D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
by D-Link Systems, Inc.
|
List Price: Our Price: $73.99 You Save: $51.00 (41%) Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days Buy Used: from $45.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
Customer Review: Great device
Summary: 5 Stars
I previously had a Linksys WRT54G and was moderately satisfied with it until it started exhibiting signs of 'cheapness', like general flakiness, inability to load the web management (it'd load a blank screen), etc. After getting frustrated enough, and desiring a router with gigabit ports, I started searching, until I came across the DIR-655.
The first best part (and there's more than one) of this router was unpacking it. Honestly, it's the sexiest networking device I've seen in a long while. There's a button hiding stealthily on the right side, if you take note, but no mention is made of it in the manual. Also included in the package is a little black plastic stand, so you can stand the router on end - that's pretty standard for D-Link, and I like that. They threw in a Cat-5 cable, was that a joke? What am I going to do with a Cat-5 cable on a gigabit router? That's very amusing.
I elected not to run the software included on the CD. There's no real need if you know what you're doing. However, for more advanced users I'd recommend connecting the router to your computer, but NOT connecting to your internet connection (cable modem), and just spending a few minutes familiarizing yourself with your new sweet toy and all of her options.
Now for the good stuff: This router is amazing! The main 'Setup' page is basically divided into 2 parts for each section, a 'wizard' for quick-and-easy setup, and a 'manual' page. Basically, if you're a beginner, stick to the wizard pages. If you wanna get up and running fast, go through the wizards, you can always go back later and manually tweak the settings to your liking.
Connectivity is top level. I tested it by transferring 25 GB of large files then 25GB of small files between two hosts connected to this router, both using 10 feet of cat6 each. 100% success, no packets lost, no fragmentation, and the transfer was about 4% faster than the same transfer straight through on an unmanaged gigabit switch. Internet connectivity was great too. Thanks to the built-in SPI firewall, all the 'network noise' (thanks to all the other 'dirty' hosts on comcast's network) is effectively eliminated, and honestly speeds up my internet activity significantly over what I'm used to when using the WRT54G. Checking the logs revealed the dirty details of all this crap that's filtered out, and I like it gone.
Wireless-N connectivity was also good. Not much can be said here, it works like it should, and I have no complaints.
Administration is also very nice. As usual, the router is administered via browser, and while that's cool, I'd also like to be able to ssh into it and take care of business via CLI, but alas that is not to be. But otherwise, the web management is well designed, fast and easy to understand. This router also checks periodically for firmware updates and notifies you via email if you have the email settings enabled.
Other items of note: VoIP works flawlessly, as does all online gaming that I tried. Latency is noticeably reduced (on my favorite server, from about 80ms to about 60ms avg) in Half-Life 2 deathmatch. torrents worked fine. So far I have no real complaints about this router. It's now my most favorite part of my network.
Overall, I give this 5/5. Honestly, I'd easily say it's worth the price I paid for it (at the time it was $140), and for my network it is a perfect match. If you're a 'normal' computer user, don't buy this just to impress your friends; the features and complexity would be lost on you and are not worth the price.
PROS:
-DHCP Address Reservation
-Easy administration
-Quick Setup
-Email logs
-Incredibly easy port forwarding and per-application settings
-SPI + NAT + WPA2. Nuff said.
-Great documentation and help files.
-Port forwarding scheduling.
CONS:
-No SSH or CLI administration.
-Reboot required after changing most settings.
-No matching high quality D-Link cable modem to go with this.
Congratulations, D-Link, on crafting yet another incredible piece of networking equipment. The DIR-655 is worthy enough to sit on my desk, instead of crammed behind it like the Linksys was!
Customer Review: Router kind of works, unbelieveably TERRIBLE tech support
Summary: 1 Stars
This was a great learning experience. My new take on the "Amazon Star" rating process is to calculate ratio of low rating (1 or 2 stars) to the overall number of ratings and that will give you the percentage chance of having a bad experience with a product.
Unfortunately, I fell into the 30% of the people that have had bad experience with this product. The real question for you as you're thinking about buying this product is "do I feel lucky or will I be the approximately 1 out of 3 people who get unlucky?". Some people like to gamble with hours of time on hold with tech support. Turns out I don't.
