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: No real complaints so far
Summary: 4 Stars
I got this because it was one of the cheaper wireless routers, and so far am happy with it. I set it up by hand instead of the wizard that they included with the package. I had the wired portion working just fine in under 5 minutes.The wireless was a slightly different situation. I use Mozilla Firebird as my main browser, and when it comes to some of the buttons when setting up the WEP keys, the 'Generate' keys do not work. This could be Mozilla, but I haven't had any such problems on websites. Once that was set up, getting encryption turned on and working was easy under IE. My Belkin wireless card only supports 64-bit WEP, which is fine for me, and I haven't had the router start to broadcast the SSID at all yet as others have stated.
I get pretty good range (100' through 3 walls, and about 200' through a single wall) so no complaints there. The web interface is the best I've used yet, especially after digging through the interfaces on Linksys or D-Link routers.
I give this a 4 because of it not working 100% with Mozilla-based browsers, so I'd hate to see people try and use every feature of this router if they run nothing but Linux (which if you're running Linux, why buy a router? ;) )
Customer Review: Easy to set up but could have better troubleshooting guide
Summary: 4 Stars
The router is easy to install with the Install Wizard - by this I mean getting the router to make a connection to your ISP (have your username and password on hand). This literally takes only a few minutes. Any other adjustment to the router settings are done through the browser interface. It helps if you are well versed in the terminology and know how you want the router configured as the instructions tell you how to do things but not necessarily why you should or should not make changes. I'm still learning.
I did have problems making a connection between my Apple Powerbook with Airport to the router but this turned out to be solved by going through the browser interface and trying different channels on the router. After a few tries I got a signal on the Powerbook. However, I had to do this on my own because there was no suggestion that this might be a problem in either the Belkin or Apple literature or websites. The range seems to be what they advertise although I didn't bother venturing outside after verifying my whole house is covered (two floors, about 1000 sq feet each).
So. . .5 for 5 for the product but minus one star for the documentation...
Customer Review: Never will buy Belkin again
Summary: 1 Stars
I have had this router for a few years now. Where should I start? Well, let talk about the web-based interface. It is so buggy that it does not work with Firefox. It only seems to work for Internet Explorer 6 and 7, because it seems to tolerate broken Javascript. I would use IE if I had it, but I am a Linux user, so none of the standards-based browsers that I have will not work at all.
I actually found were the bug was, but I can't do anything about. This leads to the second issue of support. I sent the issue to Belkin support, but there was never a response. Checking their support site, there is no firmware updates for this. None at all.
So, here's the scoop on what I cannot do. I cannot set any WEP keys, because buttons you need to use to apply the settings silently fail. Therefore, I cannot have a secure wireless, which makes this router useless to me.
I am sure that the newer products have better support, but I think I will spend my money on a Linksys WRT54G.
Customer Review: It works, but has issues...
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm not normally one to write reviews, but I want to prevent others from buying this if it will not work for them. I have previously been a sysadmin, so I'm somewhat fluent with network compnents and configurations. As a wireless access point, its fine, good range, good speed, etc. As a NAT router, again it works just fine for browsing. However, it has serious issues maintaining connections, either through the wireless side or the wired side, with game servers. Simply put, games will continually "lose the connection" to the server, and drop you from the game. This happened no matter what configurations and/or firmware versions I tried. I ended up using my Linksys router as a router, with the Belkin as a wireless access point and hub. This also reduces it to a 3 port hub, since you need to use a standard port for the connection to the router.Long story short, it works for everything but games. If you never game, then its good for the money. Gamers look elsewhere. I would recommend Linksys.
Customer Review: Good Feature Set, Low Sustained Throughput
Summary: 3 Stars
This router is a great deal if your primary purpose is to browse the web. When I attempted a sustained 50KBPS VOIP connection it would start dropping packets after approximately 4 minutes rendering the conversation useless. This is probably due to memory and processor constraints.On the positive side, configuration is a breeze, it comes with an excellent feature set and looks cool mounted on the included base. Under normal conditions turning 128 Bit encryption and MAC address filtering on added only 2 milliseconds to device latency. This is better than some other, larger and more expensive boxes I have had to live with in the past. The 4-port switch is a really nice feature and it even comes with an optional content filter to help keep your kids safe.
I decided to keep it and have purchased a cheap 5 Port Switch to place in front of the router so that my bandwith-hogging, latency intolerant, VOIP ATA can benefit from a direct connect to the ISP without clogging up this nifty router.