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[marcpro7]

D-Link DIR-825 
Firmware Version :  (updated to) 1.11NA,  2009/04/27

When I started to use the router it runs hotter compared to other routers I use. Even when I updated to firmware 1.11. I noticed that after turning off the 5GHz band the router doesn't heat that much like typical routers which doesn't overheat.

For now, this problem doesn't affect me much because I don't have 5GHz devices yet. So its fine for me to turn this off.
My real concern is for other people that frequently uses the 5GHz band that causes the router to overheat which may harm the hardware it won't last long enough.

Is this from a hardware problem or future firmwares can resolve this issue?

[d1gw33d]

I just set up my 825 today that I purchased from Newegg (rev b.)

I bought it specifically for the 5Ghz and you're right - its hot as hell. Mainly on the right side of the router. I also noticed that the 5Ghz LED blinks about every second while connected to my 1522 bridge that has nothing running on it (ps3 and xbox are off.)

On top of that - I bought this to replace a DIR-655 as it struggled slightly under 1080p video while using 2.4Ghz N.

The router reads 140mb/s (while on the 655 I was getting 81-108) but the 655 had a 85-90% connection while this thing gives me 30% or less on 5Ghz. The PS3 gave me a DLNA server error and lost connection to the shared drives on my PC. Kinda lame considering the bridge/router are ~20 ft apart going through 1 thin wall.

On top of that the WAN connection would keep dropping - though the 2.02 firmware fixed that. What a pain in the butt on a Friday evening.

[claykin]

I have a DIR-825 B1.  It runs warm, maybe quite warm, but not even close to hot.

You may want to read my experience with the 5Ghz band after upgrading to V2.02NA.  After tinkering with the transmit power setting, my 5Ghz range improved.  You must also realize that 5Ghz will always have less range than 2.4Ghz.  Typically, the higher the frequency, the more power you need to transmit the same distance.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=6659.0

[d1gw33d]

Thanks for the tip. I wish it worked - I agree with you though something isn't right.

At first attempt it would not change the Transmit Power after saving. I attempted to go from High to Low on the 5Ghz and it wouldn't change. Then I changed it to Medium and it saved. Then to Low and it saved.

However - on every single one of these the signal stayed at 27-30%.
The biggest thing is when the 825 is sitting right next to the 1522 it still shows only 47-50%. Completely unacceptable. I'm running out of patience with this thing.

Also - the 1522 shows the signal strength to the 825 at 70-75% (5Ghz) and that thing doesn't even have any external antennas.

[claykin]

Thanks for the tip. I wish it worked - I agree with you though something isn't right.

At first attempt it would not change the Transmit Power after saving. I attempted to go from High to Low on the 5Ghz and it wouldn't change. Then I changed it to Medium and it saved. Then to Low and it saved.

However - on every single one of these the signal stayed at 27-30%.
The biggest thing is when the 825 is sitting right next to the 1522 it still shows only 47-50%. Completely unacceptable. I'm running out of patience with this thing.

Also - the 1522 shows the signal strength to the 825 at 70-75% (5Ghz) and that thing doesn't even have any external antennas.

Did you default the DIR-825 after upgrading to V2.02NA?  Good idea to do so and reconfigure.

Are you running firmware 1.20 on the 1522?

Try connecting using A and not N and see if that improves connectivity.  Make sure you change in both the 825 and 1522.  Also, use WPA2 AES on both and manually set keys (don't use the laymans Wifi Protected Setup).

You can also try to untick ShortGI in both the 825 and 1522.  This can improve connectivity in certain situations.

[d1gw33d]

I did go back to default on everything and started from scratch after the 2.02 update.

I had to manually configure the connection between the 1522 & 825 anyways as it defaults to what evers running on the 2.4Ghz band when I use WPS.

I have not upgraded the 1522 to 1.20 (its on 1.10) but that's worth a shot.

I'm forcing WPA2 on both units - I have not tried unticking ShortGI on any of the units though.

Isn't 802.11A limited to 10Mbps?

I'll try these things you've suggested and report back. Thanks for the tips by the way.

Cheers.

[d1gw33d]

Alright I'm finished with this thing. It's going back and I'm going with a different brand. It should not be this difficult to get a reliable signal when the DIR-825 and DAP-1522 are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER. See below. 67-70% connection when its 2 inches away? The 1522 shows 100% connection to the 825. Also the connection has not gone above 140Mbps once.



As a side note - the easiest way for me to access the 1522 (@ 192.168.0.50) was plugging it into one of the 825's ethernet ports. However after a few minutes of accessing the 1522 control panel it would freeze the 825. Activity lights for the 3 used LAN ports would go off like crazy and I could not access the internet or any of the connected PC's. The router had to be rebooted - just to do it again a few moments later.

