Customer Reviews

D-Link DWL-G710 Wireless Range Extender, 802.11g, 54Mbps

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

It took me about 5 minutes to set this one up. Read below and you should be able to do it too. Don't install anything from the CD onto your computer, all you need is a web browser to log into this device and do everything.

Installation (5/5 stars):

First, connect the D-Link directly to any computer via the cable provided. (This cable might look and plug the same, but it's different from the others you most likely use for networking)

Step 1) Set your IP address to 192.168.0.### (where ### is any number from 10 to 240 EXCEPT 30, 30 is used by this D-Link). Then set the "Subnet mask" to exactly: 255.255.255.0 Leave "Default gateway" and "preferred DNS server" fields blank.

If you know how to do step '1' above then the rest is pretty easy. Follow the instructions in the quick guide (DWL-G710_QIG_100.pdf file located in the "docs" folder on the CD provided)

If you don't know how to do the setup '1' above, then do the following. Open the manual file ("DWL-G710_manual_100.pdf" located in the "docs" folder) it actually provides easy instructions BUT don't read it all or you'll get confused. You just need 3 pages from that manual. Go directly to page 28 to the section called: "Assigning a Static IP Address in Windows XP/2000" and read from the part where it says "Double click on control Panel" and do everything until page 30 where you see IP address fields, then just read my step '1' above to fill these fields.

Step 2) Close that manual file, and open the Quick Guide file from the CD and follow the easy diagrams/instructions. I think manual and quick guide were written by different people because quick guide is very straightforward and easy to follow where as manual is badly structured and confusing. Follow my two steps and you'll be alright though :)

Signal Strength (3/5):
While it was easy to set this thing up I'd like to confirm what another reviewer mentioned namely that the range of this Extender isn't much different from a standard wireless router (I have Westell 327W). So it's a bad idea to put this Extender very close to your wireless router as it will not extend the range farther. So don't be confused, this is not some sort of signal "booster". What I do is, I put this Extender somewhere where the signal strength from my wireless router is about 40% or so. D-Link Extender picks up that weaker signal and transmits it farther full strength (as though you had your wireless router sitting in place of the Extender). In other words, if you have a standard wireless router, expect about 50%-70% increase in range (depending on walls and other sources of interference).

Other:
Supports 64Bit and 128Bit WEP encryption (firmware update adds WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK)
Can't hide SSID on this Extender - I didn't know about this when I bought it, I thought this is a standard feature on all devices of this type. But it's probably not that important with 128bit encryption.

I bought the Extender for exactly it's purpose and it works brilliantly.

I have a full brick house and my Netgear WRG614 Wireless Router got me as far a one foot inside the kitchen and then dropped to a signal of about 14%. We wanted to work at the kitchen table and alass my internet connection kepted dropping out. Unfortunately the WRG614 has a fixed anneta which meant that I could add a bigger one and Netgear couldn't provide another solution other than an Access Point which needed a cable connected from the Router to the Access Point. Not much of a 'wireless' solution.

My only advice is that if you are not connecting to a D-link router make sure that you configure the Extender appropriately to your existing network.

For example the Extender comes with an IP Address of 192.168.0.30, which means that to talk to it (or at least to initially configure it) you need to configure your computer to something in the same range (as mentioned by other reviewers) eg 192.168.0.10. Plug in the ethernet cable supplied to the Extender and then follow the basic instructions (including doing a 'site survey' that will pick up your existing wireless networks).

The trick I found here was this. My Netgear Router was running with an IP Address of 192.168.1.1 this meant that I had to change the Extender IP address to be something like 192.168.1.30 so that I could talk to the extender via the router.

I unplugged the ethernet cable and wandered down in to the kitchen and the signal boost was brilliant. The laptop now had a signal of 94% up from 14%. The only problem was that I couldn't connect to the Internet. It wasn't allocating an IP address.

After much searching, I read somewhere about allocating the Gateway IP address (unlike another review mentioned here). Anyway I gave the router ip address as the gateway and 'bing' fixed !

Just for clarification the configuration I now have on the Extender is something like this:

IP 192.168.1.30
SubNet 255.255.255.0
Gateway 192.168.1.1

4/5 only because the instructions could have been better !

I bought this product to extend my range over to an outbuilding on my property. I think this is the kind of application that most people buy them for, to fill in weak spots and such. I use two of them together one in the garage and another upstairs in the house. The primary router (a D-Link 624) is somewhat buried in the basement.

Item one: This repeater works very well. If yours doesn't, then it's either defective or you don't have it configured correctly.

Item two: The instructions are confusing. Read some of the reviews below. Many of them are excellent, and you will become familiar with basic networking if you read them slowly and use the manual.

