D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
by D-Link Systems, Inc.
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
Customer Review: The WORST investment I have made for my network to date.
Summary: 1 Stars
I think that Dlink has hired people to write positive reviews for this thing, because it is a joke.
Let me say, I have a $30 Linksys router Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless-B Cable/DSL Routerthat I have replaced with this one. I moved into the basement, 3 floors from the computer upstairs, and thought that the Linksys would not reach. I was wrong, the Linksys reached fine, however, we had already ordered this router, its talks of faster internet and safety sold me on it, I thought it may be worth replacing the old router, which I had bought in 2004 I believe.
Upon recieving this router, I installed it, and immediately, my internet was slowed down by at least 5x of what it was. It made my system crash, because of this software it came with, and my internet would disconnect CONSTANTLY.
I called Dlink technical support, which has been a joke! I spent 3 days talking to these people. 30 minutes to get to a technician, just to have them insult your intelligence and tell you to reboot the router and the computer, and call them back if you have any more problems. No matter how many times I told these people I have done that, and that there is a problem, they keep telling me that as if it will magically fix things. It doesn't, obviously.
Finally, I got some semblance of good advice before being hung up on, adjusting a number on my router's advanced settings, that stopped the constant DCing, however my computer was still running like a turtle carrying a refridgerator on its back. I rolled back my system to the day I recieved the router before I installed anything, now my internet is fine. However, I am hard wired into the router.
the computer upstairs, say that it is out of range of the router. I had to bring it all the way down stairs, and it still said it was out of range!
upon turning encryption WAY DOWN it finally said that it was connected, yay, sort of. Unable to use WPA encryption? how is that SAFER then the $30 router I had previously? its really not.
However about 1 minute after I got it to connect, it promptly lost signal, even being NEXT to the router. Absolutely useless. Even though it had a full 5 bars, it cannot connect.
its not the network cards fault, this computer was connected wireless from 3 stories up with the $30 Linksys, mind you, and cannot with a $120 peice of garbage.
Finally, someone from Dlink, upon my billionth call, tells me that there is a chance that you cannot encrypt with Dell computers, (the upstairs computer is a Dell) notice how, no where on ANYTHING about this router, does it tell you that.
I also purchased the network card that acompanies this router, the same model and what not.
I installed it, and my computer doesn't see it, or see it exists.
I cannot install the drivers, as it doesn't detect the new hardware.
I STRONGLY advise anyone thinking of purchasing this, think again, or at least, just take the money and throw it down the toilet you will be doing the same thing, just saving yourself money on phone calls to Dlink and from ripping your own hair out from frustration.
Customer Review: DIR655 with Hardware Version B1 Doesn't Provide Loopback Support
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought a DIR655 from Amazon in November 2010 to complement an existing DIR655 that I had purchased about three to four years earlier with the intent of experimentally hosting two separate subnets. I chose to buy another DIR655 because I had been very happy with my first model. This is a reasonably sophisticated product with lots of forwarding and filter options as well as a reasonably intuitive web based interface. I quickly learned, however, that my old DIR655 used Hardware Version A1/A2 while my new DIR655 came with Hardware Version B1. Installing the most updated BIOS available had no effect on the hardware version. Unfortunately there were some important fundamental differences between these two hardware versions.
I probably should have been tipped off that something like this might happen when I realized how physically different the new DIR655 was when compared with the old one (the bright blue color of the lights and the arrangement of the front panel was quite different).
Specifically, I had been using my DIR655 router both to host websites on a server behind the router and to provide regular Internet access for all of my other computers that were also on the same LAN behind the router. The older DIR655 with Hardware Version A1/A2 was fully compatible with "NAT loopback support": this is a fancy way of saying I could use WAN side addresses (like regular Internet domain names) to access the websites hosted on my LAN side web server from any computer that was also on the LAN side of my router. (Gamers will appreciate that this sort of functionality is useful for certain gaming applications where folks are playing on both the LAN and WAN side of the server.) After switching over to the new DIR655 with hardware Version B1, the only way to access sites hosted on the LAN side of the router was to use their numeric LAN side IP addresses.
I spent a lot of time with a DLINK online support group and got no actual support of any kind. Needless to say this change in hardware functionality wasn't documented anywhere. I ended up giving the router to a friend who simply needed a wireless router. My old DIR655 wasn't broken and for the moment I have deferred plans to run two separate subnets.
