Customer Reviews

Belkin Wireless-G Router DSL/Cable Gateway

5 star:		(92)
4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(30)
1 star:		(113)

 

 

I think this router might be getting a bad rep on the wireless end, because it comes with a proprietary setting enabled by default that I think does more harm than good. If you have this router and are getting intermittent or no wireless connectivity, and you've verified all your settings are right, try this.

This router (Belkin model F5D7230-4, and other models) has a (proprietary?) feature called "Protected Mode". The default setting on this model (at least the one I got), unlike other models, has that mode set to "Auto" under the Wireless settings, which I take to mean "on". So turn it off. It's wonky, because even tho it's a proprietary feature, there is NO documentation in the router's online "Help" section. However, it IS described in the user's manual:

"As part of the 802.11g specification, Protected mode ensures proper operation of 802.11g clients and access points when there is heavy 802.11b traffic in the operating environment. When protected mode is ON, 802.11g scans for other wireless network traffic before it transmits data. Therefore, using this mode in environments with HEAVY 802.11b traffic or interference achieves best performance results. If you are in an environment with very little--or no--other wireless network traffic, your best performance will be achieved with Protected mode OFF."

Okay, so if it works best off, why does it ship in "Auto" mode? Turn it off. On other models, by default it does ships with the feature "off".


Basically, I recommend setting this router up as simply as possible, but still having wireless encryption, of course.. So here are my further recommendations for setting this up. There's another (proprietary?) feature called "Turbo" mode. Again, no description of this on the interface itself, but it is described in the manual:

"Turbo mode is enabled by default. It allows the Router or Access Point to use frame bursting to deliver the maximum throughput, 2 times faster than any standard 802.11g equipment, to 802.11g clients. This measurement is based on aggregate throughput in a mixed 802.11b and 802.11g environment. Belkin 802.11g clients with the latest driver will support Turbo mode. Clients that do not support Turbo mode will operate normally with it enabled."

Again, I recommend turning it off. I also recommend deleting "Belkin Router" from the "domain" section under (I think) LAN settings, just keeping that field blank, and leaving wireless Channel as Auto (default choice, which normally goes to Channel 11 in the USA). And, as with any wireless rouer, you DEFINITELY want to put in a new wi-fi network name (SSID). Change the default SSID to something impersonal, but still unique. Further recommendations are keeping the thing well-ventilated, such as propping it up (securely) at an angle so air flows below it, above, and around the sides, and adjust the antenna of course then so it is vertical. Another thing I did was to turn Range Extension on, but I'm not sure that's necessary or if it just creates unnecessary heat, but since my friend was across the country, I was trying to pull out all the stops.

I chose this router for a friend (who purchased it on their own, and then I set it up). I chose it because it was the cheapest one in the store, and Belkin is a generally respected name when it comes to all their equipment (if often having the reputation of being a little expensive), and my past knowledge of their reputation with routers was good. Even though they don't make them themselves, but farm them out to others, their choices in the past have been good.

I initially set the router up at my home. I noticed that I had trouble connecting using Vista's wireless connection wizard, and I hate wizards and Vista's "wow" crap in general, so I got frustrated and found a "connect manually" choice, which was a whole lot easier for me, and after that, I was able to connect fine wirelessly for that time I was setting it up. However, my friend took it home and reported back that the laptop wasn't connecting, then it did, and then it stopped after a few minutes. Only then did I come to Amazon and read the reviews, where I saw so many others having similar issues. I suspected Protected and/or Turbo modes, so I did a little research, which confirmed my suspicions. I read a review of a similar Belkin router, the following excerpt summing it succinctly: "[Protected Mode] seems to make the network invisible to wireless devices you may be trying to set up for the first time".

With my friend having gone home (across the country), I was relieved to find this router has a remote admin mode (called Remote Management in the router). I learned this by downloading the User Manual. The manual doesn't have great screen shots, and my friend is not tech-savvy, but after only moderate pain, I had them successfully enable Remote Management, and tell me the WAN IP address (which, strangely enough, is nowhere to be found under WAN Settings--you have to go to the "Home" page of the interface, and it tells you there). I was then able to plug their WAN IP address into my browser, and wham--I'm signing in and configuring their router from across the country (we had set up an Admin Password together before leaving--very important).

