I just baught this wireless router because it had a great special on it, and because of the speed advertised. I did some research on google and seems a lot of people have been having connection stability problems and weak signals. I baught it to use with a future laptop purchase I will be making. My questions are: are the problems people state with this product still occuring or are the newer models OK? I baught this thing for it's advertised speed, but if I understand it correctly you need a special d-link laptop card in order to take advantage of the speed. Most laptops now already have a wireless card built in so I doubt I will buy another card. So is this unit really worth it in speed compared to others, if using the original laptop wireless system? I have 30 days to test it but don't know if I will have my laptop by then so I am wondering if I should take it out of the box or bring it back, and wait for a linksys or netgear to come on special. Thanks in advance.
The D-Link DI-624 is a very capable wireless router. Together with a capable "super G" card, the speed is awesome, however, I doubt that your new notebook will come with a super G card in it. It really doesn't matter because card and wireless router are both configured correctly, the speed will be more than enough. As for the issues of frequent disconnects, I guess that depends on the DI-624. All wireless routers will have disconnects at some point in time. It my humble opinion, two of the biggest reasons for disconnects are misconfiguration and interference, whether it be from a cordless phone, microwave, and especially a neighboring wireless router or access point on the same channel as yours. Still, if you're concerned about it and you are not a tinkerer like many of us here are, I recommend that you purchase the Linksys WRT54G or the D-Link 524. Take care.
As for speed, I hope your expectation is not in line with the advertised 108Mbps. That is just a marketing gimmick. That said, G routers are very quick even if you don't use the propietary Super G mode (expect something between 15-25Mbps). Your assumption regarding your laptop wireless is correct. But if you choose to buy a D-Link card for it, you will get even faster speeds (expect something around
20-45Mbps). Numbers are just to give you an idea, they vary considerably depending on many factors.
The DI-624 has many useful features. If it works for you, I am sure you will be pleased. I stress the "if it works for you" because a lot of people can't manage to get it working. While a lot of that has to do with misconfigurations and interference problems I would have to say that a (considerable) part of it is due to firmware/driver instability/robustness.
You will hear all sorts of horror stories about ANY home router you ask about (and success stories too). Considering sub-50 dolar prices for these boxes, I'm not surprised that shear luck has a considerable part in this.
After playing around with a Linksys and D-Link myself, I would say the Linksys is more stable/robust than the D-Link. This does not mean that you will be hassle-free or trouble-prone by either one necessarily. It just means that with the D-Link your *chances* of encountering problems are greater (or, your *chances* of success with the Linksys are greater). I speak for my own experience. Example: I could get the DI-624 to work perfectly (and under heavy load) with WPA-PSK (using firmware 2.42). The instant I upgraded to firmware 2.70, the router starts to reboot every 15 seconds. The 2.42 has some noticeable bugs for me but any firmware after that makes it completely unstable. With the Linksys, no problem, but I can't do all I want as in the DI-624.
Make the best of that 30-day trial period. If by the end you can get all the features you need to work, keep it. In general, I think it has more features than the Linksys. Personally, I would go for a Linksys WRT54G and a third-party firmware that adds more features. Then you could get the best of both worlds, stability AND features. No guarantees, though :-)
I have a Dl624 Revision C. Upgraded to firmware 2.7 and have no problems. I use the wireless with 2 laptops and WPS-PSK. One of the laptops is using a Dlink wireless card. The reported lan speed is
104Mb/s (it runs in the proprietary mode). The other laptop has an internal receiver and runs at 54Mb/s. The network is stable and has been like this for about a year now. I agree that this is a specific installation and others may be less stable - try testing it with all the possible bells and whistles. If it works for 30 days you should be OK.
Ok thanks for all the replies. So far I wasn't lucky I am waiting for my new laptop to arrive so I connected the router wired to my deesktop. Every hour or so it disconnected from the network. Icon in taskbar saying missing network connection. My neighbour baught the same one and his has no problems. I configured his so I know it isn't between the screen and the chair. I went to exchange it and this one seems better but still disconnect maybe once a day that I noticed. So I will try it a little longer hopefully with no problems..
