Customer Reviews

D-Link DI-784 Wireless Cable/DSL Router, 802.11a/802.11g, 108Mbps

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

As several others here, and elsewhere, have reported - the unit worked fine (great actually) for several months, then started locking up. All LED's lit - reboot and all is ok. Does it once or twice a day, sometimes more often. If I leave for a few days, it will surely be locked up when I return. Have updated to the latest 2.40 firmware - no help.

I purchased my 784 about 16 months ago. I use it with a DI-7100AP.

Within about 3 months, I starting having problems. I tried to upgrade the firmware, but that didn't help. The unit would lock with all the lights illuminated. It would require a hard reset to come back on. Usually, after powering back on, it would lock again within 5 minutes. If I reflashed the firmware, it would work for a while.

I called DLink. They were nice - actually impressed me with their attitude! They decided to RMA my unit, so I got a new one. The problem would occur occasionally, but would seem to clear itself up within a couple days. I wondered if something was coming in via my cable modem that was causing it to lock. Anyway, in the last month of the warrenty, the problem kept happening again. So, DLink RMA'ed the unit again! I got the new unit and had problems with it as well.

After doing some reasearch on the net, I found one post from a guy that said he had similar problems. To fix it, he disabled the 802.11a band of the router. It seemed to work for him. I decided to give it a try, and it has also solved all my problems.

In looking at the problem, I didn't find any other 802.11a networks in my area, but something appears to have been interfering with my signal. Once the 802.11a band was disabled, it has worked well.

So...the reason I purchased the two units I did was so I could have both a A and G band network. I thought that would give me the best throughput and get around any interference that could occur with just a G band network. Bottom link - I waisted my money in buying a dual band router. You might also consider saving some money and just buying a single band.

I was a die-hard DLink fan. Not any more. In my experience, this router worked AWESOME for 5 months. Then it locked up. Hmm, I made no changes to the config, it has been kept cool, dry and away from the rest of the world, that is odd. Oh well, I guess its time for a reboot. BAM! Next day it locks up again, 4 connection lights lit solid, no status or 11a,g lights. It was at this point that I looked at bulletins and reviews for this product in closer detail, and realized that I am experiencing a VERY common problem. At this point I must unplug and replug the router every time I use the internet. I flashed the bios and turned off every possible feature. THIS ROUTER BLOWS. DLink, you should be ashamed. Please don't buy this router until you read a few bulletins and reviews. I'm lucky to have written this review between lockups.

I have had this unit for about 3 months now. Every so often it locks up (all the lights freeze) and it takes a power cycle to get it working again. One time if froze up and I had to reset back to factory default configuration. Fortunately I had save the configuration a day or two earlier and was able to reload it.

Along with the occasional freezing I have noticed internet access problems which I had assumed were with Comcast. I have now discovered that the router quits passing data for about 3-5 seconds every minute or so when it's under load. It doesn't loose the wireless connection, but the data stream stops for several seconds. It appears to be long enough to drop instant messaging connections and file sharing connections.

Over the course of several calls and emails with D-Link support, I was required to go to extraordinary lengths to prove to them that the problems I was experiencing weren't imaginary. They explained that as a "home" router, it was perfectly normal to have to reboot the router every day or two. Finally, they replaced the router, but that didn't solve the problem (I'm convinced this product is fundamentally defective). Then, they charged my credit card $50 because I didn't send back their $1 Ethernet cable. D-Link is a horrible company that needs to go out of business, and I will not spend another dollar with them.

Great features. No customer support, constant rebooting, endless reconfiguring. After several weeks of useless tech support denying the problems with literal flat out lies, I found an abundance of info on the shortcomings of this device. I install networks and have no lack of ability in this area but the fact is this cheep router cost me a lot of wasted time and money. Now it sits on the shelf in my closet and I use my old linksys. PS if you must use this router and the reboots/drops are killing you turn off ALL the extended features and limit it to A, B, or G, that will help.

I have this router more than a year and it worked great first few months. Interface is looking great, it is easy to setup. It has lot of options but with some limitations in number of rules for firewall/NAT.

This router is faster than my 100 Mb wired network. I bought D-Link Premiere network cards for desktop and notebook to get 108Mbps speed.

