D-Link Forums
The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => Routers / COVR => DGL-4500 => Topic started by: MajorMulligan on February 18, 2010, 12:53:56 PM
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Hey folks,
Brand new to the forums here. I am actually expecting the arrival of my first DGL-4500 tomorrow from Newegg and I have been reading through the forums since I ordered it. There are a lot of great posts here.
I am curious however, what is the difference between A1 and A2? I'm assuming that A1's are older models, but is that all it is or is it a different chipset or something along those lines? Also, if there is a difference why would the same firmware work for both?
Thanks!
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I believe that some internal workings of the 2 versions have been changed. As i have received some information about this however the details are withheld since the changes are considered to be proprietary to DLINK. I presume that by looking at the units side by side would reveal some easy viewable changes, like a heat sink or something along those lines. Heard other people talk about the changes to A2 and having a heat sink added. It would be nice to confirm this and see what could be the differences for fact information.
I have 2 A1's and both work well, ones at v1.15, the there has progress from v1.02 thru all the released and beta builds and now is at v1.22NA. I found that v1.21NA and Beta v1.21 08 did not work well.
I presume the reason why the FW works across both units is that they use the same chip sets.
Would be interesting to see pictures of an A1 and A2 to compare any visual differences.
In all, I don't think there is much differences between the 2 rev's that makes one better than the other. It all boils down to how the unit is set up and whats connected to it.
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Ah yes, that makes sense. Perhaps it is something minor like that. When I get mine tomorrow I will see which one I get and what version of the firmware it has. I've read a lot of horror stories in here regarding firmware related issues. I'll post how things go with mine.
Thanks!
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Kewl, Please let us know how it goes with your new 4500. I enjoy mine.
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The router arrived today.... I will be hooking it up tonight. The box shows H/W Ver: A2 and F/W Ver: 1.21NA.
Should I be worried? lol
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You wont know until you get it going LOL. I wish I could give more to ya. Just and to connect and start using it. See how it works for you. Let us know how it goes and keep us posted.
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Will do... This is a very straight foward setup. I have Road Runner cable (through Brighthouse) and have the 20Mbps account. I forget which modem model it is... have to see when I get home. But essentially two PCs (XP SP3 wireless-N and XP SP3/Win7 dual boot wired), a laptop (Vista wireless-G) and an XBOX 360 (wired for now).
Going to need to run G+N at 2.4Ghz unfortunately. One day I'll upgrade all of the adapters to work with 5Ghz. I can't wait to get this bad boy hooked up.
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Woo Hoo ;D
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The a2 has a heatsink and the a1 doesn't and that is the only difference as far as I know.
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My A1 in the garage with all my other networking components so they stay cool in the winter but for summer months, I keep a fan on it 24 hours a day. Just in case, a small fan may be a good idea to keep it from getting too hot.
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Ya I had heard they added a heat sink to the A2, I would like to get a picture of an A2 to see. I could take a pic of my 2nd A1. Maybe we could post this, not sure if it would be ok with DLink. LOL. Don't want to offend. I have my A1s in my office, gets warm sometimes but never had to use fans yet. I do of course keep AC going in summer. ::)
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I just Got my router from newegg and it's A2 model but its "F/W 1.14" at least this is what it says on the box, which is weird b/c I don't even see a 1.14 fw on the list of versions here.
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Whats the FW being reported on the routers web page?
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Well UPS sucks and I got all my gear for my new system on Friday but I'm sitting here waiting for them to deliver my case on Monday so as soon as I get that and put it all together I can let you know :)
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ah, can't take a look at it until then huh? :-\ No play with toys until then. Darn :'(
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Yeah for 3 days I had to sit and look at all my new vid cards and etc etc.
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That's gotta be hard. LOL. Hope it get it going soon. Look on the routers web page. You can look at it on any PC if you connect up a LAN cable to one of the LAN ports in back to do a quick check.
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Well the UPS truck should be here anytime now I have the window open watching, and then I'll start getting everything set up.
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I bought two 4500's within the past couple of weeks, both A2's (one from CompUSA, the other from NewEgg) and both had FW1.14, and yes, that's what was reported on the router's main page.
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Hope you enjoy and get everything set up. That's the fun part, woo hoo. :D
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I got mine all hooked up last Friday and with FW 1.21NA everything has been smooth. My one wireless PC (using a Rosewill RNX-EasyN1 USB adaptor - 150MPS max) was getting a lot of packet loss at first. After tweaking the settings in the Rosewill software that cleared up and I was averaging around 135Mbps to the router.
My laptop which only uses 2.4Ghz /g was smooth as well. No issues.
My Xbox is currently hard wired to the router and it SCREAMS. Netflix on XBL is smooth as silk. I have not had any issues. I have not yet purchased the new N adapter from MS – for $87 at Newegg, it can wait a bit. I hate having to pay for MS’s overpriced gear. But man, the Netflix combined with Xbox is sweeeeeeeet!
I have not spent a lot of time yet playing with the router configuration aside from the security settings. It does appear to be running smoothly with the 1.21NA. I know 1.22NA is available but I’m not going to mess with firmware unless I have to. The signal strength on this thing is excellent.
After having read a variety of horror stories on these forums I am feeling much better about this purchase. Got a great deal… $134.99 at Newegg w/ no s/h or tax. Gotta love it!
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YAAAAAY ;D
Good to hear its up and running well for you. Hope it goes smoothly. I enjoy mine. Yes netflix is great on the 360.
Ya, I would stick with the currently loaded FW and see how it goes. Start doing some internet and videos. Let us know if you have any issues or see any thing. I'd be interested to see if you have any hangs or disconnects.
Have a good week.
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Will do! I'll definitely see how it goes for a bit... will report any issues (or lack of issues for that matter!). You too... have a good one!
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I had a few minutes to look at the router logs and statistics...
Firmware Version : 1.21NA, 2009/07/09 .
Connection Up Time : 4 Day 5 Hour 20 Min 43 Sec
LAN Statistics
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Sent : 18503087 Received : 8546731
TX Packets Dropped : 2 RX Packets Dropped : 0
Collisions : 0 Errors : 0
WAN Statistics
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Sent : 8858406 Received : 24318280
TX Packets Dropped : 0 RX Packets Dropped : 0
Collisions : 0 Errors : 0
Wireless Statistics
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Sent : 419332 Received : 272864
TX Packets Dropped : 981 RX Packets Dropped : 7184
Errors : 845
I obviously have not put a lot of pressure on the router... between work and other things I just have not had time to do a lot online nor with the router itself. However the stats are encouraging thus far. Most of the dropped packets were the first day I got the router up and running.