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[marmoduke]

I've been having quite a time reading this forum.  I am bedridden with the flu and needed something to do.  I am a retired IT manager for a Biotech Corporation.

For home use, the Dir 655 is about as good a firewall/router as you can get, in my opinion.  I have configured Netgear, Linksys, Cisco, Belkin and others for friends and they all have their issues.  For instance, Netgear routers run quite hot and need ventilation/fan installed.

All this complaining about slow, cutting out, dropping...et al yet not a word about well-known causes of these failures in general.  Some of the postings which are desperate, smack of pseudo authoritativeness and deep anger are mostly non-productive.

Try these unmentioned changes before you go out and buy a competitive unit.

Buy good quality, shielded cables.  You cannot purchase these a Rite-Aid Drug Store.

Use free diagnostic software, such as NetSurveyor to see if your channels are "occupied."  Do not use "auto" channel selection unless your workstations are very close to your router.

Make sure your router is getting sufficient cooling air.  Hot circuit boards drop and malfunction.  Many routers in plastic cases can use more ventilation or at least highter blocks under them to allow air to pass underneeth.  Enlarge cvooling holes or install a fan.

Turn off unnecessary or legaacy features that can slow down your desired packets.  Will your network run correctly without Unicast, Multicast, UPnP???  If you don't need them, get rid of their broadcast traffic.

Keep your router away from other electronics.

Do not use the horrible dlink workstation software if you can use MSZero.

Don't use USP netcards (they are slow) unless USB is your only available port.  If you have to use USB, make sure it is a USB 2.x port.  Make sure USB drivers are the3 latest.

Do intense troubleshooting on your workstations and NIC cards, not just your router. I would bet over half the complaints I see here are more likely on the workstation, not the router.

I have seen incorrect instructions in the dlink "help" and you may rightly question anything you read there.

Avoid gimmicks like SecureSpot.  'Nuf said.

[Mackerel]

Well said. Could not agree more... Sometimes the simplest solutions (fill in the blanks...).

[xx32racer32xx]

when you say cisco do you mean cisco home routers which are just badge engineered twinksys routers? and are you talking about wireless access point or port address translation (nat doesnt happen on home internet connections they are single ip not multi its pat thats goin on here) if you want wireless then pick up your computer and find the tallest building you can find and throw. u never have wires again, no lag either. plug it in or suffer. im a network engineer and although the 655 is nice enough for a 50Mb/s wan and 5000 remote connections fillin that up over torrent, im not gonna say its better than a cisco in fact i wouldnt compare it in the same boat. it is however more powerful than a 400 dollar cisco powered by an atari ST chip. but gbit router to cisco gbit will be a joke slaughter. wanna make ur router run real good get a hub plug it into your router with a straight cable, then get a crossover cable (the common one that u use for everything) and plug BOTH ENDS into the hub this supercharges your broadcast packets like a ninja on drugs. (that cisco gbit router probly run about 600 bucks for a router with 2 1gb ethernet plugs on it (your switch should be doing ALL of the lan work anyway that doesnt go to the router. unless you use wireless lol

[1952sn]

Someone already threw out their router, and I got it. It's a DE-812TP 12-port ethernet hub. (Similar to DE-816TP or DE-824). I'd love to connect this to my 4-port consumer-grade wireless router, but how? Besides the two rear inputs, which happen to be a BNC coax connector and a 15-pin D-connector (10base2 & 10base5), the manual seems to say you can also use one of the front ports for your input. I've tried it with a straight cable and a crossover.  The Link/RX lights activate on the PC and the DLink, but the wireless router displays an orange light on the port to the Dlink, rather than the usual green indicator. Before I trash the router, can someone interpret this excerpt from the Dlink manual? "Alternatively, you can connect
into an existing star-topology through a front
panel port of the Ethernet Hub, and then add on a
bus-topology subnet by connecting the subnet
bus to a rear-panel connector of the Ethernet Hub
(irrespective of any star-topology subnet that
may also be supported by the Ethernet Hub’s
front-panel ports)." 

[Mackerel]

Someone already threw out their router, and I got it. It's a DE-812TP 12-port ethernet hub. (Similar to DE-816TP or DE-824).

This is a museum-piece, best use is to donate to a good cause. 10Mbps hubs are not good for today's networks, I still have an old 4-port tiny-weeny one, but throughput is horrendous, even compared to a 10/100 switch (and late-model built-in network cards are geared to 100Mbps).

I would advise to either buy a simple 4- or 8-port switch, or just buy a cheapskate router and use it as switch or AP...

[ironic77]

... try selling it on Ebay or Craigslist instead. =)

Seriously, I ripped mine out and went back to my MN-700 plus a Trendnet Gig-E switch I picked up for $15.  Couldn't be happier.  No rebooting required every 4-6 days.  No dropped conference calls when I'm working from home.  No lag on Xbox Live.

I tried turning off most of the features.  In the end I had a router that was less functional than the 5+ year old MN-700 and still had constant issues.  Tried every firmware with some level of problems (the 1.2x series seemed best, but still problematic).

[1952sn]

OK, the DE-812TP is a museum piece, but if I can get it running, 10 Mbps would be fine for my 'high speed' home service with no more than one or two users.  The question remains, can this router accept internet input into one of the front ports, not the BNC or the D-plug? Thanks, anyone.

[gailh]

mamoduke: can you help with this one:

I have bought a new D-link router.

I have been using uTorrent, installed on a PC - Windows XP SP2, on my hone LAN behind another NAT PC using ICS - Microsoft standard "Internet Connection Sharing" on Windows XP SP2 as well - all has been going fine.

I've decided to use a new D-Link router, hoping to improve throughput. Instead, all uTorrent traffic is choked. (Uploads too). (Interestingly, All other Internet traffic works fine). My ISP uses L2TP, dynamic IP address allocation. And yes, the incoming port is open.

TIA

Gail