Belkin F5D6231-4 Wireless Cable/DSL Router
by Belkin Components
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List Price: Our Price: $36.95 You Save: $28.24 (43%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Belkin F5D6231-4 Wireless Cable/DSL Router
Customer Review: Advance Users Beware
Summary: 5 Stars
Wireless router is a must have for laptop users. It provides a range of freedom unparallel to any wired set up. If you go to a university or work for a company that has wireless connection everywhere, you will truly appreciate the convenience of wireless internet. It has revolutionized internet as much as cell phone has revolutionized telecommunications.Belkin's 802.11b router is a good router to have if you are using it for only wireless internet and sharing connection. The installation is very easy for novice users. It's just a matter of following a bunch of diagrams in the manual to get everything started. If you run into problems, Belkin has an excellent 24/7 free tech support program. I got almost a no-wait response. However, the regular tech support's knowledge is very rudimentary, knowing less about networking than me. I think they just following a manual of FAQs.
With that said, I have found some problems with the 802.11b router running more advanced features like De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). Because many programs such as file-sharing programs, video conferencing, etc. require non-standard ports, you'll need to either forward these ports or DMZ the computer. With the 802.11b, the DMZ feature does not work at all for me. I've talked to Belkin's high level tech support but to no avail. I have to manually forward all the ports that I need to be open, even port 80 for web server. On top of that, the router allows port forwarding for only 20 programs. If you need to forward more than that, you will do some manipulating. You can get around this by forwarding a series of ports, which only takes up one slot in the virtual server feature of the router. Say if one of your program runs on port 1024 and the other one runs on 1030 you can forward 1024-1030. The draw back with this is that it compromises the security of your network. I sometimes change the port of one program so it will run consecutive with a port of another program, so I wouldn't have a bunch of unnecessary ports opened.
RATING:
One star off of ease of use and performance because of the the problems with advance features. Other wise 5 for ease of installation and cost/benefit. Average to 4.5, but since there's not 4.5 option, I would give it a 5.
FINAL WORDS:
All in all, the 802.11b router has an unbeatable value (...)The Tech Support is great. But for more advanced functionalities, it becomes quite a nuance.
Customer Review: Better & Cheaper Than Linksys!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd been using a Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router with 4-port switch, along with 2 wireless PC Cards for my three-PC home network, running Windows XP. However, we began to experience frequent outages with our cable internet. Not knowing whether the problem was our cable internet connection or the router, I bought a brand new version of the Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router ("Linksys Router II"). But the problem persisted with Linksys Router II, so we called Comcast cable, and they sent out technicians -- twice -- to check our connection. Well, it wasn't our cable connection, so I knew it had to be the Linksys router. I went to a local computer store one day, thinking I'd try out the Microsoft wireless router. But while at the store, a Belkin manufacturer rep just happened to be there, and he convinced me to try out the Belkin Wireless 4-Port Router, which he claimed would set up in 3 minutes. The Belkin unit was cheaper and also had a generous rebate being offered at the time, so I decided to get it. I also bought two Belkin USB wireless adapters; these, too, were cheaper than the comparable Microsoft USB adapters. The Belkin rep was right: their router and USB adapters set up MUCH more easily under Windows XP than my previous Linksys components ever did. Moreover, the router's software configuration utility was better, more advanced and easier to use and understand than the Linksys software. Best of all, the Belkin products solved our cable internet outage problem! Now our internet connection not only goes out less frequently, but when it does, I simply reboot the router through Belkin's software utility which automatically re-configures the router and in less than one minute (it literally counts down the seconds from 0 to 60), the internet is back.
Yes, it's hard to believe that the cheaper Belkin product could perform better than Linksys (which is owned by Cisco Systems!), but it does. If you're looking for a dependable and an easy to install home LAN (and I mean EASY -- you don't have to know anything about networking since both the router and USB adapters configure themselves in Windows XP), save yourself some money and give Belkin a try.
Customer Review: worked for me (mostly)
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased both this item and the Belkin Wireless Notebook Network Card (F5D6020) for an incredible price at a major computer store. I wasn't really in the market for either product, but the price was too good to ignore, and wireless networking was something I had always wanted to try. Naturally, I was a bit suspicious that it was indeed "too good to be true," but after installing it today, I see I had little reason to worry.My household was already running a 4-5 computer wired network using the Microsoft Wired Base Station. Belkin claims that the setup takes only 3 minutes; mine took about 5, but only because I had to initially disable my old network and plug in my DSL connection directly into the computer that was installing the Belkin setup software. The setup was then incredibly simple - since I previously had a network set up, I didn't need to do anything else to my other computers other than plug them in (the router has 4 access points for wired network connections), and after installing the network card on my notebook computer, I was off typing away all over my house on a wireless network. Pretty cool.
As a basic user, I find that this product fulfills all my needs. My only criticism would be that the network connections between one of my wired computers and my now wireless notebook computer seem a bit compromised, but that may be more due to user ignorance than anything else.
Bottom line - a useful product, and (if you got the deal that I did) well worth the price.
Customer Review: it work and it is cheap
Summary: 3 Stars
I got this wireless router few days ago. (...) I was going to say to myself if it doesnt work, just throw it away.
First, I turn this router into an access point. I already have a router.
It work well with my D-Link DI-604.
I use IE to configure the router. I dont like to install software on computer if I can.
I notice the users here say the MAC filtering doest work. But the encryption work right? You know how hard to crack a code at 64 bit? At 128 bit, it is even harder. I only did 64 bit encryption. If you see the lights blinking when your computer is off, then you know someone is using it. MAC filtering doesnt work does not bother me for now.
Also the range is somewhat limited. I get around 50 to 70% signal strenght all the time. Even when I am 1 ft. away from the router, I still get 70%. (I heard with the Linksys, you can hack to boost the signal). I can walk around the house with it and few feet outside the house, the signal will be lost.
I have problems using the Belkin PCMCIA wireless card. I call tech support and they are routed to India and they are of no help either!
I only have surf on the web and transfer some files between my computer and the connection is there all the time.
Its cheap and it work, but I had trouble with the PCMCIA card. I will write a review for the card and how I correct it.
Customer Review: My opinion, For the price it is still junk
Summary: 1 Stars
My opinion,I know a lot of people think $80 for a wireless router is cheap, and so it may be, but $80 for a miserably executed piece of equipment is way to much.
First the range of the wireless is almost non-existant. I have three systems hooked to it. Two about 10 to 15 feet from the router. One is on the second floor. I spent about 10 hours positioning the router until I could get a signal on all systems. Yet it still is flaky. Sometimes its fine, sometimes it bounces like a ball.
Every few days the router locks everyone out and you have to unplug it to get it working again. I tried setting it to renew the IP addresses every day but that hasn't helped.
Also it has no URL filtering, they seem to prefer it if you pay them a monthly subsciption for them to do it for you.
If that is not enough, don't expect 11Mbps. I haven't measured the actual bit rate but I know it is much slower to access the other systems on the network (I was using 10Mbps wired), also games will slow and jump (Im talking about games like Age of Empires, which should run fine on 10Mbps).
I have decided just to run some Cat5e cables and go back to being wired.
So $80 for a wired router is not worth it, or at least not for this one.
Sorry, but I was completely disappointed by this equipment.