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: Great Little Router with Good Horsepower
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been a regular customer of D-Link over the years and when you find something that works well you become a returning customer. When it came time to upgrade to wireless, I did the research of all the choices available and still selected my go-to company D-Link. I am glad I did. I am using wireless G and the range is about the same. I get two bars from basement to 2nd floor using D-Link PCMCIA adapters. Even though it is draft N it still works great for G.
First, the setup on this is relatively simple, even for a novice. You insert the disk and the installation walks you through each step in the process with visual pictures with flashing parts highlighted to help guide you to what you need to do. If you follow the directions step by step you should have a flawless installation.
Second, about updating the firmware, you should do this as part of the installation. It should be simple to do but understand that when you upgrade you will lose your router settings. D-Link has provided for this. Here is the recommended process:
Go to dlink.com and go to support and downloads. Enter DIR then 655 in the box. When you hit enter it will list all of the updates with the most current on top. Select the top "Download Now" box and save the file to your hard drive. It will have the form of xxx.bin. Log into your router by using the network address 192.168.0.1 in your browser and hit enter. Hit enter again at login. Go to Tools, Firmware. In the Firmware Upgrade section it gives you the opportunity to save your settings first. Do this! Click on the link there and it will take you to Tools, System, and save your configuration settings. It will save a file called gateway_settings.gws to your hard drive. Note where the file gets saved so you can find it later. Hit the back button to go back to the firmware upgrade section. Hit the browse button in that section and point it to the xxx.bin file you downloaded earlier. Hit the upload button and wait for it to finish. You will have to login to your router again when finished. Go to Tools, System and hit the browse button at "load from local hard drive" to restore configuration. Point it to the .gws file previously saved. You will have to reboot the router when finished. That's it! No more complaining about problems.....
Customer Review: My brief review
Summary: 5 Stars
I have Verizon FiOS Quadruple Play at my home with FiOS Internet at 20 MBps download and 5 MBps upload speeds. Verizon supplies an Actiontec MI424WR 2.4 GHz single band 802.11 B/G Router with a four port 10/100 MBps Ethernet Switch for its customers. The ONT uses a 75 Ohm Coaxial cable connection to the MI424WR. I have to disable the internal routing, wireless, and firewall to the MI424WR and setup an Ethernet Bridge to the D-LINK DIR-655. I chose this product because I wanted a proven, stable, and fast router and switch that had 2.4 GHz 802.11 B/G/N with QoS for streaming HD video content at 1080p resolution and multi-channel surround sound, VPN support, and a four port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Switch. I connect a Category 5e Patch cable through the WAN ports of the MI424WR and DIR-655 to establish the physical link for the Ethernet Bridge.
The range tripled in my home. There are no dead spots from the attic to the basement of my home anymore. The speed especially when connected to a 2.4 GHz 802.11n signal is phenomenal. I upgraded to the latest firmware version 1.32NA final immediately and I have had no problems whatsoever. The only downside to this product is the SharePort feature. It only allows one person to have exclusive access to a device that is plugged into the USB 2.0 port located on the back of the router and switch. The good thing about it is that you can connect any USB 1.1 or 2.0 compliant device and it will work as if it were connected directly to your PC. So far, I have connected an external SATA Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive through a ThermalTake BlackX hard drive dock and it too works.
I have not tested the QoS for HD video streaming yet because I do not own such a product for my home entertainment system.
I have tested the QoS profile for Skype and it works well though. Videoconferencing is smooth through the wireless connection as well as the Ethernet connection.
This product used to be an expensive product several years ago. It is dramatically reduced in price because it is a single band router and switch. For most people, this is sufficient for their needs. I highly recommend this product to others looking for an easy to setup and powerful single band router and switch on the market. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
Customer Review: My house seems to jam most electronic communications. This thing works for me.
Summary: 5 Stars
My house is a late 60s post modern house built into the side of a hill on several levels on several concrete slabs. Solid walls, 3400sq ft and L-shaped.
Wireless communications of any kind are very difficult inside the house. The hill blocks the cell phone towers, and the slabs and angles and walls seem to block wireless activity inside the house itself. My cordless land-line phone ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LYAX1G ) which is highly reviewed by others seems to have quite a bit of difficulty from one end of my house to the other, and drops somewhat frequently.
The wireless capability of this router seems to be the only exception I have noted so far. The router is located in the bottom corner of the house and a laptop in the top corner (through many walls and partially obstructed by a concrete slab) gets 4/5 connectivity bars. The PS3 upstairs had 100% signal strength when it was wireless. Its now connected with cat6.
So as you can tell from my rambling I am very happy with the quality of the wireless performance that I get from this router.
