Customer Reviews

D-Link Super G with MIMO Wireless Router DI-634M - wireless router ( DI-634M )

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you're here because you're looking to buy a wireless router and you wanted to check reviews on Amazon (and other places) first, you will immediately have noticed one thing: there isn't a single brand/model of router that doesn't have a fair proportion of contradictory reviews. Some people will say "Wow, router X installed in minutes and has worked flawlesslesy since. It's so much better than that piece of crap router Z." And then you read the review of router Z and someone says "Wow, router Z installed so easily - not like the nightmare I had with router X. Don't ever buy router X, what a piece of junk!."

I had a Netgear WGR614v6. It installed okay, although the configuration manager left a lot to be desired - plus it came with UPnP turned ON, even though it said itself that the default setting was OFF! That caused an hour of frustration. But once installed it worked okay for a few weeks, and then it just stopped working consistently. In the same way that so many routers seem to do for so many reviewers on these sites, without me changing any settings in either the router or the machine, it started dropping connections randomly, and constantly needed rebooting. I installed updated firmware - no improvement. I wondered how this could be happening, but then when I started reading user reviews widely I realised that this is apparently par for the course: every brand I looked at has at least one person complaining about this problem.

All of which is a long preamble to say that you'll have to take any review under advisement. I eventually dediced to go with the D-Link because there were more good customer reviews than bad, and because it got some good reviews from magazines (for whatever that is worth these days). I have to say that so far it has been a good purchase. The installation program was very good - extremely clear and well-thought out. I like the Network Magic program that comes with a 30-day trial for free - in fact I decided to purchase it because it makes the network management so easy. The router has performed consistently since I fired it up: strong signal with no dropouts or mysterious lockups.

From MY experience, then, so far, this has been a good product and I would recommend it. But there are no guarantees in the wireless router world.

I have been a D-Link user for several years. My children have used the Dl-614+ at college and configuration was never problematic. My home is a large ranch style house with limestone walls, and wireless router placement was difficult. I had to have an additional wired access point at the other end of the house for complete coverage.

After 5 years the access point died. Tech support suggested the new Dl-634M, and stated that the coverage was much better. I just installed it, configured it easily with my Mac laptop and in fact coverage was much better, but not perfect.

I called D-Link tech support to see if I could use my old D-614+ as an access point. In five minutes we had it converted and running. The whole house is 5x5 now. Tech support is 24/7 and always helpful.

In sum, the Dl-634M is very fast, easy to configure, and tech support is excellent.

First off, I'll tell you that I live in an apartment complex with several other apartment buildings all around. My wireless signal is constantly receiving interference from my neighbor's wireless gear, cordless phones, and an in-town wireless Internet service provider that just happens to use 802.11b frequencies.

Initially, I owned a Linksys WRT54G and paid for the $70 "high-gain" antenna accessory, but I would still find myself having to change channels periodically throughout the day because my signal would drop to 25% as other routers tried to compete for my channel. I already had some other complaints about the Linksys, so I figured now was finally the time to replace it.

Now, I've owned D-Link in the past and the only reason I purchased the Linksys was because it came with such an incredible price discount at the time. But after my disappointing Linksys experiences, I decided to go back and purchase this D-Link instead. Boy, was I surprised when I got it installed at home! I now have between 90% and 100% all day, everyday. This router has a very strong wireless output that appears nothing can shake!! Not only that, but my range has increased at least three-times the distance of that poor Linksys.

In conclusion, if you are looking for gaining more range or strengthening your signal to overcome nearby interference then this device is worth every penny. I have been running mine for more than 6 months without complaint! What have you got to lose? Amazon's return process is so simple if you need it, they even print the return label for you. What more could you want?

We have 4 laptops at home. Our fun laptops are a Macbook and Macbook Pro. Work laptops are IBM T41 and T43. Running Ubuntu Server on the network as a means of backup.

When all we had were XP machines, our old router, a Linksys WRT54G was great. I flashed the ROM with some 3rd party drivers that gave us a ton of options for that router, my favorite of which was improving the signal strength by boosting the power of the antennae. That wireless solution worked great until we did the "Switch" and bought Macs - we were constantly being dropped and the router gave us a lot of problems with IP Conflicts.