I'm done.

[claykin]

I did go back to default on everything and started from scratch after the 2.02 update.

I had to manually configure the connection between the 1522 & 825 anyways as it defaults to what evers running on the 2.4Ghz band when I use WPS.

I have not upgraded the 1522 to 1.20 (its on 1.10) but that's worth a shot.

I'm forcing WPA2 on both units - I have not tried unticking ShortGI on any of the units though.

Isn't 802.11A limited to 10Mbps?

I'll try these things you've suggested and report back. Thanks for the tips by the way.

Cheers.

802.11a is limited to 54Mb/s.  I was trying to help you narrow down the source of the problem.

Did you upgrade the DAP-1522 firmware as suggested?  The DAP-1522 uses a Ralink chipset.  The DIR-825/655 an Atheros.  Maybe their is an interop issue between the two manufacturers.

I just poked around th DAP-1522 forum and see plenty of people discussing performance issues when connecting in bridge mode.  I'm really surprised Dlink didn't test for interop better as I see complaints from people with 855, 825 and 655 routers.  You may want to look for another bridge as the 825 B1 is about the best dual concurrent router on the market unless you want to spend $$$.

[d1gw33d]

Yeah I updated the 1522's firmware to 1.20 and there was no change. It was a very minor update per the notes over 1.10 so I wasn't expecting much.

I just went to Best Buy and picked up the Linksys WRT400N which is about the same as the 825 except the gigabit switch. There is no way (that I know of at least) to display connection % or data rates on Linksys control panels so I couldn't tell connection quality.

However I streamed 2 different 1080p (w/DTS audio) movie files to my PS3 and it was waaaaaay worse than the 825. Stutter big time on a heavy motion / audio scenes. I was trying to avoid doing CAT 5e/6 drops in this house - apparently wireless just isn't ready for large HD files.

The fact that the 825+1522 connect at 70% or less when essentially on top of each other is concerning but the fact that the 825 streams a huge 20Mb/sec video file with limited hiccup on 30% connection is suprising and probably the best I'm going to get at this time. I really don't have the energy to try the Netgear equipment or wish purchase a $249 router.

Maybe firmware down the road will fix some of the other minor issues and hopefully increase signal strength because I think you're on to something the Low/Med/High issue. All 3 settings produce the exact same connection % for me.

I've spent enough of my weekend on this crap - thanks for your input/tips claykin!

[claykin]

Yeah I updated the 1522's firmware to 1.20 and there was no change. It was a very minor update per the notes over 1.10 so I wasn't expecting much.

I just went to Best Buy and picked up the Linksys WRT400N which is about the same as the 825 except the gigabit switch. There is no way (that I know of at least) to display connection % or data rates on Linksys control panels so I couldn't tell connection quality.

However I streamed 2 different 1080p (w/DTS audio) movie files to my PS3 and it was waaaaaay worse than the 825. Stutter big time on a heavy motion / audio scenes. I was trying to avoid doing CAT 5e/6 drops in this house - apparently wireless just isn't ready for large HD files.

The fact that the 825+1522 connect at 70% or less when essentially on top of each other is concerning but the fact that the 825 streams a huge 20Mb/sec video file with limited hiccup on 30% connection is suprising and probably the best I'm going to get at this time. I really don't have the energy to try the Netgear equipment or wish purchase a $249 router.

Maybe firmware down the road will fix some of the other minor issues and hopefully increase signal strength because I think you're on to something the Low/Med/High issue. All 3 settings produce the exact same connection % for me.

I've spent enough of my weekend on this **** - thanks for your input/tips claykin!

I really think the majority of your issue is related to the DAP-1522.  If you are inclined to give it another shot before your return period expires, try the following Bridge.  This may work better than the DAP-1522 but no guarantee.

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WET610N

Review on it here:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30778/96/

BTW, I quickly looked at the WRT400N before I got the 825 B1.  Both are based on the Atheros 9002 chipset and Atheros CPU.  I'm also not a fan of internal antennas and Linksys in general as it often takes them forever to release firmware updates.  I know, I know, so why did I recommend the above....

There are few bridges on the market that support N and even fewer that do 5Ghz.  I wish there were more that use the Atheros wireless chips as they are good.

BTW, nothing beats wired.  I wired my house with Cat5e in 2006 when I moved in.  I'm ready for the day when AT&T releases UVerse in my neighborhood.

[d1gw33d]

I don't know - I looked long and hard at Uverse (its here - Fresno/Clovis, CA) but the compression on the video side of things was rather extreme (no improvement over Comcast) and they are testing bandwidth caps in Reno, NV at 150GB/month. Comcast's "soft cap" is at 250GB/month.

