D-Link DIR-825 Extreme-N Dual-Band Gigabit Router

by D-Link

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 10 x 3.4 inches ; 11.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001F7HLRC
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: DIR-825
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (305 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #948 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #62 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Networking Products > Routers
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 3, 2008

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router is one of D-Link's most powerful routers and is designed specifically for high quality home entertainment. It uses Wireless N technology, which is much faster and farther reaching than Wireless G, so you can enjoy a strong and reliable Wi-Fi Internet connection throughout your home. Plus, this router is a dual band router, which means it operates on two Wi-Fi frequencies instead of just one, so you can watch all the HD content you want interference-free.

	Internet, Unleashed Enjoy a blazing fast Wi-Fi network with superior home coverage
	Entertainment Machine Stream videos throughout your house in crystal-clear HD
	Sharing is Caring Share a USB printer or storage device with everyone on your home network
	The Power of Gigabit Connect to a Gigabit wired network for transferring files at lightning speeds

 

The Dual Band Advantage

Most routers operate on one band only, the 2.4GHz band. This is the same wireless band that devices like cordless phones and other household appliances use. While it works well for surfing the Internet and checking email, it can get overly congested, making it unsuitable for high-bandwidth applications like streaming video. The Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router operates on both the commonly-used 2.4GHz band and the clearer 5GHz band, which is less-prone to interference from other devices. That means that you can check email and surf the Internet on one while streaming HD movies on the other so neither band gets overloaded!

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Key Features

Wireless N connectivity for superior wireless performance, clarity, and coverage Dual-band Wireless N connectivity for enhanced throughput Intelligent QoS technology prioritizes both wired and wireless Internet traffic to enable enhanced gaming and phone calling (VoIP) experience

Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) for secure, simple 1-button setup Capable of streaming audio and video to compatible UPnP-enabled devices Active Firewall protection 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports for ultra-fast wired connectivity

 

 

 

Internet Unleashed

Connect this router to a cable or DSL modem and give high-speed Internet access to multiple computers, game consoles, and media players … without the mess of wires.

Sharing is Caring

So your brother has all the family photos on his computer and you're dying to edit the bad ones before he posts them on Facebook? No problem. This router creates a secure Wi-Fi network so your computers can share stuff like photos, music, videos, printers, and more.

Xtreme N: Lightning Fast

The Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router is what is known as an 802.11n (Wireless N) device, which is a fancy way to say it's fast. Really fast. In fact, thanks to Xtreme N Technology, it delivers up to 14x faster speeds and 6x farther range* than 802.11g (Wireless G). Plus, it will still get along just fine with any Wireless G devices you may already have. Ah, convenience.

Multitasking Machine

This router is equipped with Dual Band Technology that supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless signals at the same time. In English? You get to check e-mail and browse the Internet using the 2.4GHz band while streaming HD movies and other media on the 5GHz band. Neither band gets overloaded. This helps to avoid interference and lag, making it perfect for HD video streaming, file sharing, enhanced Internet phone calling (VoIP), and Web surfing.

D-Link Green

While this may look like your average router, it's not. This is a D-Link Green router, which is as good for your wallet as it is for the environment. This router …

• Automatically powers down ports that have no link
• Budgets power output for different Ethernet cable lengths
• Includes wireless LAN scheduling, which can shut down your wireless network when not in use for further power savings
• Reduces energy consumption by using an Energy Star qualified power adapter
• Complies with the European Union's RoHS directive that restricts the use of certain hazardous materials
• Uses recyclable packaging to help reduce waste that goes into the environment

The Power of Gigabit

In addition to offering you blazing fast Wi-Fi speeds, the Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router also includes four 10/100/1000 Gigabit ports so you can connect wired devices to your network. That's right, you can enjoy fast and reliable Wi-Fi and still use wired connections for lag-free network gaming and faster file transfers.

Priorities, Please

With D-Link's award-winning Intelligent QoS Technology, wired and wireless traffic is analyzed and separated so priority can be given to applications with sensitivity to delay. That means your VoIP, HD video, and online gaming can stream smoothly to your TV or PC. Goodbye, lag.