Now, I'm sure there is another firmware out there with fixed IP configuration but I didn't want to spend the time to look for one and I stumbled upon this DI-634 on Amazon. A further search revealed only 3 search hits for this router on the Apple website. Try searching WRT54g on the Apple website and you'll see almost everyone has problems with that router.

Installation of this router was a snap but the included CD wizard was useless. It's pretty small and looks nice. The quality of construction looks good. Enabling the MIMO mode is easy. Click of a button. The control interface to the router is pretty nice. And best of all, it has excellent reception throughout our split-level house whereas before I needed to boost the power on other routers.

No longer are the days of needing to be in the same room as the wireless router. We put the router in the garage which is actually underneath us most of the time since there is the main level above the garage and the bedroom level 1.5 stories above. Great reception.

In terms of speed improvement, I did not notice any improvement over the Linksys WRT54G.

Some things I should add:
-When using iChat between our 2 Macbooks the video looks much clearer than before. I think this might be an advantage of the MIMO (I've checked and we're both running in 11g mode 54mbps, all the time!).
-I did not have problems with the Linksys when my MB Pro was the only Mac on the network.
-I loved my Linksys but after buying the D-link, I'm not looking back at all. There's something nice about a router that works great out of the box without needing to hack it.

I originally bought a Linksys router and it worked fine. But then I had some cable problems and my cable company insisted it was my router. So I decided to humor them and buy a different router. The specs on this one looked good and it had a rebate (at the time) that made it a bit more affordable so I ordered it from Amazon.

As it turned out, my cable issue was a problem in the line, but this router is so good that I've kept it. I've been using it six months now. The management tools for the router are terrific, but more importantly, the thing is FAST.

I recommend this product.

EDIT (8 months later): I am still very happy with this router. I have recently had yet more cable problems. I pay for 5 mbps download speed from my cable company and noticed I was only getting 3 mbps in actuality. I disconnected the router to rule that out as a cause and did a direct connect to my cable modem. I was surprised to see that my speed dropped to 1 mbps consistently! It appears there is some electronic interference in my house that is causing a problem and that the router actually conditions out that interference pretty darn well, allowing me to get better speeds than I would without it. Very impressive.

The set up was on a Windows XP Pro home network. I'm famillier with computers and I'm not intemidated by them. I was expecting more of a fight with this project. That is why I waited so long to start it.

About a month and a half ago I purchased a D-Link wireless router, DI-634M. Last night I got around to setting up my network. I went through the router setup wizard and then installed the accompanied software, Network Magic. Boom, I was connected. I could see the desktop I was on and the printer connected to it. Checked my internet connection, it was fine. Then the software said to take out the disk and load the software on all other computers. So I broke out the Dell laptop, installed the software, turned on the internal WiFi for the laptop. Again just like that, I was on! It was pretty slick! I could see the laptop I was on, the main desktop and the printer connected to it. I broke out the older Dell W2K laptop with a PCMCIA wireless card (the card is a new D-Link DWL-G650M Wireless 108G MIMO CardBus Adapter that goes with the router). Loaded the Network Magic software and there it is again. I could see all three systems including the printer connected to the main desktop.

I have read several times where people had difficulties setting up their new router and software. Fortunately, I have not had the problems that others have described with their installations of other network devices and software. My router and one wireless card is all new along with the Network Magic software. Maybe that is why my installation was so easy.

So far Network Magic is, I guess, pretty good. This is my first Home network I have set up. I haven't had any issues yet (My network has been up less than 24 hours), except when I found out that my Network Magic software is a 30 day free trial, it isn't included in the cost of my router.

[...]

I have a large house, with a fairly extensive home network (four desktops, a laptop, a Squeezebox digital music player, and a network printer.) Further, as a musician & artist, I send big files around regularly. My old Linksys WRT54G just wasn't cutting it anymore; poor range, many dropouts, continual messing with & reconfiguring of the network to get the printer to operate consistently, etc. I researched a lot of routers, and decided on either this model, or a comparable Netgear. I found the D-Link first, so that's what I got.