I'm using primarily all DLink hardware, so I'm pretty familiar with the pecularities of DLink's proprietary "turbo" scheme.
My main router is a DI-764 (802.11a/b, which "turbo") from their discontinued "AirPro" line. I've had this router for several years now and it continues to work just fine. The "turbo" is also still completetly compatible with DLink's new "AirPremier" line. Recently swapped out an older "AirPro" card in one of my towers that began giving problems after a few years for an "AirPremier" card. The new card's "turbo" for 802.11a proved to work just fine with the DI-764.
I have several DWL-7100AP (802.11a/g/b, also "turbo". These are in DLink's "AirPremier" line. Use these as an additional AP and repeaters.
A mix bag of "AirPro" and "AirPremier" client stuff -- laptop cards, desktop cards, wireless-ethernet adapters, ect.
So, does the "turbo" really make that much a difference? I can easily say, yes, it does for me. I never benchmarked data throughputs, as I really didn't need to since it worked well enough that had no reason to t/s. I do a lot of video work, requiring the transfer of exceeding large files locally kept on "file servers". (I like to do the actual work on my laptop, but store them in towers.) In my experience, 802.11a (turbo) gives me the best pipe based on transfer times. Also, 802.11a (turbo) allows me to work on, and stream, these files in real time seamlessly. No complaints. 802.11g (turbo) works fairly well, but with occassional hiccups while streaming.
802.11b is choppy. As was mentioned in this thread, actual throughput will be no where near the marketed (and shown on your connection icon) 108Mbs.
If all you are wanting to do with a wireless network is pass internet traffic, I wouldn't worry about the "turbo" rates at all. Even if you get the DI-624, I wouldn't worry about getting a DLink card that supports "turbo" for your new laptop. Its built-in vanilla 802.11g will be more than sufficient for just internet traffic. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to have a T3 or greater at home. :^)
My internet (cable) is 5Mbs and even vanilla 802.11b (11 Mbs) has proved to be a sufficient pipe for internet traffic. Perhaps, out of curiosity, I'll do some benchmarking of local WLAN throughputs later. 802.11a (turbo) has worked exceptionally well for me with local traffic. I wouldn't recommend the extra cost of 802.11a to anyone, unless they have a strong need to pass large files around locally -- and know their home's construction won't be problem. (Many people find 802.11a, which is at 5 Ghz, to be a problem in their home. It has less range than 802.11g/b, 2.4 Ghz, and some folk's walls really attenuate the heck out of it.)
Anyway, the "peculiarities" with DLink "turbo":
- For "turbo" to remain active on a particular SSID, all connected clients must support "turbo" and have it enabled. If a client connects that doesn't support "turbo" (or even a client that does support "turbo", but moves out of range where it can remained enabled) then all the clients on the SSID fall back to standard vanilla data rates.
- For turbo to remain enabled, the clients have to a fairly decent receive signal level or they will fall back to standard rates, taking everything else on the SSID back with them (as above). With my AP's and clients, found the mininum RSL to be ~65%.
- For "turbo" to be enabled, the SSID must be set at center channel (6 for
802.11g/b, 58 for 802.11a). In "turbo", what it is actually doing is using all the channels. You may have interference problems if you got other stuff going on in the air.
- If you start playing around with repeaters later, DLink doesn't really cover specific documentation, so expect to do a bit of trial and error -- including playing with different firmware versions. I found that, with my DWL-7100's, I could get "turbo" to be repeated on one band but not both. Even so, you still take performance hits going through repeaters -- "turbo" or not. I.e., with "turbo" enabled for 802.11a (going through repeater), I still find it be a better pipe than with it disabled -- but still not as efficient as connecting to the 802.11a SSID before it is repeated.
To summarize, basically if you are wanting to do local traffic, then it probably will be worthwhile getting "turbo" capable cards, providing everything will be "turbo" capable and within a decent RSL range. If all you want is internet traffic, I wouldn't worry about it. As for the DI-624, never used it myself but one of my friends has no complaints with that particular router/AP. It also seems to be pretty popular.
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