In my efforts to identify routers that provide NAT Loopback Support, I discovered DD-WRT: "DD-WRT is a Linux based alternative OpenSource firmware suitable for a great variety of WLAN routers and embedded systems. The main emphasis lies on providing the easiest possible handling while at the same time supporting a great number of functionalities within the framework of the respective hardware platform used." I bought and tested an Asus RT-N12, a router that was specifically advertised as being DD-WRT compatible. I flashed the DD-WRT operating system onto the Asus router with absolutely no problems by doing a firmware upgrade. DD-WRT's system offers a lot of flexibility (although, to my taste, their user interface is not quite as friendly as D-Link's). Not only did DD-WRT provide NAT Loopback support, but the router has a dedicated switch (on the Security / Firewall tab) labeled "Filter WAN NAT Redirection" which allows the user the ability to explcitly turn NAT Loopback support on and off at will.
Customer Review: A featureful well-designed device!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to agree with the many positive reviews here.
I've been a long-term Linksys user. Recently I noticed a decline in the overall quality of their product line. I'd been using a third-party firmware as well to increase/tune performance, ultimately finding it wasn't worth the bother.
I decided to look to amazon.com customer reviews for better recommendations.
Here I found the D-LINK DIR-655, which received the most positive reviews.
I was surprised, as I'd always associated D-LINK with lower-end products, for some reason. Don't let the price deceive you; this unit is packed full of features that actually work very well.
The device was easy to set up. I use a Mac and didn't need to use the disc-based setup; rather the default web page has a similar tool to get you started. It does a very good job at warning you about the need to reboot, allowing you to postpone. They've coded their web pages such that it will automatically refresh to the rebooted unit. Very smoothly done.
People have complained here that the default router address is 192.168.0.1 versus 192.168.1.1 -- clearly they haven't read the manual, as you can change this in the router configuration! Please people, read the manual before you post negative critique.
Yes, the LEDs are very bright! I placed this on top of my television, as that's where my cable modem resides. It is a bit distracting, like a mini disco :-) I put it behind the TV for now. It would be nice if they had some adjustment to lower the power on the LEDs.
The only problems I ran into were trying to find the obvious place to set the wireless security. It starts up as password-less access point, which provides open access. At the moment I brought it online, I already found someone in my building connected, leeching off the wireless, so I disconnected him, set the WPA2 security and rebooted.. It's very important that you set the router password and establish WPA2-only security.
I also recommend that you select to "hide" the unit, as in not broadcast the SSID. This setting is available in the D-LINK settings -- normally we would expect to see "Broadcast SSID?" but D-LINK has this as "Hide?" Keep note of that.
In that regard, I think the interface could be more intuitive in putting the most important things (like security) in the obvious front part - or even as a part of the configuration wizard. However, I'm also very used to another configuration entirely, so it could be just me that needs to adjust.
In any case, the features provided are enough to satisfy both the basic and advanced users. The logs display in a screen that can be refreshed, there's an SPI firewall and many other useful tuned features you can work with which I'm still discovering.
I would like to have more flexibility with the SPI firewall to block certain specific addresses and ranges - I'm not sure this unit can perform that.
All in all, I couldn't be happier. This is a well-designed device. It's clear to me that whomever designed the features and interface really put a lot of thought into it.
5 Stars!
Customer Review: Top-notch wireless router! It works... period!
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the D-Link DIR-655 as my primary wireless DHCP router when my aged Netgear WGR614 started to act funny (will only connect to one wireless device at a time). It is an excellent wireless-N router, and an equally impressive gigabit router. Although there are over 700 reviews for this device already, I decided to add one more just because it is such an impressive device.
My configuration for this system is not your typical setup. I have the DIR-655 set up as the main router, and I have a Netgear WRT110 hard-wired (RJ-45 Cat5e) to this router (DHCP disabled) to connect with wireless-g devices. "Why do I have two routers, when the DIR655 is backward compatible with G as well as N?" one might ask. The reason I have it with this configuration is because I have a mix of N devices and G devices. The G devices drop the DIR655 down to wireless-g speed (54 Mbps) whenever they are wirelessly connected to the DIR655, even with N devices. So, I have a wireless-G router hooked to the DIR655, the wireless-G computers are connected to the WRT110 and the N devices are connected to the DIR655, and all the devices are working to my preference. I need and rely on a fast data transfer rate for viewing HD movies through my network, so a severe bottleneck happens when G devices connect to it. The DIR-655 still serves as the DHCP router.
