Customer Reviews

Belkin F5D6230-3 Wireless Cable/DSL Router

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

$129.99 is a "hot buy"????

I bought this on clearance from the Belkin website 2 months ago for $30.

I wouldn't even recommend it at that price.

The firewall will not close off everything it leaves "port 0" open no matter what. And the only way to stealth port 80 is by redirecting it to a fake ip address.

It also slows down such that browsing the web becomes an excruciatingly slow experience. The only way to fix it is to unplug the power and plug it back in whenever it goes slow. I have read reports that turning off the router's DHCP server might prevent that from happening... but DHCP is not something you should have to do without.

This is an out of date product. Badly put together. Definitely not worth what Amazon is asking for it.

Try to find a good deal on a Linksys or something... do not walk, RUN away from Belkin products.

The router has performed very well during a month of continuous use with Belkin and other wireless adapters and with a standard ethernet card--there is a 10/100Base-T switch. Setup was quick and free of problems.

We have two minor complaints:

1. After a cable modem service interruption, the router may require a reset to restore Internet access to the network. A reset may be accomplished, usually, via a web interface on a connected computer, so it's a small matter. (To be fair, we don't know how often our cable modem goes offline. For every time we have to reset the router, there may be 100 times when the router brings us back up transparently. Or not.)

2. Indoor range is far less than that claimed by the manufacturer. This seems to be true, obviously, for every wireless system. We mention this for completeness.

We are happy with the router and would be surprised to find a unit in the same price range that performs better.

This router slowed my PPPoE internet connection down to a crawl, both wirelessly and even when directly plugged into the router. After multiple calls to Belkin tech support (with horrendous hold times) and several firmware upgrades, I finally gave up. Got a Linksys instead, and it works great, no slow-downs or dropped connections.

I have owned and have friends that own different routers then this one and none are as bad. Two major problems with this router:

1. Wireless range is BAD (I own a cheap router and it has twice the range)

2. Router loves to disconnect from the internet when multiple PC's are accessing the internet at once.

I have the latest firmware which states it addresses the disconnect problem but doesn't. Hopefully they will come out with a new version soon!

This router will take a legitimate connection to a web site and turn it into an ad for belkin products! The older models don't but if you update the firmware (like maybe to close a security hole in the future, or for compatibility of a network game) you will start getting ads! There are a couple of articles that are at popular news organizations that confirm this. BOYCOTT, DO NOT UPGRADE THE FIRMWARE!

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I have been using this router for almost an entire year & have never had to reset it yet. I also have never updated the software for it - why fix it if it isn't broken.

I have my DSL modem connected to it & my desktop PC (Win98 1st edition) via ethernet and my laptop (WinME) via wireless card.

It took me all of 10 minutes to connect both my laptop and desktop computers. I would and have recommended this wireless router to others.

The router itself has excellent features: 3 port 10/100 switch, Wireless Access Point, Port Forewarding, DMZ, etc... I did notice that my ping times were slightly higher when using this as opposed to my single port Linksys Router. Download speeds were the same however. Wireless range is excellent, with perfect connectivity from the downstairs corner room to upstairs on the otherside of the house. I would give this router a 5 if it weren't for a few very pesky problems that make your connection seem more modem-like.
1) There is no connect or disconnect button for PPPoE...you have to start the router and wait on the average about 7 minutes before starting up your computer.
2) The original firmware after being connected for a while would cause "half" the internet to not work...hard to explain...but some sites would work while others just would not. This was fixed by upgrading the firmware but a new problem arose.
3) With the new firmware...instead of half the internet not-working after being connected for some time...the connection would lag when establishing connections to servers...another hard thing to explain but when I would browse to a site it would hang for a while before connecting..after connection was made speeds were normal but occured for everything and made it impossible to game online without a router reset and was very annoying for instant messaging.
4) The router seems to have trouble with DHCP and doesn't assign IP Addresses sometimes...causing system restarts and so forth...with the Linksys I would get the Windows Network Logon dialog everytime but with the Belkin it only came up occasionally
On the whole, the router is decent, with lots of features but some pesky problems. I completely reccomend a Linksys solution over this as so far Linksys has been flawless for me. On a side note, no matter what router you buy, make sure you do not buy a Wireless USB Adapter if you use WinXP or Win2K; they inherently control this connection and it becomes very unstable because of bad Microsoft code. Instead get the PCI card or the adapter + PCMCIA card.
**UPDATE**
Belkin has released yet another firmware upgrade that actually fixes the DHCP problem. The only problem with the router now is that after some times it hangs before connecting(as I stated above in problem #3).

I have been using this router for six months now, first on Cable, then on DSL, and I can say without a doubt it is the worst router I have ever owned. With 3 computers on it (1 wired and 2 wireless), it needs to be reset every hour. The signal quality and range on the wireless is about half what its specs say that it should be. If this hadn't been given to me free, I would demand my money back. I would recommend getting a Linksys, or better yet, save your money and get a real Cisco switch. This is a typical example of poor quality end-user junk.

I bought this unit after my Linksys wireless router died; I can therefore only compare it to the Linksys.

Setup was EXTREMELY quick and easy. I got it up and running in just a few minutes. The UI of the admin app is very straight forward and I notice is strangely similar to the UI of SMC routers. I find it to be somewhat easier to work with than the Linksys UI.

I am unfortunately not pleased with the transmission range of this router. I placed it in the exact same location that the Linksys had been in. A computer that was getting solid 100% connection strength with the Linksys is now only getting 50% with this unit. Another machine that was getting around 70% on the Linksys would not connect at all to this unit until it was moved to a different location.

This would be an excellent unit were it not for the range problem... Perhaps there's a fix?

I purchased this router to set up a home network with two wired computers and one wireless laptop. Setup was fairly easy, although there are no good instructions as to how to configure your computer or printers. The range is about 20 feet in my house. After that it gets below 21% and loses its signal. I had to call Belkin customer support for setup help, and the best I can figure, the customer support center is in India. I don't have a problem with that, but one of the guys I talked to said he didn't have a computer with XP on it, only W98. I thought that was bizarre. They were never able to even comprehend what my problem was, but I finally solved it on my own. I would consider another product rather than this one.