So after disabling Protected and Turbo modes remotely, and doing my other recommendations above, my friend's laptop then connected immediately and automatically, with no action on their part (I had originally set up the laptop with the router when my friend was here). The connection now seems reliable and strong. My friend commented that it seemed fast.


I think this is a good router for a beginner or someone who wants to purchase & config it for a less-advanced user. First, it looks cool in person, which means a surprising amount to newbies (frustratingly), but more importantly, the interface is very easy to understand, and well laid-out and not intimidating or illogical, unlike some of D-Link's later interfaces. Part of that is the logical layout itself. Some part of that is the absence of a lot of advanced features most people will never use, such as being able to tweak the Beacon and Broadcast Interval settings on wireless. However, the truly important advanced features seem to be there, such as MAC address filtering (both wired and wireless, where some routers won't let you filter wired MAC addies), Remote Admin, and the standard fare. The only thing I noticed that i'd like to see would be an option to completely disable the radio from the interface (because apparently the antenna is non-removable/non-upgradeable), but then again, you CAN set the radio to not broadcast its SSID (network name).

I liked this router enough that I only half-jokingly offered to my friend to trade my current router for this one--an offer which was promptly declined! :)

The router has 4 or 5 wired network ports in the back. It feels very lightweight. I didn't see any holes for airflow or heat management and it does not stand on its side, which is why I recommended leaning it against something on an angle (airflow is an issue on most home routers). The LED light array on the front seemed less obnoxious than D-Link's. For wi-fi encryption, I chose WPA-PSK. The password field is less confusing than some other brands, and it lets you choose either a hexadecimal or plain-text password, and it doesn't make you fill up all 64 or 128 characters, unlike some other brands I've seen IIRC, which can ironically make for a more complex password in some cases, because people can pick a long phrase they can actually remember. The passphrase we chose was long and plain-text, but did not use all the characters allowed, and it worked just fine with the Vista laptop.


Further recommendation: if you're not a newbie, you'll know you don't have to run that silly "installation CD" that comes with the router. They REALLY encourage you to run the CD before you do ANYTHING, even before plugging in the router. It is obviously aimed at trying to cut down on the amount of tech support calls, which in spirit is a good idea. However, this gives new users the impression that routers need some kind of "driver" to work properly on a computer, which isn't true. Although the CD is probably nothing more than a glorified Computer-Based Training session, I wish they'd just provide a real manual instead (they do provide a paper Quick Start Guide). However, newbies will probably appreciate the interactive guidance and it does sound like a good idea for them. I don't know how many other companies are doing this now (nothing similar came with the 2 other routers I've bought, although the second one did have a "Wizard" built into the interface), but this could be a value-added feature for beginners who don't have a generous computer-savvy friend.

The default gateway address for this router is 192.168.2.1, not the traditional ~.0.1. This is good, because most DSL and cable modems are now selfishly commandeering ~.0.1. Another good thing is that I was able to do either all or almost all interface functions in Mozilla (Firefox of Seamonkey) browsers. I think there may have been one screen where I needed to switch to IE, though; I can't remember. I know that tonight when I did remote admin for my friend, I didn't have any problem. I made a bookmark for 192.168.2.1 in my friend's Mozilla browser before leaving, and named it "Router". This way, I could just tell them to drop down Bookmarks, and choose "Router" when the inevitable tech support call came.

I didn't bother updating the firmware, because I usually don't mess with firmware unless something's not working right--and I almost did so tonight in attemt to solve the wireless problem. Since updating firmware usually resets all previous settings (and often, backed-up settings [which this router allows you to do] won't work in newer firmware versions [somewhat defeating the purpose of backup settings, I think]), and we got it working right, I left it on the original firmware. The firmware version it shipped with was 9.01.05, and the latest version is 9.01.07--not too far off, and from August 8, 2007--pretty recent as of this writing, so as of this writing, the firmware is still being actively developed.

