D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
by D-Link Systems, Inc.
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List Price: Our Price: $73.99 You Save: $51.00 (41%) Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days Buy Used: from $44.90 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
Customer Review: Works fine with Mac OS X
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd like to address the previous rant/review. It took 10 minutes for me to configure this router with my Powerbook G4 running Tiger 10.4.9 (fully patched) using Firefox 1.5. I didn't experience any issues. I also connected to the router interface with my Powermac G4 MDD running 10.4.9 and Firefox 1.5 without any issues. I browsed all the panes since I wanted to check out all the settings and options. I'm not a fan of Safari so I don't generally use it but I fired it up to test the interface. I was able to connect and browse the management interface without any problems. Mileage may vary, but I couldn't duplicate the reported errors.
As for the general review, I'm happy with my purchase. I moved into a 3 story house last April and had been experiencing wireless connectivity issues with my Aluminum Powerbook and my old SMC wireless router located in my second floor office. I had limited signal strength on the first and third floors. There were a couple of 'sweet spots' where I could sometimes get 2-3 bars (roughly 25% signal strength)on either floor. I was ususally unable to get a strong enough signal to connect. I tried external antennas from various vendors and experienced the same problems. My new Xtreme D-Link DIR-655 (using only the built-in antennas) shows full bar strength throughout the entire house. Air Stumbler showed signal strengths between 50-85% throughout the entire house. I can even get a 70% signal strenght outside on our third floor deck.
As I stated earlier, configuring the router out of the box only took 10 minutes. This included MAC address filtering, WPA2, SSID, changing IP settings, configuring DHCP, and all the associated reboots. I thought it was silly that each saved change required a system reboot but the boot process is quick so it isn't really that much of an issue. The interface is pretty intuitive. I didn't look at the manual since I would have had to load the CD and open up the PDF file (doesn't come with a printed maual). The router shipped with the latest firmware so I haven't gone through the update process yet. Once you have the router configured, your are able to save the settings to a file that can be used for future recovery.
My only regret with this purchase is that I waited so long to upgrade my old SMC router. I'm not interested in the N functionality since I'm stuck with the Airport G card on my Powerbook. This is more expensive than the G protocol routers but the improved signal strength is worth the cost. The price is also more palatable considering the number of features that I haven't used yet (QoS, Port forwarding, etc.) I'd recommend Xtreme N to anyone hoping to improve signal strength issues. If you are serious about upgrading to the N protocol, you might want to wait a little longer to get a better read on when the standard will be established and to see if a firmware upgrade would bring the Xtreme N into compliance.
Customer Review: Setup was ok, works great
Summary: 5 Stars
My Netgear624 router, which had served me well for several years, finally decided it had handed out its last IP address. Since I had years of trouble-free service, I replaced it was a brand new Netgear624. This was a disaster. I finally put it out of its misery with a .357
I took a chance and bought the DLINK-655. I only use it for -g connectivity- none of my wireless nodes are -n, since I use wired connections for anything that I really need to be high speed.
The setup was a little hokey. Somehow or other DLINK managed to create an automatic router configurator which needs to be connected to the internet to work. I am sure it works great, but until my router is configured, I can't connect to the net...but at least it provided a good laugh.
My network is a little bit complicated. It has a 5 Windows XP compters, a Mac, a couple printers, a half-dozen NAS devices, a few SONOS boxes, network switches, subnets, a camera and an second wireless access point. It took only a few minutes to manually configure the router, and it seemed intuitive to work through the menus...although they are certainly organized differently than the Netgear interface I was used to. While I am an engineer by training, all of my network knowledge is self-taught, and I certainly don't consider myself an expert.
The router has been up about 12 weeks now, and has required exactly 1 reboot, and I think that was my ISP's fault. It has been rock solid, and I get good signal strength everywhere in my 2 story house, and about 100' out into the back yard.
The only flaws so far: The "list of attached devices" is really not a reliable source of info on what is connected, and the free Network Magic software that comes with the router seems pretty much useless, at least the free version. The manual also makes a big deal about adjusting the antennae, but it didn't seem to make much difference. It also seems to assign IP addresses "backwards", starting at .255 and going down. Not a problem, just one of those examples of creativity by some firmware designer that I could just as well do without.
Still, great product. Glad I bought it.
Update after 9 months:
Still running great. It probably "crashes" about once/month- where none of the laptops in the house can find its wireless signal...although it handles wired traffic just fine. Compared to other routers I have owned, this is great. It always boots up cleanly, doing all its IP address stuff with no fuss.
One caution-the range is longer than you might expect. My neighbors house is about 300 yards away from mine, and I can connect from their house-albeit with a low bandwidth. Make sure you have security enabled if you don't want to share.
I am of the "let sleeping dogs lie" school, so I have not updated its firmware.
Customer Review: D-Link did it again! Perfect problem solver!
Summary: 5 Stars
It came time to upgrade my home network from 802.11g to 802.11n, and retire my DI-524 that served flawlessly 24/7 for 5+ years. I also retired my desktop PC since it became nothing more than a print server and music/picture storage with both my wife and I running laptops and the TV connected with a media center. However, we have a perfect Dell 1100 USB-only laser printer we use regularly. The idea of a having to get a print server to connect the Dell 1100 wasn't the way I wanted to go, and we'd really like to have some network-available storage. So, a router with an intelligent USB port appeared to be ideal. Having just rebuilt a home network for my best friend with a Netgear WNDR3700 (all that could be purchased off-the-shelf in San Rafael, California), I WAS Not impressed with the ReadyShare USB on it. In fact, there is still constant problem transferring large media files back and forth to the 1TB external USB drive, but the size of the network and need for dual-band in that household trumps the issue. I will say that Netgear does have a vey simple, intuitive setup screen for its router in comparison.