Advise 1: Find out your network address numbers. Most likely 192.168.0.1 it's a default setting with most cable modems, and wireless routers. If you've got your wireless router correctly configured, then you will use it's address as the gateway.

Advise 2: Connect to the repeater with the supplied cable and set your computer to a "Manual" IP address of 192.168.0.29 and use your favorite browser to "talk" to the repeater by typing in 192.168.0.30 (the repeater's address).

Advise 3: There is a "bug" in the software that puts a bunch of spaces in front of your network SSID. Remove them. Make sure the channel and rest of the information like security settings are the same.

Advise 4: Upgrade the firmware (good instructions on the repeater itself including links!). You will need to do this to use security.

That's all the "issues" I found using mine.

In my special situation where I used more than one repeater, I simply set the second repeater to connect with the first repeater (using the site survey the strongest signal is at the top of the list). This works great and is an undocumented feature of the repeater.

Downsides: The repeater has minimal features. The documentation is good, but confusing to the newbie, and those are the people most likely to purchase one of these. The quick start is good, but doesn't indicate the wizard bug with the SSID.

Upsides: The little thing works really well. Good signal strength and actually easy to set up once you figure it out. Very inexpensive and so far works like a champ!

Five stars for the product, three stars for the docs.

I successfully configured this product with my Netgear WGR-614v5 router and the help of Uri Teitler and E. Isaackov's reviews. I agree that the documentation is lacking. I believe that D-link made things more difficult on purpose so that people would buy their routers. I will give a bit more details on my installation with the hope that this may help some first timers. I have one desktop and one laptop with Windows XP and used the same IP addresses Uri did (I initially turned off wireless security):

Initial G710 IP address 192.168.0.30
Router IP address 192.168.1.1

1. Download the latest firmware from www.dlink.com, and load it onto the laptop.

2. Connect the laptop to the G710 with the ethernet cable. Assign an IP address of 192.168.0.29 (subnet 255.255.255.0) to the laptop using instructions on p. 28-30 of the manual. Since the first three numbers of this IP address are the same as the first three numbers of the G710 IP address, the laptop and G710 can now talk to each other.

3. In Internet Explorer, go to http://192.168.0.30
Type admin for the name and leave password blank to log into the G710. Go to the admin tab and update the firmware (p. 17 of the manual, this is optional but IMHO a good idea)

4. You need to change the G710 IP address so that it can talk to the router. Enter a static IP in the Network tab as described on p. 14 of the manual. This static IP should share the first three numbers with the router and the fourth must be different from the other items in your network. In my case, I changed the G710 to 192.168.1.30 The subnet mask was 255.255.255.0, and the gateway should be the same as the router IP address (192.168.1.1 in my case)

5. After you make these changes, the G710 may be restarted. Unfortunately, since you have changed the G710 IP address, the laptop can't talk to the G710! Assign an IP address to the laptop as in step 2, this time with the first three numbers of the router IP (in my case, I used 192.168.1.29).

6. Log into the G710 using the new IP address (http://192.168.1.30). Go to the wireless tab, do a site survey (p. 16), and hopefully connect to the existing wireless network.

7. Unplug the Ethernet cord from the G710, and try performing a wireless connection to the enhanced signal. If this works, then you can go back and implement wireless security. My G710 did fine with WPA.

I am a complete newbie regarding routers. However, even I was able to set up this extender and configure it properly. I did have to call tech support, because I couldn't get my browser to connect to the device. Turning off the Windows firewall and changing to a static IP solved this issue. Now, its working beautifully. The tech support on the phone was actually quite courteous...much better than I expected.

After reading the other reviews I was not convinced that this kit would work, however when it arrived it took approximatly 10 to 15 minutes before it was extending my network fine. The setup is very easy, however please note that to connect to the device, you do not actually set your static ip to 192.168.0.30, because the d-link has that ip, you use an ip in that region i.e 192.168.0.29 also if your base network has wep 64/128 encription enabled, you have to set this up using exactly the same settings as your base network. This unit is repeating a netgear router very very well, and I would highly recommend buying one of these because it works so well....

I got the DWL-G710 up and functioning as advertised in about 10 minutes; the extender appears to have eliminated a dead spot in coverage from my D-Link DI-624 (rev C) router. I'm pretty green when it comes to troubleshooting networking settings, so I followed some of the advice from previous reviewers (e.g., see Ken's review posted 21Mar06). Now reception on my XBox 360 went from zero/one intermittant bar to four solid bars.

Below is what I did to get things running with a minimum of muss and fuss:

1. Using the router's admin tools (specifically the router's DHCP settings), made sure 192.168.0.30 (the repeater's default address) was available.

