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[FurryNutz]

Ok so I put my 826L online..can't seem to fully take the case apart so I'm leaving it partially cracked..enough to take a temp laser gun reading.

The main chip thats got a sink on it isn't reading much over 80F. Thats good. However to smaller chips, 1 an Atheros, is reading 110F an the other is about 105F. This isn't under any load. No heat sinks attached to these 2 small chips. I don't know if I'll get a chance to test this under load later as I'm leaving for the holidays.

I recommend placing a Laptop cooler under this router as there are ventilation holes that will allow air flow complete thru from top to bottom of the router. You could even place a small PC case fan on top too. Something thats quiet and just has enough air flow to help out some.  Pull sir flow from the bottom up to the top. suggestions for LT fans are in either the DAP-1533 or DIR-827 heat mod threads.

I'll take some readings again when I get more time. I presume that in a 70F office room that this router will be ok. 90F or higher room, the heat may cause the chips to wear out sooner than expected possibly.

I'll report back when I get more temp info.

[MartinZ]

Thanks for the readings....  no doubt the fans will help - but I'm not one to buy a new router and then have to mod it or add external cooling.    I'll be getting an RMA and checking to see if they have a later version of hardware - this seems to be a pretty clear design issue.  As others have noted in the feedback posts - they didn't have issues their their old routers that the 826 replaced.  That is my case too - I've had 4 others routers, in the same spot, in the same house and none showed signs of heat issues nor did I have to put fans on them to make them work.    Have a great holiday and thanks for all the feedback.

[FurryNutz]

By no means is this considered a design flaw. Looking at the operating temps in the specs of this and other routers, these routers are working with in the designed specs for operating temps. Others may have reported similar issues like yours however we do not know the full details of there environment and setup and configuration. A large percentage of problems with routers stems from mis-configurations and environment conditions. These routers work well out of the box and when properly setup up. Nobody has reported and heating problems other than you and we don't know all the specifics to your situation. Ive had mine for a little over a year now and have enjoyed greatly. This is a solid router and everything should be diagnosed before assuming there is a flaw in design. The information i posted is meant as a possible preventive suggestion for those who can confirm heat issues or maybe there environment is a little warmer or who live in warmer climates maybe. I have a few of these cylinder style routers as they work well as far as there design ventilation goes. Its a better design than the flat style box routers. There is better air flow. I played xbox last night. I took s reading and all three chips read around 85-90F. Well with in operating temp specs and room was at 70F.

Ya, i wish they would use metal sinks instead of these composite ones. Maybe they are as good, however im just old fashioned and experience tells me that metal works better or at least having tines on the sink helps instead of just being flat.

There only Rev A avail in this model. Unless we can prove to D-Link there maybe a heat issue and they deem it valid after review and testing and worth correcting, prob won't see a Rev B. However anything is possible.

[MartinZ]

Well I can't speak to the overall design, except I'm having issues and I'm not alone (see below).  Having said that it could just be a unit issue and 1 in xxxx showing this issue.  The good news for me is that the seller is taking this unit back (even though I threw out the box) and has already shipped a replacement and given me a paid return shipping label. Kudos to Rakuten.com! Again I've had 4 other routers doing this same job in the same place over about 10 years and Zero issues.  We will see if the replacement does the same thing - if it does, I'm done.  Others with seemingly the exact same issue (it does seem that people expressing this issue have posted in the same time frame that I bought mine - just recently):

"This DIR-826L would periodically drop the network connection and I would reset it. The drops have continued to get more frequent such that I had to reset it almost daily. "
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3N6JHYQRXF1GC/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_43


"The main problem with the router is that it needs to be reset ever 2-3 days. After 2-3 days the router starts dropping the internet connection at random times. The admin webpage for the router also becomes unavailable."
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2IUBCTDPG72O7/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_63


"Sometimes the devices that are connect by ethernet do not work and I have to unplug and replug. Sometimes the devices that are connect by wifi do not work and I have to unplug and replug. Basically you just have to unplug and replug every few days to keep it working."
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2CCWU1HOK5LW7/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_5

[FurryNutz]

Leads me to think that there could be something connected or environment related that could be effecting this router maybe. I have never had to power cycle mine or had the router become inoperative in this way.

You might want to also try this, turn off both radios and test only wired devices. See now long the router does. Then turn on say the 2.4Ghz radio, leaving the 5Ghz off. Test for a while. Then turn on the 5Ghz radio.

Do you use both radios normally?

[MartinZ]

New unit arrived yesterday and is now online.  I'll see how long it lasts.  It came with 1.02 and I have updated it to 1.04.  I put it online last night and this morning, still going strong.  Time will tell.  I do seriously doubt this is an environmental issue, because the same environment seemed to be just fine for 3 Linksys and 1 Netgear router.  Why would 4 other routers have zero issues, in the same physical location, with the same network configuration??  On top of that I can point to others having the exact same issue - the slow/drops every 2-3 (few) days and a power cycle corrects it for another few days.  While your router may be just fine and you have never had to do it - these people seem to have posted these comments in the last couple of months.  If I was D-Link, I'd want this unit to do some testing (except it is going back to Buy.com today) - as this could be an issue with a batch run of components.  But D-Link would never be able to correlate this unless they are monitoring feedback forums.  Most of the people that posted on Amazon, just stopped using the unit - they didn't return it nor does it sound like they contacted tech support.