That's about it, as far as commenting on things I haven't seen in other reviews. One last comment could be that DSL modems now commonly act more like cable modems, from the perspective that you don't have to input all that PPoE information directly into the routers anymore, and you can leave the router's WAN configuration in "Dynamic" (i.e. standard cable modem). The DSL modems I've seen recently give you the option of letting the router handle the PPoE info, or the modem, and I strongly recommend letting the modem handle it--it's just easier in multiple ways. So what I mean is don't necessarily set this router's WAN setting up as "PPoE" just because you have DSL. "Dynamic", the default setting, is much easier if you can let the DSL modem handle that. For most cable users, this and most other routers will pick up the cable modem automatically.

Final thoughts: cable modems and DSL modems need to be power cycled (unplug, wait 10-15 seconds, plug back in) to change network devices (i.e. changing from a computer directly plugged into the cable modem, to attaching your router). I'm sure this is covered in the guidance CD, but it's worth mentioning. Also, with reviews on any router, you're going to see a lot of people having reliability problems, and it's usually going to focus around wireless. So if horrified by the reviews, make sure to check out other routers' reviews as a reality check. Also, different routers will tend to have people of different skill levels using them, which I think can affect review ratings. In this router's case, it draws many new and less-skilled users, who have more difficulty, as configuring a router is going to probably be the most complex thing an average user ever does with a computer. What routers do, even (especially?) home routers, is actually incredibly complex, and it's a minor miracle they are available at such low prices, as they are like mini computers in their own right. That is the other reason for so many bad reliability reviews with routers in general, far worse than with other products.

Conclusion: a nice router with a good, understandable interface, for a good price, which has most of the advanced features most people will need, and therefore very good for the beginner or average-needs advanced user. Sad that one or two simple but badly-chosen default settings are apparently causing a lot of trouble and making the router seem less reliable than it is. Armed with the knowledge in this review as a proviso, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this router. BTW, tier 1 tech support, though free and on a toll-free number, is apparently Asian Indian from what I've read, and not very helpful. This product gets 4 stars, not 5, because of that, and the obvious problem-causing default setting.

I bought this Belkin wireless router to see if it'd work with my company's VPN so I could work from home because the two Netgear routers I've tried only let me do it wired--not wirelessly. I'm happy to say the Belkin does indeed let me do VPN wirelessly! I was also happy about how easy it was to set up--after I realized I needed to totally unplug my cable modem first. I've had continuous, error-free connections since plugging it in, and I'm even getting slightly better signals through walls and floors, using a mix of b and g equipment.

There are a few features I don't like about, or are missing from, this Belkin as compared to other brands I've used--I'll just list the major ones here: 1) Anyone on your network, whether they're allowed on it or not, can see certain configuration information on the web interface because it's not password-protected. 2) You can't see a list of associated wireless devices. 3) You can't set whether you want to use only open or only shared key WEP (you also can't set some other advanced wireless settings that D-Link is known for, such as transmit power). 4) You can't see details of what was happening in the security logs (e.g. it says "Blocked by DoS protection" but you don't know what was actually blocked. 5) You can't manually release/renew the dynamic IP of the router. 6) You can't turn off NTP or specify the server.

It also has some features I like that my Netgear routers don't have, like the ability to specify a local domain name, restart and reset the router from the web interface, and set DHCP lease time.

The only problem I've had with it is it doesn't allow the 802.11b bridge I have to do DHCP. I can set a static IP and it works fine, though, so I'm not too upset about it. Also, I can't comment on the parental controls since you have to subscribe to activate them.

I had this wireless router for several months and had nonstop connection problems. At least once or twice a night my laptop would get disconnected, and the only way to get things working again was to pull the power on the router and reset it. I finally replaced it with an equivalent product from D-Link. The new router is in the exact same location and not only is the average signal strength slightly higher, but I have yet to be disconnected. Save yourself the hassel and get a better product from another manufacturer.

worked okay for a few months, then started dropping connection to the cable modem randomly, requiring frequent power cycles. eventually, the unit could not be contacted at all via wireless connection and THEN wouldn't even power up. look elsewhere.

I got this router for my classroom at school. Set up was a piece of cake on my macs running 10.3. Up and running on the internet in less than 5 minutes!

Super fast speed!

This replaced a linksys router running wireless g, and the speed on the connection has doubled! Downloading pages, and email has increased in speed conseiderably. I was amazed!

Highly recommend.