I bypassed the disk installer and did a manual configuration. The setup was quite painless, and I had the wireless router working in 10 minutes. Afterwards, I searched the available wireless network, found the router SSID, typed in the password for network security (a definite must-do in San Francisco), and I was wirelessly connected! I never had to reset the DIR-655 since I installed it over a year ago, I have never dropped a wireless connection, and the data transfer has been flawless. The wireless N devices I have are a 17-inch MacBook Pro, a 15-inch MacBook Pro, a Dell XPS via D-Link DWA-140 (where I store my movies), and an IBM Thinkpad T43. All connect well, and I get at least 28 Mbps speed in the fartherst corners of my house, and above 80 Mbps speed anywhere on the same floor as the router.
I gave it a 5-star rating because it worked for me out of the box and without the disk installer. No glitches, and the device was current with the latest firmware. The router is on the second level, and I have decent signal (>72 Mbps) in all the rooms on the same floor, and a stronger signal than the previous g-router on the other floors (18-24 Mbps with WRT110, -vs- 0-12 Mbps with WGR614).
I've had no issues with heating or overheating. I use the little "feet" so that the router is "standing" upright. This helps dissipate the heat better than if it was lying flat on a surface.
It works with various OS flavors, including WinXP Pro SP2, Vista Home Premium, Mac OS X, and Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE).
I've using many of its other features (WPA2 encryption, VPN, QOS, content filtering, filter scheduling, and many others). It works as a wireless router, it works as a gigabit router, it works... plain and simple. It fully deserves my designation of a 5-star rating.
Customer Review: works just as it should
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't help but laugh every time i read a review of a tech product by someone that has no business trying to do what they are trying to do. This is, for all intents and purposes, a router! with all of the big boy features that a router should have, BUT yes, in a consumer product, and Amazon will and does sell it to anyone with the cashe to purchase it. Unfortunately there is no aptitude test to keep most of you from buying it. So, "caveat emptor" but NOT because this is a bad - or even potentially bad - product, but because it does a lot of stuff that the average joe blow computer user hasn't a clue how to use or why.
I cannot comment on the dlink customer support, but can only imagine it is probably as bad as all the complainers have said, maybe worse. again, you are talking about a piece of technology that companies offer full blown college courses and credentials to learn how to configure properly, and trying to explain these concepts over the phone to an obliviate can be somewhat taxing if not impossible. and yes, i can see where a support person would just eventually get fed up with you.
in dlink's defense, they have tried - best they can - to develop a "plug and play" solution to get this configured for you. but here is the bottom line for those that have written something like "it works with Vista!" or some other such moronic thing. a router doth not care what operating system you have, and you doth not need to install ANYTHING on your computer to make this thing work! it's a router!, it simply routes packets from point a to point b. if your computer isn't configured properly, you may have problems, but don't blame the router. it's more than likely doing EXACTLY what you told it to do!
that said - [stepping down off the milk crate] - i bought this router because i was thoroughly pissed off at linksys/cisco for making a competing product that truly does NOT work, but that is a different story. once i got this router, i have NEVER had a bad thing to say about it. i run anywhere from 4 to 7 computers through it, both wired and wireless, running Vista 32 and 64, XP, Windows 2003 server, Linux, open BSD and yes, even a flippin' Mac on rare occasions when i really need a hair-cut and i simply don't have the time, so I figure I'll just pull my hair out one strand at a time for a few hours while struggling to find the right mouse button.
Anyway, this thing is rock solid, has great wireless range, and is easy to configure (when you know what you are doing, or at least have some technical aptitude.) I won't say you must be a tech geek, but SOME aptitude will greatly help you during your travels through wireless security options, port forwarding, and firewall settings. This or any other product like it, simply isn't made to be "plug and play" those that have given this anything less that 4 stars either got a bad one - not out of the realm of possibility - or simply have no business trying to do this themselves. This is a prefect opportunity to hire the geek squad if you don't know what you are doing, but don't blame the product if you have trouble. In the immortal words from the movie, Mr. Mom, "You're doing it wrong."