I purchased this router to replace my Linksys wrt54gx. I have a network with 3 laptops and 5 other computers that worked fine (each computer can see the other) before installing the Dlink DIR 655.
After installing the DLink and working for about an hour, I was finally able to get each individual computer to see the internet. Unfortnately, none of the computers could see each other, nor even respond to simple ping commands.
Tech support calls went like this:
Call 1 - nice rep, worked hard to understand and gave me a case number so I could call back in 15 mins to talk to a level 2 rep
Call 2 - level 2 rep - explained the whole situation to the rep again and they put me on hold while they looked up some information. 10 mins later - click, I was magically disconnected
Call 3 - level 2 rep again - ditto of call 1, but this time disconnected after 15 minutes
Call 4 - Level 2 rep (Kelly), explained the whole situation again, simplifying it to say "I would just like to ping from Laptop A to Laptop B". Her response was that type of functionality was not covered by DLink support(????). She said that since my computers were all talking to the internet, their product was working and that any communication issues between my two laptops were my responsibility. Also that if I did want support, I had to call their networking department to get free support at 888-814-2882. When I told her I knew that was a $ per call support line, she lied and said it was not and tried to rush me off the phone. When I asked to speak with a manager, she said there were none available(????). When I got very specific and said that there were no managers or supervisors managing all of the tech support reps that evening, she said they all managed themselves. Given that she lied before about the $ per call support line, I didn't believe her, but what can you do.
Call 5 - I called the 888-814-2882 number and indeed they are a per fee support line. The rep suggested I call back the original number and ask for a senior person.
Call 6 - Called back the original number, gave my case id and asked for a senior person. The rep started asking me all the basic questions again and I politely asked for his name and ID, he kept talking over me and would not give his name nor id. When I politely persisted in asking for his name and ID started raising his voice and then yelled at me an hung up.
Call 7 - Asked for the name and ID of the rep in case we got disconnected. He would not give them to me(he identified himself as George when the call started, but would not say his name again). He said the only process I could use to make sure I got support was to use my case id. When I explained that the other reps did not leave a comment or identifying mark on my case file, he said there was nothing he could do.
I had high hopes for this router based on the reviews and I guess if you use it in a basic one computer or two computer network it works fine (maybe?).
Don't bother with tech support, Linksys is head and shoulders above Dlink in this regard.
This whole incident reminds me of the old fashioned off shore support that companies thought they could get away with a few years ago, but ended turning customers away and crashing their sales (Dell, Sprint, etc).
I really wanted to love this router, but how can anyone buy something that really doesn't work as advertised, yet also isn't supported by the company or that you have to "pay" to get working out of the box?
Sorry DLink - fix your product and support policies and maybe I'll come back one day.
Customer Review: UPDATE - Do Not Buy This Version (Per D-Link tech support)
Summary: 1 Stars
*** UPDATE: So, day two, after 86 minutes on hold with tech support, the second tier tech support informed me that the reason I was having wireless issues is because there is no ALG configuration ability for this router. The instruction manual has a screen shot of it, but it will not appear in the browser set-up. This is only a problem with the "B" version of the 655. D-Link KNOWS of this problem (tech support told me they know but marketing doesn't), but they still sell the router, and there is no firmware fix available. Obviously buying from Amazon I cannot choose whether it's version "B" or "A" (look on the underside of your router, after the model number, under the serial # and MAC ID, and it will say "H/W ver." then either A or B). So if you buy from Amazon and need wireless, you might be screwed. Despite their website policy stating quite clearly they do not do exchanges, D-Link said THEY (not Amazon) will arrange to send me a new router of the proper "A" version. Let's see what happens....
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
So, with my new iPad, and new computer on the horizon, I figured it was time to upgrade to an N-speed router. After lots and lots of research, I decided to swap out my old reliable Linksys WRT54GS ver.6 for this D-Link 655. BIG MISTAKE. I am not an IT professional, but by no means am I a tech neophyte, either. I know how to replace a router and set up a wired/wireless network, adjust the security protocols, etc. But the D-Link is ridiculous.