I bought this model since it has a fat rebate which brings down the price to $10. Good for the price. And the stability is not too far above the price level.

Installation is relatively easy. Hooking the router up with my DSL modem and computer is trivial. Running the software on the CD is easy too. One thing though: since I use static ip for Internet connection, the quick setup does not support it so initially my Internet connection is not up. That's fine and I know it since many such routers only support dynamic ip address on the Internet side by default. I manually configured that through its web interface and then its wireless and ethernet connections start working.

Good so far. And I expect most people would be happy now. But since the default wireless mode does not use security at all which means someone could peek at what you visit or use my Internet connection, so I decided to add security to the router. Now the fun begins.

It took me half an hour to figure our which security mode is useable - I finally chose WPA-RSK mode since this is the only security mode I found working (after numerous reboots). But the story does not end here. It keeps dropping connection every 3-5 minutes. Yes, every 3-5 minutes! This is virtually unuseable.

I have to turn off the security feature and this works fine for only 20 minutes. The connection remains on and off periodically.

My laptop is only two feet away from the router, so signal strength should never be an issue for me.

I don't use any other features of the router, so no comments on other parts.

For the price and basic functionality, I gave it 2 star. I wish Belkin had more reliable product, but it certainly disappoints me.

I noticed that some reviewers love the product and some hate it. I wonder if Belkin has a quality control problem. My router worked for about 30 minutes though I did to have turn off security for wireless to connect. Figured I would do my own security via MAC filtering. MAC filtering worked for 10 minutes and then it died. When I called Belkin I noticed that: 1) This model router has an option (#1) on their technical support line (that should tell you something), no other product has an option. 2) It took less than 10 minutes for me to establish that the products was dead with their techs but 30 minutes on hold with their returns department before I spoke to a human. As noted by other reviewers you have to pay for the shipping the dead router back to Belkin. This was an educational experience for me. Next time I'm going with another product.

Don't be fooled by the negative reviews. As long as you follow the very simple instructions, there's nothing to the installation, and it works fine. One of the reviews commented on the difficulty in setting up WEP or WPA security. Nonsense! All you need to do is take two minutes to read the relevant chapter in the very detailed electronic manual, in Adobe Acrobat format on the CD-ROM installation disk. You have to access the router settings via Internet Explorer, and if you use WEP, you generate a passcode and then set the same code on your other computers. If you've never done that before, it may seem a little frustrating, but the fault lies not with Belkin but rather with Microsoft's Windows XP. So long as you know how to configure a wireless networking adapter on Windows XP, the Belkin components -- routers or adapters -- perform flawlessly. As a budget minded consumer, I'm thankful that Belkin makes such competitively priced networking products.

I've had this router for about 9 months now and it drops the connection about once every 2-3 days. Many times all the lights on the unit go dark. Remove the power plug and reinsert and it will work again for another 2-3 days. Belkin support has been no help and firmware upgrades don't work. Total piece of junk. Will be switching to Linksys.

I have fairly new system running XP and I have COMCAST internet service along with their ARIS cable modem. After a weekend of trying to get just the internet to run with this router I called Belkin for help. They walked me through a bunch of steps and the internet finally came on. It stayed on for all of 45 seconds and no amount of resets or re-installs would bring it back. A few more calls to tech support without success got me a replacement unit in the mail. It arrived in a few days. Super service I think. Several more days of set, reset, install, re-install netted me a grand total of three minutes of internet connect. I figured to hell with this. I set it up as a wireless adapter and it worked fine with the other end using a Linksys wireless USB adapter. By the way, the little Linksys unit installed, Zip-Pop, without a hitch. Then I changed the router and adapter between my two computers and I received the same results. Linksys installed on the first try but the Belkin was a real struggle to get running. Things ran good. Remember, no internet just a LAN. OK. Got tired and shut everything down for the night. The next day I fired everything up and would you like to take a WAG as to which unit refused to work? Don't think on it too long. The correct answer is the Belkin, Model F5D7230-4. I just ordered a Linksys unit from Amazon and I am going to give the Belkin to someone that I really hate. That is, if I can find some one like that. It's too damn small for a door stop. Belkins teck support was courteous enough and probably knowleable enough but the product sucks! Go and buy 100 feet of wire. No problems there.