Documentation is not so great, there are lots of options that are not well documented or to be precise, not documented at all. (Gaming mode, WMM, DNS Relay etc...)

Mostly I use A band, to avoid interference with 2.4Ghz devices. But I use G as well, since network cam is using that band.

All this sounds nice, but... This router has some serious problems. It started to lockup from time to time. All LED's are on, and you have to power off to reset.

I've tried everything. I've upgraded to 2.38 firmware from US site, then to 2.39 from Taiwan (never published in US) and latest 2.40 from US, and tried to back to original. I had dozens of resets to default configuration. BTW Between some firmware upgrades you can't restore saved configuration.

By turning off some options, you can increase time until router blocks himself, but there is no way you can leave this router to work without power-off reboot.

And the most frustrating is configuration of router. Almost every change of options will trigger restart. And in my case it takes 2-3 reboots before router becomes operational. I've lost my enthusiasm and I am tired of search for configuration which will work.

I bought this router back in April and for a while it seemed ok. It had a 4-star rating on pc magazine so I thought it was great as the netgear one was more expensive. However, the router has a nasty habit of rebooting. The Router has many options, including a gaming mode- which the D-link support has told me to disable but I am not sure if it affects gaming.

Normally the rotuer would take a good 30-40 seconds to reboot which was very annoying but lately its only been taking a few seconds- maybe because I turned that feature off.

I may ask them for a replacement unit but I don't know if it will work- just now as I type the review the router has restarted 3 times in the last hour- thing is I don't notice its disconnecting because- it reboots quicikly, only when Aim reconnects after disconnecting and its doing it quickly - then I notice.

Still its crazy- I know its the router because I check the logs, and thing is I am not sure whether or not I would want to go with Netgear prosafe dualband - because of the reviews at amazon.com- LInksys may come to mind- but apparently they sell 2 versions of it under the same name. I prefer a dual band router to avoid interegence and also I usually don;t have to worry about things because most people dont use that frequency.

Still I would need 802.11g/b if some hardware doesnt support 802.11a. Trust me on this one- sometimes for a few days it would seem to work good, but then it starts rebooting frequently.

I Wouldn't buy this router- but Ill let you know if the replacement one works, I have tried enabling/disabling almost all the settings including some seemingly unreleveant ones I am about to give up on it.

I dont know why it doesnt take long to reboot as it used to, but atleast that is better. Atleast when I play a game- and it reboots- it reconnects fast enough so as to not lose connection- but its not supposed to lose it at all- making me anxious when it displays the lag or host isnt responding error.

Well I guess Ill look around,

Update first week of April, the router has been doing great after turning off security options but just recently it started acting up again. What was frusturating was that I was going to play a game over the Internet and it must've restarted like 5 times. I eventually couldn't play the game due to the router acting up, you'd think it would only restart once or twice not 5 times within a few minutes.

I just updated to firmware 2.40, so I'll let amazon.com readers know if it repeats the behavior. I'm waiting till it acts up again. Does Anyone hear know of a good dual band router that doesn't act up?, the linksys,netgear prosafe, and d-link routers here on amazon seem to have that problem.

Update: It may be an overheating problem with the Unit, (No thanks from d-link techniians other users on the internet report it), so Ill try to increase airflow on all sides of the unit(top and bottom), note that I placed the router on a desk with no other nearby electronics except for a broadand modem 2-3 feet away.

Its hard to return something when your computers you share in the house and need for your job depend on the router for wireless connectivity.

But eventually I started having nothing but problems with it. It would lock up and I find myself having to get up back and forth unplugging the thing and plugging it back it. Sometimes it would be okay, while on other days I would be up ever 5 minutes unplugging and replugging.

Dlink has since discontinued the product altogether, was told that it offers that dual band capability and thats why it's having these problems. They ended up replacing the product with a different mondel after weeks of trouble shooting.

I just received my dead DI-784 back from D-Link service. They refused to honor the three-year warranty because my paperwork showed that I purchased the unit from an online vendor, not an authorized retailer.
Unit worked great until it went bad.
Awaiting delivery of my new Netgear WGU624.