Uverse just rolled out 18mbps here but I'm getting 16Mbps on Comcast and they've treated me well and DOCSIS 3.0 should be around the corner very soon giving 12/2, 16/2, 22/5 and 55/10 connections.

Back to my issue: I rearranged my office area and put my wife back on wifi (she was hardwired) and the Linksys 54G PCI card in her comp shows 'excellent' connection to the router - but again the 825 shows the connection at 50-55%. This is over 2.4Ghz G only, 4 feet apart. This makes me lean toward the router as opposed to the 1522.

At this point I'm starting to question the accuracy of the routers numbers when it comes to connection/data rates.

The WRT400N was nice looking but as I mentioned it lacked the gigabit router and the shareport (which I'll actually use with an external HD.) I've just decided to give up caring about numbers and enjoy the fact that every thing has been working just fine. 

[claykin]

I have friends with UVerse in South Florida and the picture quality is excellent.  While I cannot complain about my Comcast picture quality, I do think that UVerse is better.  I really like the fact that UVerse allows you to have a DVR in one room and watch the DVR recorded shows in other rooms without the need of contraptions like Slingbox.  I also prefer Bell for Internet access over Comcast.  While COmcast is fast, I have had at least 5 outages (longer than 1 hour) in the two years I'm with Comcast.  Prior to Comcast I had Bellsouth DSL since 2001 and probably racked up about 5 outages in 6 years with most of thsoe being related to hurricanes.  DSL has been much more reliable in my experience.

Getting back to your 825 issue, I also suspect the router is not reporting signal strength properly.  The B1 is a totally new product for Dlink with the Atheros CPU.  The firmware is Linux based and differs significantly from the Ubicom design.  For a second release V2.02NA has been pretty good.  I look forward to them ironing out the rest of the kinks in the coming months.  Also, with this firmware being Linux based, we just may see open source firmware like DDWRT for the 825 B1.  That would be cool!!

[lizzi555]

At this point I'm starting to question the accuracy of the routers numbers when it comes to connection/data rates.

Each firmware version will tell you different rates and signal, so don't use these values. It is the same with DIR-655 and DAP-1522 as Bridge.

My connection showed 140 Mbps but during file transfer it was changing every few seconds and jumped up to 270 Mbps - this didn't affect the transfer speed at all ...
You can't rely on the displayed speed/signal.

Connect one wired machine to each of them and copy a large file (1gig or more).
If you get more than 6MB/s it is a good connection.
If you get about 7,5 MB/s it is a very good connection.
If you get more, tell me how you did the trick.

I had to disable QoS in the DAP because it made some trouble. Maybe it will not work correctly together with the QoS in the router. However, if the device connected to the internet is doing QoS it should be enough.

I'm measuring the speeds by copying a 1 Gigabyte ISO image and counting the time. Additionally I'm using the Total Commander to see actual rates in MB/s during this transfer.

As a side note - the easiest way for me to access the 1522 (@ 192.168.0.50) was plugging it into one of the 825's ethernet ports. However after a few minutes of accessing the 1522 control panel it would freeze the 825. Activity lights for the 3 used LAN ports would go off like crazy and I could not access the internet or any of the connected PC's.

If the DAP is set to bridge mode and you connect it to a LAN port of the router, you will get a loop because it connects wireless and wired at the same time.. This will freeze your network and cause the devices to reboot or just stop working.

[d1gw33d]

@claykin
Yeah I looked into DDWRT but didn't find anything for the 825 yet... if you see anything let me know.

@lizzi555
Thanks for the tips. I'll give that a shot with my second PC and see what I get.

After some more real world use I still am not happy with the results of these 2. I could be expecting too much?

I have most of my media on a decent PC (Q6600 @3Ghz & 4GB) thats hardwired to the 825. No more than 20 feet away is my 1522 which is connected to a PS3 and Xbox 360 using the 5Ghz band. 2.4Ghz is broadcasting G only to some iphones and my laptop.

I have 1080p and 720p videos I'd like to stream to my PS3. It works - but connection reliability is a issue that comes and goes. Some movies it'll skip/stutter maybe 2-3x. Others a lot more. This applies to 720p and 1080p files (though 1080p its more of an issue obviously.) These are not being transcoded on the fly or anything like that.

The avg. bitrate on these files according to windows & the ps3 are anywhere from 6-19 Mbps. Is wireless just not ready to stream HD files properly? Does an avg 12Mbps video spike that much to overwhelm the network? The advertised transfer rates far exceed the apparent need for these files.

Whats the deal?