It will be interesting to see if this new unit does the same thing - so far, it is doing fine and the GUI is very responsive.  I'm not connecting the cloud portion and will just run it like this until it has the old problem or makes a few weeks.

[FurryNutz]

I would have not upgraded FW and tested the new unit out of the box. Keep us posted. I'd like to review your settings sometime if possible. I presume you are using default settings other than SSID/PW and leaving mydlink disabled?

Your other routers are different and could also be old enough that they may not include newer wifi technology that would have an impact on how this or other routers behavior. Older routers behave differently then new gen routers.

What all do you have connected to this router? Are they all online at the same time? Both wired and wireless?

[MartinZ]

Yes, I should have kept the default FW.  Having said that, the unit went south - so it didn't make a day.  In this condition, the UI was very slow and I didn't see any log entries of note and no packet drops - however the Internet and UI were very slow.  A single power cycle and all was back to normal.  Cool day here too - so this probably isn't heat related.  I've just put on the original FW - 1.02.  In addition I picked up a contemporary dual band NetGear router today.  I have configured the NetGear with the same settings as the 826L.  Right now the 826L is online running 1.02 with debug enabled on the log.  I'll see how long this goes, if it happens again I'll slap in the NetGear and see if that unit works and for how long.

You are welcome to review my settings but it is not basic.  I have some reserve IP's, I have a number of Port Forward (Virtual Servers) items and the unit is behind another router where the Internet IP is a DMZ IP on the FiOS router.  So no doubt this is not your average configuration.  However, I've said this before but it all was working find on other hardware - to include using the open source "tomato" version, which was my last production router the 826 replaced.  It ran for over 1.5 years without a single issue.

I know the next thing to test will be putting the router back to default settings - however I need all the other stuff to work, thus I picked up another router.  If the 826 goes south again, I'll put in the like model NetGear dual band to see how that unit does.  The NetGear is an 826 like model and currently has the same configuration as the 826.  Based on those results, I'll move forward.  If the other router works, I will see if I can at least point to an area/setting that may be causing issues with the 826.  But let's see how the 826 running 1.02 does first.

[FurryNutz]

Do you have a case number ot RMA number from DLink? If so please PM me this info.

Im also concern maybe that your iSP modem or something on your networks is causing this problem...What model
Modem is the FIOS modem?

[MartinZ]

The old unit was returned to the retailer (Rakuten.com), not to D-Link proper (sorry). FiOS modem is a MI424WR-GEN3I, which I believe is one of their newer ones.  I think the next best thing to try is to turn off the 5Ghz WiFi - but I will only try that after trying the NetGear - with both the 2.4 and 5 running.

[MartinZ]

Well under v1.02 this unit is still going, the UI is still quick - however the browsing is starting to slow down.  It isn't as slow as what typically happens.  Speed tests still show good, but there is a slightly noticeable delay on pages - again nothing like what normally happens.  So I did a reboot just to see and sure enough the slight delay went away. I may turn off the Advance DNS service to see if that is the cause - since the speed test seemed OK.  I may also throw the NetGear unit online today to see how long that lasts.  More to come....

[MartinZ]

Found something interesting, so I'm keeping the 826 online after making two changes:

1) Since the 826 is behind the FiOS router, I decided to force the Internet connection to 100 Meg from Auto (just to try)

2) What I found that is strange is, I have a wireless printer that had a static IP.  Looking at the 826 wireless status, I could see the MAC address of it connect via N, but the IP address was showing as 0.0.0.0.  Now the printer worked fine - but that didn't seem right, so I have cleared the static on the printer and created a reserve for it on the 826.  Reset everything and now it is showing in the WiFi status with the proper IP. 

So with those two changes I'm going to make another run at this...

[FurryNutz]

I recommend always using Reserved IPs on the router. Static IPs set on devices will show as zeros on the routers status pages.

I see that this model doesn't support 1000Mb WAN port speeds...Does the ISP modem give the 826L a public or private IP address?

[MartinZ]

Oh - well then the 0.0.0.0 is normal.  The FiOS router gives the 826 a private IP (which is DMZed to the Internet).  And the 826L does support 1000 Meg, there is a drop down setting for it under the WAN port speed and it has 10/100/1000 or Auto.  Also the specs show 10/100/1000
http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solutions/connect/routers/dir-826l-cloud-gigabit-router-n600#


So far, so good - but I guess there isn't much I really changed.

[FurryNutz]

Let us know how it goes with the WAN Port speed setting..