Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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86 of 100 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its a pretty great router, but support is weak!, April 8, 2005
I'm a computer professional so technology is not much of a mystery to me, but I still want something that's solid, and easy to manage. The internal software to his unit is pretty good, and the performance is top notch. For one its easy to store, and save your configurations. This is important because there may be occasion where you have to reset the router, and your settings would be lost. The firmware was easy to update, and will need to be updated as soon as you connect the device. A word of caution here, if you are using a dial-up connection, (unless its always been very stable), I don't recommend upgrading the firmware with it. One thing you cannot do, because it will likely render the router useless, is lose your connection in the middle of a firmware upgrade.
This is a gamer modem, and the help files and web manual provide good information as to how to set it up. It even has the settings to port replicate many popular game already built in. In addition, it has a special gamer network traffic section to keep your games running on an even keel over your network. I works, but better with some games than others. While I can't speak for any screaming, bleeding edge speed boosters, it seemed fast. I connected my old Windows 98SE machine using a Hawking, USB, wireless receiver, and it just worked! I experienced none of the problems I'd read horror stories about with other wireless routers.
Connection is a snap. Disconnect your cable modem from the back of your comp, connects its ethernet cable to your new D-Link router, run the included cable from the D-link to your ethernet port on your comp. (If your computer was connected with USB, you might need a $10 ethernet PCI card if you don't have an ethernet connection.) Turn everything back on, and (at least in my case, it just worked). If your running it as a network, and not just a single firewall, I'd recommend the most modern computer for the wired connection. The rest can either go wired or wireless. I got excellent signal strength, and have yet to experience a dropout on my wireless machine. For those who don't know, a wireless router is normally wired to the first machine (wired connections are generally faster and more solid than wireless). The wireless part is generally for other computers and network devices (like printers and such) to be connected to the wireless part of the network. In the past all connections to a router were wired. If you have one computer you can use an access point, instead of a firewall, but with the exception of this one, (which is expensive) most access points cost near the same as a four port wireless router.
Ok, now the bad news. It is a complicated piece of tech, and to do some things, people might need help. My advice is to read the FAQ's, and go to the web boards. I needed to get it to host a BattleNet game. I had the correct ports replicated as an exception, but it didn't work. I called the tech serve, and a typical moron told me how to ping the system with Windows command line. I spent a half hour trying to tell him I was connected fine, and could even play the game I wanted (Warcraft III Frozen Throne), but could not host a game. He couldn't answer a few simple questions, and finally admitted he didn't know anything about networking, but was reading from a test script. He agreed to transfer me to level 2 technicians. When I spoke to them they couldn't answer my questions either, and gave some lame excuse that if they told me how to host on BNet it would make my network insecure, and they would be liable to a lawsuit. Give me a break, you create a gamer router, and even include the ports listed for that game, then won't tell your customers how to set it up. I just don't think they held up their end of the bargain (D-Link support that is).
After two days of testing it, I finally figured out, I had to create virtual servers for each port separately, then create a static IP address, and connect it up to the dynamically created one from Comcast. That would allow the virtual servers to be used by the gamers connecting to the host machine, to connect to a defined, unchanging address, which would connect to whatever other address came up dynamically by the service provider, using the DCHP server. It sounds complicated to a non-network guy, and it is. I'd have like to been told how to do that by tech serve, but they were too incompetent so it was just trial and error, plus a lot of reading.
Bottom line is if you've gone though the router trials before, this will probably be a good experience. If not, prepare to educate yourself on the wonderful world of networking. I do recommend routers to be used as firewalls to all computer users who access the web, gamers or not. Hackers are banging on your computers ports all day long on the web, and with a hardware router, they only see a router, not the computers hidden behind it. If your not a gamer, this one is pricey, but if you want the latest greatest, as of today, this is pretty much it.
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35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Router I've ever owned, December 29, 2005
I've always sworn by Linksys and Netgear, but this past summer, I was pulling my hair out with VOIP problems. On both my older Linksys Wireless-G router and a newer Netgear WGR614 router, all calls over VOIP would end spontaneously after 5-10 minutes. It varied and improved somewhat when I moved to the WGR614.
On a whim, I purchased this from CompUSA. I'd had problems with D-Link in the past - two wireless routers in a row died in less than a year, just prior to purchasing my Linksys G-router. Oh man, how things have changed.
1) VOIP is given priority on this router. I haven't dropped a Vonage call in three weeks.
2) Where before my XBox live signal (XBOX360 w/ wireless-G adapter) was weak and prone to disconnection, this router provides a very robust and stable connection.
3) Both of my Apple Powerbooks connect without issue. I've had problems with both the Linksys and Netgear router and WPA-PSK implementation. It would often kick back my password, deny access to the network, or my Apple would wake from sleep and not be able to find the network. Again, in three weeks, both Powerbooks have connected within seconds using WPA-PSK.
4) It sounds stupid but...this router is attractive. No longer do I feel the need to hid the unit under a desk. It just looks...cool. LEDs are bright, though, so if you game in a darkened room with this router, watch out. ;)
5) More intuitive interface than the competition.
I've heard that D-Link provides weak support for their products, but then, so did Netgear and Linksys, both of whom I called about the VOIP issue and both, naturally, blamed it on the VOIP box. Hopefully, with such an outstanding product, I'm sure I'll never have to avail myself upon D-Link's tech support.
Sure, this router is MUCH more expensive than the competition, but it works as advertised, provides a better WiFi signal and, most importantly, its CONSISTANT.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Router for all around home use., March 17, 2006
D-Link only made one mistake with this router, and that was bad marketing. They shouldn't market this as a 'Gaming' router, but more as their premium brand router. The real option that makes this router shine is that it just works. I had initially bought a linksys WRT54G seeing that Cisco bought linksys and I thought it would be great but it was bad news. It was slow, had poor signal strength compared the 4300 and wouldn't 'just work' with the PSP and the Gameboy DS. I sent it back to Amazon and bought 4300 instead. I had bought a new router to replace my old DLink 614+, and am nothing shy of overjoyed. This router is no gimmick. It has a gigabit switch built in which if you have gigabit NIC's in your wired network make file transfer lightning fast. And the wireless has an increased range over my previous DLink router, not to mention wireless G and the Dlink 108 boosted signal as well. The real feature that makes this router amazing is the Quality of Service (QoS) features. They make it seem like its more for gaming, but you can tweak priority of packets between gaming, internet traffic, phone (VoIP) traffic, and customize it to the your liking. You can even set it to turn off certain ports or all activity at certain times, i.e. you can keep people off after their bedtime!!! Overall this router is Stellar, but I have to say that if your not a techie, or really going to take the time to learn how to use thing, it will just seem like a plain old router when in fact it is a powerful networking tool, that you can set up once correctly and walk away from. If your very new to home networks, you may just like something simpler. Either way this is an amaizng product and the best home router i have ever used.
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Router Uptime is now 6 Months. Never had a problem and its been wonderful. Xbox Live works well as does the Nintendo DS with Mario Kart. The range on my laptop is pretty good. i have the Router in the basement but receive 75%+ signal strength all over the first floor of our house. I haven't decided if i want this on an upper floor to increase the range and strength out into the neighborhood. More on VoIP as soon as we get it.
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