I already use the Network Magic software that is bundled with this router, and the 4.0 version is very good, although it wasn't perfect with my Linksys. However, I did at least manage to make the printer consistently available. As an aside, I would highly recommend this software to anyone who isn't very well versed in network administration, as it makes many tasks easily accessible within a single program, as well as streamlining Windows' somewhat arcane, confusing, and generally annoying network management features.

After I installed the D-link -- which was a fairly simple process -- the network was very good, at first. Improved range and speed and, for a few hours, good reliability. Then, my wife's laptop started getting bumped off regularly. Then my PC, along with the Squeezebox (which gets its music files from my hard drive via the network.) In addition, Network Magic couldn't access the router directly, which limits its ability to manage the network. I attempted several tweaks in the web interface for the router, but to no avail. Indeed, the web interface was extremely flakey, and several parts didn't seem to function properly.

Then, I noticed that the firmware was only v2.0. I checked D-Link's site, and there was a 2.01 patch available. I downloaded it to the laptop, hardwired it to the router, and updated the firmware. Since you'll have to have a PC hardwired to the router, anyway, to set it up, I would highly recommend downloading the newer firmware before you even start the set-up, and update it as soon as you complete the initial set-up.

Simply put, problem solved.

Network Magic could access the router, the network has been stable for the past week, and the router's web interface works properly. Coverage and performance are significantly improved, and I am not using D-link access points (although I may upgrade several anyway, so that I can get the advantage of double the standard speed of 54Mbps for 802.11g.) This last is important because, frequently, product from one vendor will not work and play well with products from other vendors.

I still haven't tried any more advanced router tricks (port forwarding, setting up any network security other than turning off SSID broadcast, and so on.) I will append any experience to my review in several months, as network hardware has a bad habit of working well for a while, and then suddenly choosing to stop functioning properly, for no ostensible reason. Assuming the D-Link doesn't do that, I'll be a very satisfied owner, with no great urge to upgrade to the Next Big Thing: 802.11n, whenever it is finally ratified & decent hardware begins to flood the market.

I live in an apartment with a whole bunch of other wireless networks around me (and unfortunately they're all protected, so I can't leech!). I tried routers from Netgear and Linksys, but I could not get the WiFi to stay connected with either of them- the signal/noise ratio was just too small. I had heard some bad things about D-Link in the past, but after seeing how positively this unit was reviewed here, I decided to go ahead and try it. Problem SOLVED! Not only is the wireless signal strong and fast, even the wired connection is noticably faster than the other routers. I would not have guessed that a dedicated router could be such a bottleneck on speed, but apparently it was. It's like a whole new internet! Definitely a great product.

I owned a DI-624 for a long time. I would have gone completely bald except for the fact that I now own this DI-634m.....with the 624 rebooting every five minutes and me hitting it over and over with a hammer out of frustration, I needed a new router...so I took my chances and bought this one. Ever since the purchase I have NEVER looked back. Not only does it not reboot, but the speed this device gives even with WPA with AES is INCREDIBLE. Below I have included a speed test with the advertised 6m/384k from Comcast using this router(DI-634m)...I would HIGHLY recommend this router to ANYONE....ESPECIALLY those who now own a troubled DI-624

:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Connection is:: 6211 Kbps about 6.2 Mbps (tested with 5983 kB)
Download Speed is:: 758 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net
Test Time:: Tue Feb 14 2006 23:55:00 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)
Bottom Line:: 111X faster than 56K 1MB download in 1.35 sec
Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 30.32 % faster than the average for host (comcast.net)
Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-DV5Z8HJ70

Well since this is my first wireless I cant speak from experience of owning others, but if you follow the instruction to the letter, you should have no problem getting up and running with in a few hours. Yes, hours. It does take a few installs to get it up and going and you will need to update the FLASH memory. Once the unit is configured I haven't had a glitch in 4 weeks and counting. The included network software works great but I don't think it should include an extra cost after trial is up, but for 19.00 I'm not that concerned. I give it five stars because honestly, I didn't expect the install to go without a hitch, It never does, at least for me ;)

All in all I am happy... The range on the unit is impressive, works great through brick and old time plaster walls too. Really fast data transfer and lots of features if you like to tinker but the defauls will work fine. Buy it you will be happy with the purchase.... after a day of tinkering


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