No Viruses Allowed

Worried about the security of your wireless network? Don't be. This router supports the latest security features (WPA, WPA2, SPI, and NAT) to help prevent unauthorized access from over your wireless network or from the Internet.

Easy Does It

Thanks to D-Link's Quick Router Setup wizard, getting your router up and running couldn't be easier. It walks you though every step of the installation process so you can get networking in no time.

Get Ready for the Future: IPV6 Equipped With the growing number of Internet-enabled applications requiring IP addresses, the supply of IP addresses under the current Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) system has already been exhausted. The IPv6 protocol solves this network addressing exhaustion by creating more IP addresses, but migration from IPv4 to IPv6 is not necessarily automatic. No worries--this D-Link product is IPv6 Certified and ready for the future.

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Get the Most out of Your Router

Use the Xtreme N Dual Band USB Adapter (DWA-160) to add powerful dual band 11n Wi-Fi technology to your desktop or notebook computer. Simply plug the DWA-160 into an available USB port and connect to a wireless network to access a high-speed Internet connection. Enjoy greater wireless reception for transferring files, online gaming, and streaming media from greater distances around your home.

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	Speed and range Share the Internet throughout your home network Easy file sharing within your home network Better range and speed over Wireless G Backwards Compatible with Wireless G Network connection safe with wireless encryption and Dual Active firewall Push button Wi-Fi protected setup (WPS) Intelligent antenna technology for better Wi-Fi coverage   Enhanced router performance for a more reliable network   QoS engine prioritizes video and gaming traffic     Designed for more coverage and performance throughout your home     Use 5 GHz band for streaming HD content with less interference       Recommended Router DIR-601 DIR-615 DIR-655 DIR-825 List Price $67.99 $74.99 $110.99 $172.99 See details See details See details This Page

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Product Specs

• Standards: IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u
• Interface Type: 4 Gigabit LAN Ports, 1 Gigabit WAN Port, 1 USB Port (for SharePort & Windows Connect Now)
• Antenna Type: 2 External Reverse SMA Dualband Antennas
• Security: WPA & WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access), Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) - PIN & PBC
• Advanced Firewall Features: Network Address Translation (NAT), Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), VPN Pass-through / Multi-sessions PPTP / L2TP / IPSec
• Device Management: Internet Explorer v6 or Later; Mozilla Firefox v1.5 or Later; or other Java-enabled Browsers
• Certifications: FCC Class B, IC, IPv6 Gold, Wi-Fi
• Dimensions: Item (WxDxH): 4.6" x 7.6" x 1.2", Packaging (WxDxH): 9.6" x 11.1" x 3.1"
• Weight: Item: 0.7 lbs, Packaging: 2.0 lbs
• Warranty: 1 Year Limited*
• Recommended System Requirements: For optimal wireless performance, use with the D-Link Xtreme N Dual Band USB Adapter (DWA-160)
• Minimum System Requirements: Computer with Windows Vista**, Windows XP SP2** or Mac OS X (v10.4)***; Internet Explorer v6 or Mozilla Firefox v1.5; CD-ROM Drive; Network Interface Card; and for Internet access a Cable or DSL Modem and Subscription with an Internet Service Provider (ISP)

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What's In the Box

• Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router
• 2 Detachable Antennas
• CAT5 Ethernet Cable
• Power Adapter
• CD-ROM**** with Installation Wizard and Product Documentation

* 1-Year Limited Warranty available only in the U.S.A and Canada.
** Computer must adhere to Microsoft's recommended System Requirements.
*** The software included with this product is not Mac-compatible.
**** Latest software and documentation are available online at www.dlink.com.

Product Description

D-link DIR-825 Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router DIR-825 Routers & Gateways - Wireless

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

288 of 302 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Linksys Has Some Competition! (See updates at the bottom), November 10, 2008

By 

Jerry Palmerino Jr (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: D-Link DIR-825 Extreme-N Dual-Band Gigabit Router (Personal Computers)

(What's this?)

I am a Linksys person and I teach a Wireless course using Linksys products. I have been using Linksys products since their 802.11b wired routers first became available. I recently purchased the WRT610N and after trying this D-Link, I am sorry I chose the Linksys WRT610N.