I dont have any significant complaints about anything else either. You can read some of the other reviews that will described the configure-ability of the router much better than I can, but I will say that I'm quite satisfied with the way its set-up with regards to administration. Very customizable in a number of ways.
I have found the QoS to work well as well. My home alarm is monitored via a specific VOIP adaptor that lines directly into the router. Naturally I would not want anything interfering with its communication. With the Linksys router I used to have the alarm would not register a signal online if my bit-torrent client was even mildly active. I had to throttle torrents down while I was gone to insure my alarm could dial out. I would normally prefer torrents to be more active when I'm not home. So that was somewhat of a pain.
I ran a series of tests of my alarm with HEAVY activity on the torrent client and the VOIP alarm signal registered online as desired.
You can set bandwidth preferences to specific local IPs (which I have now done) but it did not seem to be necessary when I did this test. The router just gave the VOIP signal preference over the P2P.
All in all very worth the price for me!
Customer Review: Best Wireless Router I Have Ever Owned...By FAR
Summary: 5 Stars
Im sitting on this thing right now. Man oh man...im getting a "very good" signal where my connection used to be dropping...
I used to have a few problems with WiFi. The first problem was obviously the range...as I said a few moments ago, the DIR-655 fixed that...I mean, even though it claims 6x range, but I was going to be happy with just a 25% improvement...I seriously think that this router increased my range 50-75%!
I used to always be frustrated with the lack of settings in many routers. Some would have QoS (Quality of Service...something that can prioritize important internet activity like Voice Over IP...internet phone) but it didnt really work. Some would be lacking in semi-advanced routing features...others would barely have any non-novice features at all...This one has plenty of options for the advanced user to have a lot of fun screwing with settings. The most beautiful thing about it though, is that there is a wizard in the interface so that even the most novice of users can set up a great network with strong security. It also has context sensitive online help...what that is, is when you are trying to adjust settings and you dont know what something means, there is a little help button right there that you can click to get an explanation right then and there! Its kinda like the Yin-Yang of routers...
I want to mention that I have been looking at draft-N routers for a few weeks now and have been reading the reviews. The reason that I am writing this review is that it was so hard for me to find a good review on this router. Cnet doesnt even have an official review (as of 2/13/07) but it does have very positive user comments. From my homework though, (user reviews, and more importantly official reviews from Cnet, engadget, etc) every Draft-N wireless router has some kind of problem. Some dont work well in environments with more than a couple neighboring networks, some dont have good throughput, and some dont have better range. Again, I didn't want to buy this one because I couldn't find any solid review on it. After going through a couple of different Draft-N routers, Let me help you out. This is the one.
BTW...im not running an "N" wireless adapter...this thing even increases the range of "B" and "G" signals. GREAT JOB D-LINK!
Customer Review: Worth every penny
Summary: 5 Stars
I was a frustrated customer trying router after router and returning all of them. Among the ones I tried: Linksys WRT54GL, Linksys WRT54GL, Linksys WRT54G2, WRT160N, and Belkin ME1004-R. All of them were either unreliable or lacked range. I was frustrated until I decided to spend some extra bucks and buy this beauty. It was well worth the wait.
Out of the box, the installation was simple and very user friendly. The signal is amazing. I connected it and it hasn't dropped since. It supports VPN, so now I can be connected to my company's network and my roommate can be online (no more arguments). It has QoS which means that videos or music take priority and download in seconds while other traffic waits. The range is incredible. I can access my network from my iPod Touch in the clubhouse (up to 40-50 feet away!). The only caveat is the USB connector in the back, I thought I could connect a USB drive that can be accessed by any device in the network... not true, the USB is meant to be used as an additional port/link. Nevertheless, this unit is amazing and well worth the extra money you pay for it.
***UPDATE
I followed some of the comments posted here and was able to make use of the USB Port available. The process is fairly complex, it took me 1 hr to complete but well worth it. The steps are as follows:
1. Make sure you update the firmware on the router to the latest version with SharePort functionality. Release 2.1 I believe. To update, go to the router and on the Tools tab select Firmware. You will see the options to upgrade there.
2. Download the Shareport Utility program available here: http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=530
It is version 1.14
3. Upon installation and launch you should be able to see any USB Drive or Printer connected to the router. If it is not working it is becuase your firewall is impeding the communication so:
Windows Live OneCare Users ATTENTION:
Chnage your firewall settings by clicking on Advanced Settings, Ports & Protocols tab and adding a new rule to allow Protocol Number 6 Both ways on Local Network (Subnet). This should do it. After you hit Apply, my USB network printer appeared right away!