Customer Reviews

D-Link DWL-G810 Ethernet to Wireless Bridge Adapter, 802.11g, 108Mbps

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I was hoping to use the G810 as a nice little bridge for my network to a ethernet device but I ran into a few problems. #1, The firmware is buggy. I had to flash the firmware a couple times just to get the configuration console back and when I called tech support, their answer was often, "Unplug the power, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in." #2, The WPA encryption doesn't work. This may be linked to #3. #3, it works for a few minutes and then quits until you power cycle it. Maybe it has something to do with the interconnectivity between the Dlink and Linksys products, but I could get this thing to serve about 3 webpages before it quit with the encryption turned off, and never got it to work with encryption turned on. My overall take, save yourself the hassle and the 4 hours of your life you'll never get back and don't try to get this thing working with a wrt54g. It seems to me that this is a very poor product and you'd likely save time and money by buying an additional wrt54g, flashing the firmware with sveasoft, and running it in client mode as a bridge. That's what I'm going to try next.

This may (or may not) void your warranty, but the firmware on this product (DWL-G810) and the AP product (DWL-G800AP) is interchangable. This may be more useful for people who purchase the AP/Repeater product and find it useless (since the repeater is only compatible with a few select D-Link products).

I purchased a DWL-G800AP by mistake, intending to purchase this product. I'm happy to say that, after switching firmware, I'm bridging my network at 54mb/sec. The web interface even says DWL-G810 on it. All thanks go to D-Link for keeping production costs low by introducting two identicle products and marketing them in different ways!

I use this to connect my Xbox, playstation 2, and networked media player, to my home network and the Intenret.

Basically I just setup this wireless bridge to be able to connect to my wireless network (connecting to a DI-624) which is connected to the Internet. Then this this wireless bridge plugged into one of the ports on my 5 port switch and my Xbox, PS2 and media player plugged into that same switch. So basically my switch is plugged into my network via this wireless bridge. I can use my Xbox online, my PS2 online, and my media player can access streaming audio online.

It's very convenient and I wish the two products I use (5-port switch and this wireless adapter) could be made into one product.

Either way, it works, and it works well. I never get dropped from my games, or my streaming music because of this wireless device, it's usually my cable modem.

I'd recommend this product for people with uses like mine.

OK. I have DI-624, DWL-G650 and DWL-G810.
I connected my KISS DP-500 Network DVD to the DWL-G810 and everything is working perfect, but you will need to work with settings for a few minutes.

DI-624:

Firmware - 2.42
Open System
WEP Disabled (#1)
TX Rate - Auto
Transmit Power - 100%
Beacon - 100
RTS - 2346
Fragmentation - 2346
DTIM - 1
Preamble - Short
SSID Broadcast - Disabled (#2)
802.11g only - Disabled
CTS - Auto
Super G Mode - Super G with Dynamic Turbo

DWL-G810:

Firmware - 2.12
Static IP
No Gateway Address (#3)
Infrastructure mode
WEP Disabled (#1)
TX Rate - Auto
Authentication - Open System
Super Mode - Super G with Dynamic Turbo

#1 - First you can try with security settings disabled and later you can enable security.
#2 - Guys: broadcast SSID is NOT necesary! No security issues!
#3 - this is the key!

Unplug both devices and it's done!

After getting the DWL-G810 wireless bridge unit, I updated to firmware 2.15, ran it with WPA-PSK encryption, and it would drop the connection after 15-45 minutes of use. Then I tried it with WEP encryption, and it seemed to work okay IF there was no other wireless device on or near the network (i.e. just the wireless access point/router and the DWL-G810 device).

Compared to some competing Linksys products I've used, this D-Link DWL-G810 bridge seems to have a certain amount of lag in response--that is, if you want to open up www.cnn.com it takes about 50% longer to start loading up the page than would the Linksys wireless bridges (which to me, seemed like they acted like they were hard-wired to the router).

However, my biggest issue with the DWL-G810 is when another wireless-enabled computer was brought to the network, the DWL-G810 would mess up the wireless signal, and seemingly "jam" the AP/router's signal--so no computers could successfully connect to the wireless AP/router (I confirmed this phenomenon with Linksys BEFSW11 v.4, Linksys WRT54G v2, and D-Link DI-524 routers). If the DWL-G810 was disabled, all of the other wireless computers could connect to any of the aforementioned wireless AP/routers.