Moreover, I cannot express enough how pleased I am that I went with the much more cost-effective DIR-655! Setup is easy, though I understand first-timers may have difficulty but if you download and read (either from the D-Link website or off the installation CD) the full instructions you'll be fine! I have a brand new RevB DIR-655 that came with the latest 2.00NA firmware loaded. I had my 802.11g WPA-encrypted wireless network down and a new 802.11n WPA2-encrypted network up and connected to all wireless devices in less than 45 minutes. I then fired up Shareport expecting a bit of a struggle with the Dell 1100 print - nope, NO PROBLEM! For each laptop, I simply removed the old profile for the printer (was accessed via the former networked desktop), installed the latest Dell driver for the printer, loaded up the Shareport utility, and we were printing!
Feeling confident now, I pulled the two 3.5-inch 500GB EIDE slave drives out of the now-retired desktop, dropped them into a pair of external aluminum enclosures (cost me $21 total for the enclosures), and hung the Dell 1100 and 2 drives off a USB hub connected to the router. The Shareport utility found everything perfectly (wasn't sure with a hubbed connection), and now we have some monster media storage accessible through the network! Better yet, unlike my experience with the Netgear with external storage, I've been able to transfer ENTIRE FOLDERS of media files in the tens of GB size without failure! Now I see a RAID setup in my future... I also have the crazy notion to connect a USB card-reader to the hub to see if we can read our microSD, SD, and CF flash media over the network simplifying exchange across our wireless devices.
Customer Review: Secretariat at Belmont is the only thing Faster!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
We bought this router because it was time to upgrade to "N" from "G", and we recently bought a Vizio Blu-ray player that was lagging while streaming Netflix on the old Lynksys Wireless "G". I reasearched only a few internet reviews on this unit before purchasing it, mainly the one in PC magazine written in April 07 [...]
This unit was on sale at the local AFB AFEES store as it was being replaced with the new Wireless N+ 300 Dual Band router, so we picked it up and brought it home. I installed the software and started to go to work setting it up, only to find that the software would not program it past the third step of installation. No big deal, I had to program the old "G" router "Old School" style, so I will do the same with this one. Dropped the address in Internet Explorer and everything came to life. Adjusted the settings as directed by the manual, and from the tricks I read on the internet and WHAT A ROUTER!!! We are hooked up to road Runner cable (Time Warner), and the router has us running between 130 and 300 MBPS on all three laptops and one desktop, and has the blu-ray, WII, and X-box 360 wireless streaming effortlessly! The wireless printer we have is "G", and thanks to the backkwards compatability of this router, hooked up easily and runs wonderfully on our home network. I have run multiple tests on every computer at [...] and we are outperforming most everyone else that tests at the site, including our cable provider.
We do not have the overheating issues that others have written about, and the unit is actually cool to the touch on top, and just mildly warm on the bottom. We have it located about a foot away from the cable modem as the directions state to locate it to allow it to breathe well. I do agree the blue lights on the unit are very bright. If that bothers you too much, utilize the stand it comes with and the lights will be facing down and that should eliminate the problem.
The options with this unit are wonderful, including the security mesaures, QOS and prioritization with "WISH". This is THE router if you are running multiple wireless units, need large home reception, and don't want to break the bank upgrading your home network.
CON- only complaint is that I tried to hook up a network hard drive ot the USB port in the back of the router, and it requires an installation code that WD could not provide. So if that is something you are interested in, make sure you purchase your network product that has the installation codes for the router.
Overall, VERY PLEASED with this router, and would buy one again in a minute. I am especially please that multiple different types of connection adapters have success connecting to the router with great reception and transmission speeds. Well done D-Link!!!
Customer Review: Very nice router
Summary: 5 Stars
I just upgraded my home network by replacing an 9-year old Netgear RT314 router with a D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Gigabit Router D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router. I was fortunate to receive an A3 revision with the 1.11 firmware already loaded (I wouldn't touch the recent 1.20 firmware). I also purchased 2 D-Link DGS-2208 8-port GB switches D-Link DGS-2208 8-Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch that replaced a single 10/100 switch.
Prior to installing the DIR-655, I logged in to the RT314's web server (192.168.0.1) using IE and printed all of the configuration settings. Next, I used IE to display the web pages (192.168.100.1) of the Motorola SB4200 cable modem (I have Road Runner Business Class) and printed all of its settings (I plan to get Time Warner to replace the SB4200 with a DOCSIS 2.0 cable modem in the near future). I was particularly concerned that Time Warner would detect the changed MAC address and interrupt my service, but that was not the case.
I disdain unnecessary software installs, and so disregarded the quick setup CD in favor of using the DIR-655's wizards and manual configuration web pages. My setup method is to leave settings at the default unless I encounter conditions that require a change. The steps I took were:
1) Changed the default Admin password
2) Disabled the wireless component (bought for future use)
3) Reserved the assigned IP Address for my print server
4) Configured the router's time and enabled NTP
5) Enabled email logging of the logs to my personal email address
I felt the router rebooted in a resonable period of time after the configuration changes - certainly quicker that the RT314 it replaced. My overall impression is that web pages load more quickly (and this is with the SPI firewall and NAT translation enabled) than previously.
I compared before and after performance using PingPlotter and Speedtest.net. PingPlotter results were nearly equal before and after. Speedtest.net indicated an increase in download speed from 7Mb to 7.3Mb, but upload speed remained constant at 960Kbps.
I also tested my Windows VPN connection to my workplace - VPN passthrough appears to work by default.
All of this took about an hour. I am pleased with my purchase, its performance, appearance, and ease of configuration. I had internet connectivity immediately after plugging everything in and powering the DIR-655 up.
Now if I could just figure out how to dim those incredibly bright iridescent blue status LEDs and still achieve the WAF...