2. Using the router's DHCP setting, forced the router to always assign 192.168.0.30 to the extender's MAC address (printed on the bottom of the extender). I don't know if this step was required, but I figured since the extender's admin tools are accessed via a web brower, it might be necessary to ensure one knows what the extender's IP address is.

3. Powered up the extender and connected it to the router using the ethernet cable.

4. Accessed the extender's admin tools by pointing my web browser to 192.168.0.30 (this might depend on what IP # one choses in step 2. I stuck with the extender's default IP address...why make extra trouble for myself?) and ran the extender's setup wizard (i.e., entered the router's SSID, channel, security settings etc.). When the wizard was completed, I made sure that the "Gateway" field under the admin tool's "Network" tab was set to the same IP address as the router.

5. After all the settings were entered and double-checked, disconnected the hardwire connection between the extender and the router (as well as power to the extender).

6. Closed all browser windows and rebooted the router (I don't think this was necessary, but I'm superstitious).

7. Unplugged the extender and moved it to a point located between the router and the dead spot in the router's wireless coverage. Plugged the extender in, and in about 45-60 seconds, the extender status LEDs indicated it was connected. This was verified by checking the router's connection log.

Following the above steps remedied the dead spot (checked with a laptop). As an aside, I was not as lucky with XBox Live functionality...the console could detect the network (as indicated by the increase in # of bars) but was unable to obtain an IP # from the router (it could before I used the range extender, but the signal was weak and often disconnected from XBox Live). I upgraded the firmware on the router to the latest version, and this seemed to take care of the XBox 360 problem.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the product. The only problem I encountered appeared to reside with the router and not the extender...thus, I also recommend updating all of one's wireless networking devices before setup. The only thing keeping this from 5 stars is the product's poor documentation...fortunately, the info from Amazon's reviewers did the trick for me.

After some trouble with earlier versions of this product, I've now deployed several of these in different locations. It has worked well with consumer grade Netgear, Linksys, and D-Link products as well as a SonicWALL access point. It has NOT worked with a Netgear FWG114P wireless router. So, contrary to the description, it does not work with 'virtually' all wireless routers, so you need to check the D-Link website or just try it if it is not in the list. When it works, it's great.

I'm sitting in my backyard with my wireless laptop, getting an "excellent" signal even though my router is on the second floor and on the opposite side of my house. I've got the DWL-G710 and a tech support wizard to thank for that. I've got twice the range I used to, and everything's working beautifully. The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five was that it does not work with "virtually all routers" as its advertising states, so setup was *not* a breeze for me. I had an older Netgear router that proved to be incompatible, which was not a great surprise, although it took two tech support people an hour and a half to determine that to be my problem. I bought a new Linksys router today, and it wasn't immediately compatible either, but I figured it was worth a shot. I called tech support, and they were able to work with me to configure the setup manually. And now, here I am, working in my back yard on a lovely day. Can't beat that! Bear in mind that you may have to try more than one location for the extender before finding one that works for you.

One word of advice -- I wouldn't get any range extender without having a secure wireless setup. You're opening up too many avenues for hackers otherwise, or else just letting your neighbors piggyback on your Internet connection!

This thing works GREAT once you get it set up, which
can be a bear. I had this back in the box ready to
go back and then read the reviews here and gave it
another go. Note that I still had problems even though
I did all the IP address stuff up front. The instructions
are very clear in this, but this part was on the cover
of the instructions and not listed in the steps.

I thought I'd add a little feedback in case others
had the same problems in setup. Follow the advice
of the posts here, and know the following:

1) The instructions on the CD can be confusing
and you don't need all of them. I did better
in using some of this and just being logical
about how these things need to talk to each other.
The latter helped me quite a bit! And so did the
other posts here.

2) The "help" part of setup may have outdated info.
Be sure to check the date of the latest firmware
on your extender. For example, the "help" told me
that this did not yet support WPA -- only WEP. However,
my firmware was updated to include WPA. Just check
out their website for firmware details and compare to
the date on your extender.

3) You can't tell when this thing is set up since the
LAN light takes awhile to go on. When I thought all was
OK I simple disconnected the cable and tried the laptop.
Bingo -- the LAN light went on and it worked, but had I relied upon an instantaneos LAN light I would still be there.
The other WAN light on mine does nothing, really, from what
I can see. I don't think I saw it more than blink once.

4) Downside is you cannot turn off SSID broadcasting. This
is too bad!

5) I needed to go another 50 feet or so to my yard and bungalow,
and could never do this with my Belkin g router. Now it is great! I have the extender set up in the room near my yard and
I have a great signal in my whole yard. I am so glad I stuck
with this.

I deducted one star for the terrible set-up instructions
and method of accessing the extender.

But this guy works so well it is WONDERFUL!