and silicon box. Also the D-Link sticker on the bottom appears to be counterfeit--it showed only the D-link & FCC logos and model number, but NO serial number,MAC number, or Firmware number! It has the look of having been quickly put together by some dumb schmuck who just wanted to make a fast buck, as I found out later it was a "refurbished" model!! I am also appalled at the lack of print manuals and no paper proof of guarantee or warranty was issued with it. Also I applied for the rebates given AND NEVER got it! Plus the weird thing is that the Acrobat manual showed the newer version (the Rev. E, which is gray and blue) of the DI-604 while the one I had was the older all-gray model (Rev. A,B, or C--take your pick I don't know mine because of that blank sticker!)! Also, it overheats really good and i could feel the heat on the plastic cover! There is no heatsink on the processor inside. Now, my DSL modem does not ever feel like that, even in the midst of running both an AIM session, a huge 50MB download, and browsing a webpage. I am going to toss this defective router, and will NEVER EVER again buy computer parts and equipment from online "stores" (this is the second time in my life I have been ripped off by vendors) or from D-Junk, er D-Link! From now on I will go with Linksys, which all my tech friends say is best for home networking.