First, I tried the quick-start CD it came with. After step 5, it said it could not locate the router, and my router was not working -- which was wrong, since Windows had already located it and recognized the new 1 gigabit ethernet connection (and I was able to connect to the internet). First I tried calling tech support. My bad. Although they did answer fairly quickly, the foreign accent was too thick to understand (and I've traveled to over 30 countries...). Not only that, but they REFUSED to help me at all until I gave them a valid phone number. Now, for a number of good reasons I have an unlisted number, so I wasn't going to give it to D-Link, but they said no number, no service. I asked for a supervisor and was told, of course, none were available. I hung up and called again (persistent, I am). This time I got another rep, whom I could understand, but whom also refused to proceed without a number. I asked for a supervisor and was given one right away. I finally ended up giving up a fake number (555-1212), which he knew, and was OK with. I mean really, what kind of stupid policy is that??
Anyway, the tech support was going nowhere fast, so, I tried going into the browser (192.168.0.1) to do a manual setup. Well, there are numerous tabs and and sub-tabs, and every time you make a change, you need to save it before you switch to a new tab -- and each save brings the router down for 20 seconds. Some changes require a reset, which takes 72 seconds. There's five main tabs, and 30 primary sub-tabs. So this took quite some time. But when all was said and done....it didn't work. After two and half hours of changing settings, I finally got my laptop to connect, but only at 24 Mbs. I tried connecting it with an ethernet cable, and that wouldn't work at all.
My iPad connected (once I typed in the 63-character password), but only at 65Mbs -- not much of an increase over the 54Mbs I had been getting with my G-speed Linksys. Worse, whenever I tried watching a video clip, the iPad would stop midway through, and I would have to manually restart the video. I NEVER had this problem with the slower Linksys.
All this hassle is not worth the extra 10 Mbs I get wirelessly. I'm sending the piece of junk back and hooking up my old reliable Linksys.
(On the plus side, the 1 GB ethernet connection to my desktop worked, and the 655 comes with a USB port, but I simply don't have the time or patience to see if that works...and anything attached the port can only be accessed by one user/device at a time, and you have to ask the other user to disconnect and release the device....Ridiculous.)
Customer Review: Defective product, defective support
Summary: 1 Stars
I kept having issues with my game consoles complaining about my NAT being set to strict and it was affecting online play and chat and support couldn't seem to help me out. It just seemed that technology finally outran my poor old router. It is very old (although I love it and it still works great otherwise). I ordered the D-Link DIR-655 since it seemed to have what I needed (and much more). I spent hours trying to get the router working properly. The software meant to easily configure the device kept crashing on my computer so I gave up and configured the router manually. I got it working in a few minutes while plugged directly to it, but had a problem authenticating wirelessly. I called D-Link support and the agent helped get my laptop connected after some work on the router, but my game consoles would not work wirelessly. I got off the phone with him figuring it was something needing to be changed on the consoles and it probably wasn't his problem. Nothing I did worked. I called back after making a change on the router that managed to block everything that wasn't plugged directly into it (my fault due to losing my patience). I spoke with D-Link support again and explained what was going on and the person I spoke with seemed very distracted and paused a lot, seeming to be looking something up each time, only to ask me what was happening when I was actually waiting on him to tell me what to do next. I told him that the best thing might be to reset to factory settings and just configure it to see if I could get a connection again and work forward from there. He said that I would be doing that by myself because they had a queue of customers with a 30 minute wait and he had to go and take care of them. I won't type what I said to him (although I used no profanity). I hung up and called right back figuring I'd reset the router and sit in the queue waiting the 30 minutes for someone who might actually be willing to help me. Someone answered in 2 minutes!(?) I then explained my displeasure with customer support and said that if the router wasn't working by the end of the day, I was sending it back and getting a Linksys. He apologized for my previous experience and vowed to get me up and running. He did just that! Including my game consoles. It all seemed great. Then a little while after I hung up, my son started getting dropped from his online games. I checked it out and sure enough the connection was dropping every 15 to 30 minutes. I got in touch with D-Link support yet again and they told me to call my ISP because it was on their end. I explained that I had plugged directly into the cable modem and reconnected my old router and had no connection issues that way. It only happened when using their router. I was asked what H/W version my router was. I told her it was version "b1". She then told me that there were known connection issues with that version. So I said "Oh! It's defective?". She told me is was not defective. It just had connection stability issues. I asked her if she bought a car and every 15 to 30 minutes it swerved off of the road and turned off, would that be acceptable? And if she complained to the dealer and they said that it was not defective, but just had an issue with staying on the road, would she keep it? I think not. I told her that I had a Linksys router for about 6 years and NEVER had this sort of issue with customer support. I expect occasions where a device needs to be reset or routes lose their way, but a known issue that affects the core functionality of a device is a DEFECT. I didn't even care to try to fix it anymore. I was focused on this thing from about 11am until about 7pm with nothing but headaches. I reconnected my 6 year old Linksys and got everyone back up and running in about 10 minutes and told my son to get over it if he couldn't hear all of his friends or join every game until I get a new router. I returned the D-Link to Amazon and ordered the Linksys e2000 for about the same price. Nothing is ever certain, but I'm confident that I will have an easier time with this one.Customer Review: Bad experience. I got a defective router
Summary: 2 Stars
I was attracted to this router for the same reason as many others: it is a bargain! For the features included (802.11n, GigE, USB Port, etc), this is a really good price. Unfortunately, in my case at least, the performance was poor.