From the reviews, it seems like other users are having connectivity issues w/ this DWL-G810 bridge as well. Probably the most problematic unit I've dealt with from D-Link, as I've usually had pretty good luck w/ D-Link products in general.

Personally, I'd avoid purchasing the DWL-G810 wireless bridge, and going with a solid wireless bridge like the Linksys WET54G or the Linksys WET11 (or even the WAP54G, and configure it as a wireless bridge w/ the newer firmware available from www.linksys.com).

This particular product has a bios error on the board which causes the connection to reset. The product is also past End Of Life with D-Link, so they provide no support to remedy this problem. Purchase at your own risk.

I bought this device to connect my TiVo to my wireless G network. WPA encryption did not work. WEP didn't even work. Tried different firmwares but nothing worked. Don't look here if you want WPA.

You can't expect products to do everything for you. If you don't have your network on the subnet 192.168.0.X then you need to at least make the PC you are going to use to configure this device to work in that subnet. It's real easy, you just go to advanced options and add the IP 192.168.0.2 to be your PC.

I was able to plug this into my router, access the web based interface, change the IP and wireless info to connect to my DI-624, and I was done. It took a total of five minutes. After setting everything right I unplugged it from the router and plugged it into my switch which sits in my entertainment center with my xbox, tv, and broadband videophone. Now all my devices in my entertainment system can be connected to my network. all thanks to this wireless bridge.

The speeds are the same as wired, and I see no difference from connecting these with one long Cat-5 cable, except I don't have to have cabling on the ground.

This is definitely worth it's price.

I can plug any Ethernet enabled device into this DWL-G810 and have it "networked" and able to browse the Internet. From my iBook running Linux, to my XBox, or a test PC out of reach of an Ethernet cable, it all works and is very easy to use/setup.

I suggest downloading the newest firmware before you even open the box or recieve it from the online store you purchased it from. Then get that firmware file (.bin file) onto the PC you will setup/configure the G810 with. Then you make sure the IP on your PC is within the same subnet as the G810 (192.168.0.XXX - this is all in the manual/quick install guide) and then access the G810 while plugged in with ethernet cable into the PC (192.168.0.30) and enter the username and password specified in manual. Then follow the instructions for how to update firmware.

After that you can run the setup wizard, which involves choosing your WEP, what AP to connect to, change password, and other essential settings. It is real easy as it walks you through everything. Then the G810 will restart. Then it should boot back up and work fine.

This is when you can unplug it from the PC you used to configure it and plug it into your XBox, PS2, Laptop, PDA, or anything else with an Ethernet connector.

I've even plugged this into a 5 port switch and had my XBox and laptop plugged into the switch with both of them able to access the network. This means even more things can be networked with just this one bridge.

Summary: Update the firmware, follow the instructions, and have fun.

First of all, don't take my word on this, follow up by going to broadbandreports.com and search on DWL-G810. The security issue is that this device WILL NOT work unless you are broadcasting the SSID of your wireless network. This applies to the shipping firmware 2.0 and the newer firmware 2.12. This is the deal killer for me since I don't want to expose my network's SSID. I'm actually quite pissed off at DLINK over this.

By contrast, DLINK's "range extender" (aka wireless repeater) DWL-G800AP actually WORKS with SSID broadcast disabled, so one can see that DLINK could overcome this security issue.

The remaining issues are these:

(1) It won't support DHCP from your router to any PC hooked up to the bridge. You might think, hey, I'll configure my PC for DHCP and it will get the IP info from the router through the bridge connection. Wrong! It won't work.

(2) The router itself does not work for obtaining DHCP from the router EVEN THOUGH IT HAS THIS AS AN OPTION. This is outrageous and completely unacceptable. Confirmed on BroadbandReports.com and by DLINK's Level 2 support.

Bottom line is that, while it works, it's entirely manual in the configuration and the SSID broadcast requirement is a security vulnerability not worth enduring.