Update, I've been going through it methodically and discovered that the character _ seems to cause some of the insanity!!! my SSID on all my previous routers had been name_LAN_1 on this one, it causes the unit to go insane.
also figured out that the system does not like a password longer than 4 characters!!! what kind of security is that! when I used Span1shGu1tar as my password I was unable to login to the system, also password seems to be too long! as long as I stick to 4 char passwords (with no special characters) the router is stable, unsecure but stable! Guess D-link doesn't think the admin account needs a strong password!!