As my first D-link product, I failed to realize D-link uses a 192.168.0.1 network address for its router. I am used to 192.168.1.1 on Linksys products.

PROs:
It is a Dual-Band wireless router, just like the WRT610N. It allows you to schedule wireless access. It has a great manual, which even tells you how to hook up one router to another for extending coverage. I was surprised to see this. I like being able to adjust power output of wireless radios. I love the idea of Guest wireless internet zones. It allows guests, such as friends, to get on your network without having access to local resources or giving out your normal SSID/Password.

It clearly has more options than the Linksys WRT610N, which can be seemingly less user freindly and requires more knowledge of networking. The web configuration screens are similar to Linksys screens though. Anyone familiar with Linksys can find their way around. I did not try the setup CD. Instead I manually configured it using the web interface.

I did not experience any of the instability issues I had with WRT610N. With a Lenovo T61, Apple TV, iPhone, two Macs, a PS3, and a PC connected to a Buffalo LinkStation Gaming Adapter, I needed to find the least common denominator wireless settings in order for all of these devices to connect and stay connected successfully. There were just too many disconnects, which necessitated the least common denominator approach. This approach meant I had to choose "Mixed BG" instead of "mixed (which includes n), had to set channel width to 20, and had to use Tkip WPA only. The D-link allowed me to use all three speed grades (B, G, and N) with WPA or WPA2 (becuase it autodetects the best encryption method available with client devices). I was also able to set the Channel Width to auto (40 or 20 depending on the clients).

CONs:
It only allows up to 63 alpha characters for the wireless passphrase/password. I prefer 64 hex character passwords.

The menus are a bit more complex, which could be an issue for some.

Only one person at a time can access a USB hard drive attached to the D-Link wireless router. Many can access the USB hard drive hanging off of the Linksys WRT610N.

OVERALL:
This is a great wireless router. I tested it as a drop-in replacement for my Linksys WRT610N (after changing the subnet to 192.168.1.x) and it performed admirably. If you are looking, I would consider this strongly before purchasing any other brand.


DECEMBER 2009 UPDATE: When my company moved to a webpage-based VPN solution (we have to access a webpage and login which then opens up the tunnels), I discovered that the firmware version (1.01) I had caused issues. I upgraded to version 1.12NA and now I am experiencing daily wireless connectivity dropouts on the 2.4 ghz band. The only solution thus far is to restart the router. This new development has been detailed across the web. I am going to try some of the suggestions, such as any one or a combination of...disabling DNS Relay, disabling IPV6 on client computers, downgrading to 1.11.

SECOND DECEMBER UPDATE: After disabling the DNS Relay, I have been running for over a week with no issues.

289 of 335 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars D-Link HAS to be paying people for these positive reviews, May 30, 2009

By 

Joshua Mayfield "Josh Mayfield" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: D-Link DIR-825 Extreme-N Dual-Band Gigabit Router (Personal Computers)

A couple of months ago I purchased the DIR-825 because on average it received better buyer reviews than the competing dual-band N-compatible routers. At this point, I'm really struggling to understand how this is possible, because the DIR-825 fails in so many areas. I've designed wireless home networking products for almost the past 10 years, and while I'd hope that my experience and familiarity with top brands should equip me to make good purchasing decisions, in my confidence I apparently overlooked some fundamental requirements. In the DIR-825 I got a router that had what I was looking for (configurable QoS, dual-band 802.11n support), but also had a lot of other "features:"