The router I was replacing with this D-Link was an older Apple AirPort Extreme with 100Mbit ethernet.
I had pretty good luck with the wired Gigabit Ethernet ports on the DIR-655. I bought this router mainly because I had to replace a slower router (100Mbit). The old router was really holding back the new NAS (Network Attached Storage) system I recently put together for the purpose of running my iTunes library and Time Machine backups, along with a high-availability RAID storage array, over the network. I got pretty decent performance with the GigE ports on this DIR-655; around 40% utilization of gigabit. This was done using Cat6 cable. For reference, the usage in my household is on the order of hundreds-of-gigabytes per day transferred over the network.
The wireless on this unit, however, was very disappointing. I never benchmarked the wireless speed, but I really wasn't able to. The problem was that the wireless access point from this router would simply disappear randomly. It seemed that the wireless would 'crash' sporadically, and only a full system reset would bring it back up. It was really frustrating, and after much effort to rectify the problem, it persisted. It was very random, so sometimes it would last a day without going down, and sometimes it would only last an hour. I speculate baselessly that the very massive amounts of data I was transferring over the wired network was simply too much for the onboard processor to handle, and caused problems with the wireless.
In addition to the wireless troubles, I also had no end of trouble with the built-in DHCP server. It constantly had issues that caused address conflicts on my home network. When computers and devices went to sleep, they would wake to find a DHCP address conflict. Again, I tweaked the settings for lease times, etc, but nothing helped. DHCP is an absolute requirement for my home network, which consists of Macs, a Linux-based NAS, a Windows 7 PC, several mobile devices of varying brands and OS's, and an AppleTV.
The final issue I ran into with this router was its handling of multicast DNS. mDNS is used by most modern operating systems to broadcast information about services an individual computer has. Apple calls this Bonjour, and it goes by Avahi on Linux. Essentially, its intention is to be a 'Zero-Configuration' networking protocol. I use this heavily to make sense of the different services offered by the devices on my network (File Servers, AirPlay, Remote Desktop, Printing, etc), so the fact that this router would drop mDNS packets after a while was unacceptable.
Ultimately, I returned what I felt to be a defective router. I was lucky to find a deal on and purchase the new Apple AirPort Extreme router with GigE ports, and the AirPort Extreme router meets and exceeds all of my expectations. I get better speed on the GigE ports (marginally, but it's noticeable), the wireless is more reliable, and I don't have to mess with it. I highly recommend the Apple router to anyone who needs advanced features and high performance.
I hope this review is helpful to potential purchasers of this router. Even given the fact that I received a defective unit, I wouldn't necessarily try to sway anyone from this unit. It may work great for some, and if you get a non-defective unit, you may be good to go. The features are certainly present, and if you can avoid the troubles I had with the DIR-655, you'll enjoy it. One other thing to mention, is that users may have better luck with this router if you have an all D-Link network. To utilize the 'Extreme N' features, you have to have all D-Link hardware. This feature essentially uses (2) 802.11n radios in tandem to give double the bandwidth.