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[walanr]

I have had a great experience with my old DIR-655 (rev A) router.  However, I would like to upgrade to a newer and better D-link router for my home that contains many well-connected children.  Please let me know which routers are like my DIR-655, and have better overall performance than the DIR-655 without necessarily using the benefit of the 5 GHz second band.   What better performing routers can record more than 24 MAC addresses in the Network Filtering area?  I understand many people don't agree with MAC address filtering, but I like it to keep my kids from giving out my network password to all the neighbor kids and their friends too.  So, MAC address filtering works for me.  Please let me know the high performance alternatives.  Or, should I just get an updated version of the DIR-655?  

[Hard Harry]

Besides the MAC filtering, what are your other requirements? If your happy with the wireless performance of the DIR-655, but require more routing ability (IE MAC filtering) it may be better to buy a decent wired router and set the DIR-655 as a AP off of it. Before I give a suggestion, whats your price range? Not to be crass, but it helps narrow down the options...because there's alot. LOL

[walanr]

I guess I would not want to go over $200 for a router.
But I am looking for more MAC address capability and as good as or better network throughput and speed.

[Hard Harry]

As far as I know the 24 Mac filter limit has been that way since the DGL-4500 when, said to be a sacrifice to free up RAM for other features. Was around the time the firmware was changed that stoped us from differentiating a wired MAC filter vs a wireless. There was a thread on it somewhere, and I think there was even a Dlink employee comment on it? Was so long ago.

Anyway I don't know of any newer Dlink router that can do more then 24. I could be wrong, and please, if someone finds one, post it here, but may need to go wired router (which are generally cheaper) or explore other brands. Difficult part is most brands don't even list how many they can filter, just that they can. Make it hard to compare.

[FurryNutz]

I recommend that you phone contact DLink sales or support and ask which model router supports MAC addressing more than 24. Most DIR series routers including some of the newer ones still only support 24. There maybe older ones that might, i.e. DGL-4100 however that is currently out of production. Someone meantioned that it supported over 100 est. You might be able to find one of those on Amazon or fleabay.

Most of the DLink DIR/DGL series routers are designed for Home and small office platforms where there is a limited use for using Network Filtering and the average user with few to some devices total. Anything more then that, users really need to think about adjusting there network needs and then find a good router solution that works for there network needs. IT's possible that the new routers seen at CES 2013 could have more features and less limitations. We don't know yet until they hit the shelves this coming spring time frame.

Let us know what DLink says if you phone them.

[Hard Harry]

To be clear, the DGL-4100 is a wired router. The DGL-4300 is the wireless version of the DGL-4100 and while one of the best Wifi-G routers of its time, it wouldn't make a good replacement for a DIR-655. The 4100 might make a good choice if you wanted to turn the DIR-655 into a wireless Access point and the 4100 as a wired router, but that's about it.

Yea, and let us know. I wish manufacturer would list things like that. Im a big fan of researching a product before buying it. Props to you.

[Longs]

I'm running the DIR-655 A4 with the 1.36 firmware.  I usually view the router's menus with Firefox.  If you change the page style from "basic page style" to "no style" when viewing the Network Filter screen under advanced, you'll see that there are buttons to filter wireless and/or wired.  I assume that they'd actually work.

As others have noted, with MAC filtering on and "allowing" addresses in the list access to the network, it's not too hard to get to the 24, even though only a handful of the devices may actually be accessing the network at any particular time.  Consider that a laptop has two MAC addresses (assuming you'd have reason to connect via Ethernet) then you have TVs, DVD players, Video game consoles, phones, tablets, etc. and it's inconvenient to have to edit the list constantly based on whatever devices are in use.  I have 22 of the 24 slots allocated now.

One issue I have is that i use MAC filtering as part of may limiting hours of use to the network, because my kids figured out that they could change the MAC address to bypass the schedules, and they have wired access as well as wireless.

[FurryNutz]

One idea for you to research, You might want to get a 2ndary AP or router. This 2ndary AP would have wireless and wired connections, You could connect your childrens devices to this AP, wired and wireless. Then, connect this AP to the 655. The AP should acquired it's own IP address on the 655, use this IP address to set up scheduling and access control of that AP on the 655. This will be where you can control there connection and they can't change it's MAC address, no matter what they do, There access connection is at this 2ndary AP which will be controlled by it's IP address on the 655. You'll just need to make sure that you use different WiFi channels between the 655 and this AP. Say 11 on the 655 and channel 1 on the AP. SSIDs and PWs can be the same or different. In your case, I would make it different, keeping the SSID and PWs to the parents on the 655 for there use and not give that info to the kids. There SSID and PWs would be set on the 2ndary AP. As long as you don't give access to the 655, you'll have better control with at the AP level and the kids devices. You'll just need to make sure that the 655 is secure and safe from being tampered with. 

Let us know what you think..

[Longs]

The issue I have with this strategy is that it requires buying a second router to overcome the 24 address limit - although the DIR655 has performed well for the most part, why do i want to have two routers and a fairly complicated setup  just to overcome this problem, when I could just replace the DIR655 entirely?

[FurryNutz]

You cold do that as well. Just suggesting some courses of actions. It would be cheap to add a 2nd AP that you could control and would not be complicated.

You'll need to see if other routers have the same limitation on addresses as well. Good luck.