- Randomly disconnects clients every hour or so. This happened more in 5GHz than 2.4GHz, but it definitely happened in both spectrums, and did so often. The router's logs did not indicate any reasons for clients being removed. My theory is that there were frequent signal strength hiccups that caused clients to think the router had vanished. They always reconnected about 10 seconds later, but that's long enough to disconnect you from most online games.
- Renders Vonage VOIP calls completely inaudible, even when the wireless network is quiet. The Vonage router is the only wired networking device in our house. We had it plugged into the DIR-825 so we could take advantage of the router's advanced QoS capabilities, but it was an absolute nightmare. We never got VOIP to work right so long as it was 'behind' the DIR-825, regardless of QoS settings and various other tweaks mentioned in the D-Link knowledge base and forums. We ended up having to put the Vonage device in front of the router (which fixed Vonage but had side effects on the rest of the network).
- Auto-channel Select Feature DOES NOT WORK. The auto-channel select feature, which is enabled by default, is supposed to automatically choose the least congested WiFi channel in your band. I have access to some very expensive sniffing and spectrum analysis systems that tell me that the absolute best 2.4GHz channel in my house is number 4, and the absolute worst is number 1, which literally has 10 different SSIDs beaconing on it as I write this. The DIR-825 ALWAYS selected channel 1 (and it wasn't just a matter of what it reported in the admin UI; sniffers reported it in Channel 1.) Not only does this feature appear to do the opposite of what it advertises, it's also known for randomly disconnecting clients. Unfortunately, disabling it did not fix our problem with that.
- Doesn't work with BitTorrent. I know all about port forwarding, TCP, UDP, UPnP, I followed forums, FAQs, and step-by-steps, but I never got BitTorrent to accept incoming connections properly. (And note that I hardly ever have BT running, anyway; it has nothing to do with the other issues noted here).
- Crummy wireless range in both bands. First off, a little bit of info about the 5GHz band: 5GHz is never going to have the same range as the 2.4GHz range at the same transmit power; this is a matter of physics- higher frequencies = shorter wavelength = shorter distances/more susceptible to walls. There's another problem though- at least in the USA, you are only allowed to transmit on 5GHz at a fraction of the maximum power allowed on 2.4GHz, so really 5GHz is hit with kind of a double-whammy of suck. Note that there are a few 5GHz channels that are allowed to be transmitted at a higher power than the rest, but that doesn't mean that 5GHz device manufacturers actually do that- it only means they can. With that in mind, I can say that the DIR-825 has worse range in not only 5GHz but 2.4GHz as well than the dual-band Linksys WRT610 (which surprises me because of the Linksys's funky design), and also worse than any of the 2.4GHz-only routers we had before that.
- Is on its way to losing WiFi Alliance compliance. There's a WFA-certified logo on the box of the DIR-825, but if you've been following wireless forums you will learn that D-Link has been experimenting with removing 802.11b support from their routers, including the DIR-825, in their downloadable firmware updates. Now, I personally stopped using 11.b years ago, and you can get better 2.4GHz performance by going G-only, but WFA logo compliance REQUIRES that you support 802.11b. D-Link has not explained why they're trying to do this, but I suspect that their hardware has either become overloaded or their code so messy that they can't adequately support new requirements without dropping 802.11b support- and that should scare you.

After a full MONTH of trying to get the DIR-825 to work properly, I realized it wasn't me, and it wasn't my setup- it was just that this router sucks worse than any other router I've ever used. I promise you there's not a single setting I didn't investigate or tinker with in my quest to get reliable WiFi, but honestly, even if there were some magic combination of router settings that would make things work, the thing should have been configured to work properly out of the box. I don't have any crazy setup, just a bunch of computers, and a few game consoles and TiVos that are normally quiet.

I purchased the Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router and am MUCH happier now. I don't believe I had to configure any special settings except for the port-forwarding stuff for BitTorrent. I have Vonage connected behind the router again, and VOIP works perfectly. Our connection strength is better on all computers in the home than with the DIR-825, and the only random disconnects we get are on 5GHZ, though they are much more infrequent than with the DIR-825. Save yourself a month of headaches and get something, anything, other than the DIR-825.

P.S. About 802.11n - Note that 5GHz support is an optional feature of 802.11n at this time, so when looking for APs or network cards, understand that not all of them support 5GHz (in fact, most don't). Allways look for "dual-band" or "5GHz" when shopping for 802.11n stuff so you have the most flexibility in your home setup.

47 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More like 4.5 stars, nice router some trouble with 5 Ghz band, November 3, 2008

By 

Karissa Eckert "Devourer of all books fantasy" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: D-Link DIR-825 Extreme-N Dual-Band Gigabit Router (Personal Computers)

(What's this?)

PROS:
Easy setup that is somewhat secure
Signal strength seemed better
N was faster

CONS:
Would have like a more comprehensive setup by default
Computer had problems reconnecting after a reboot of the router (probably a Windows problem).
Couldn't figure out the 5Ghz band not getting good signal strength.


First off I am by no means a networking expert. I have a small network at home that includes 3 PCs/Laptops, a Wii, PS3, NAS, Printer, and DishNetwork DVR box. So in all 8 devices that connect on a regular basis. Since the DVR box is downstairs and I don't have it connected via cable, I bought a repeater that hooks up to the network wirelessly, and then shares that connection over a wire to the DVR. Ok now that you see the extent of my network, here is what I thought of the D-Link DIR825.

The Setup was pretty fast and simple. I plugged in the wire that was provided to the router from there to my computer, and plugged in the cable modem. I then used the disk that was provided to run through the initial setup of the router. It went pretty quickly, though there were a few oddities. First off the disk didn't start up right away like it should have. I am not sure if I can attribute that to Windows Vista or what. But opening the disk and running the setup manually was easy anyway. I then ran through the install, which asked for a password for the router, which I was happy about, and by default it enabled WPA2, so you have to enter the passphrase for that. When the process was at the end, the second odd thing happened. The end of the install program asks to write a file to the desktop with the configuration for the router. I found this odd because it has your router password in plain text, and it put your WPA2 key phrase in plain text. I didn't really like this because of course it isn't very secure. It is however on your desktop, so if the computer is password protected, I guess you have some security. I deleted it almost immediately, since I don't want sensitive information sitting around on my machines if I can help it.

By default the only security enabled is the WPA2. The SSID is not hidden, and there is no mac address filter. On my old router I had set it up with these two security measures because they are fairly simple to do, and they make it a lot more difficult for someone to get on to a network with this setup. Now my old router didn't set these up by default either, so it wasn't a big deal. So I poked around in the configuration screens and changed some things that I think are important. I was impressed by how many options you have on this router. It seemed much more robust than my old router, which was a 802.11g router, and is probably 3-4 years old now. I did run into a problem with connecting back to the router after a reboot because I changed some options. I had to reboot to get my computer to reconnect. This didn't bother me all that much, but it was kind of irritating.

Next I went about changing all of my computers over to the new router. This process is fairly painless when it comes to the computers (1 dual boot Windows/Linux which both attached just fine). I basically just had to add a new connection for the new router which is by default on the 192.168.0.x address segment. The Printer and NAS are set up with fixed IP addresses configured on their own boxes, and they are both hardwired to the router, so they were really easy. After that comes the odds and ends. Overall I had this router in within an hour with the configuration that I wanted.

I then moved around the house a little to see what kind of strength I got. Since most of my nics are 802.11g, I first tried that. It seemed about the same to me, though I really wasn't expecting much difference, since there should have been no increase in speed. I did notice that it seemed like I got a little bit better signal strength from further away, even on the older nics. The Wireless N also worked very well. I tried connecting up with a wireless USB NIC and that went pretty well too. I didn't get a chance to check to see if the speed was better by numbers, but eyeballing a couple of downloads from my NAS seemed quite a bit quicker. So overall, the DIR825 seems like a pretty good router to me, way better than my old router which will now be retired.....

The other interesting thing about this router is that it has two bands, it can use 2.5Ghz or 5.0Ghz. Both are given their own SSID, and are basically separate networks. The box says that the 5.0Ghz is meant for streaming HD content, while the 2.5Ghz is meant for the normal junk (e-mail, web-browsing, etc). I was having a problem with the 5Ghz ban not having that good of signal strength. Even when sitting near the router, the NIC that I was using was only getting 23% signal strength, but the 2.5Ghz band was getting 99% signal strength. I looked into it a little, but wasn't able to figure it out. So I ran the test I wanted to run anyway. I connected up with two different computers, one on each band, and tried to take up as much bandwidth as I could. I could tell that it was faster because both of the computers were able to transfer files quicker with each being on their own band, but the 5Ghz band took longer for the same size of files, than the 2.5 Ghz band. I have a feeling that there is just something I was missing, but not sure what it was. Either way, it was nice to have two bands, and it will work out well in my house since a couple of the devices are really close to the router, so they can stay on the lower strength band, and the others can be on the 2.5Ghz band and still get good speed and strength. Since the traffic for each is independent, it works out really nice!