| Belkin F5D8230-4 Wireless 802.11x Pre-N Router |
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Model: F5D8230-4
Brand: Belkin
Manufacturer: Belkin Components
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 216
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11n (draft), IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Pre-N speeds and coverage mean 4x greater coverage than standard 802.11g and 4x greater speed than standard 802.11g
Wirelessly share a broadband cable or DSL Internet connection
Built-in 4-port 10/100 Ethernet switch
High resistance to wireless interference--the router will sense potential interference and shift to the clearest available channel
Note: Pre-N routing speeds require an optional Belkin Pre-N wireless networking adapter |
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| Description: |
| Belkin Wireless 802.11x Pre-N Router - This wireless network router features Belkin's Pre-N networking technology. Pre-N offers you amazing advantages in speed, coverage, & performance when compared to other wireless 802.11x networks. Some of the benefits include up to 800% greater coverage and up to 600% greater speed than 802.11g! If a standard 802.11g or 802.11b networking product is introduced into the Pre-N network, the Pre-N router will not drop to the lowest networking speed. When used with 802.11g & 802.11b devices, the Pre-N router improves their wireless coverage by up to 20%! Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) Support Web Content & Parental Control Filter (6 months free) - provides over 50 fully configurable filters Pop-Up Blocker (6 months free) - provides pop-up, adware, & spyware blocking |
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| User Reviews (216 total): |
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Belkin Pre-N Router Issues, September 11, 2005
By Joseph M. Bruno
Overall I'm pleased with the performance & range and would recommand this product highly. I did have issues with the MTU setting and my former DSL modem provider (...). The brand ZyXel (PRESTIGE 600 series) was incompatable with the non-changeable 1492 MTU within the Belkin Pre-N router. I since changed back to the local cable providers modem a Motorola SB5120 with outstanding performance and range.
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Choppy VOIP, September 10, 2005
By Tom Tague (NC)
Super range, but after installing this router, my Vonage started getting "choppy." Removing this router, and the problem goes away. A call to Belkin Technical Support finds out that they know about the problem and that they have no resolution (other than using one of their "G" routers. So if your a VOIP user, stay away!
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Very satisfied with this router, September 8, 2005
By Lisa Wells (Los Angeles, CA USA)
I have had this router along with the Belkin Gigabit PCI card for several weeks and I am very happy with their performance.
I found the setup for the router to be very easy, it took only a couple of minutes. I also found it very easy to set up the security measures that the router offers.
The connection is very good when my laptop is sitting on my desk in the same room with the router, and it is very good when I take my laptop to other areas of the house.
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Check your network before you buy..., September 7, 2005
By Greg Dance (MO, USA)
This Belkin router is not the drop in wireless router that the marketing folks glamorize, but it does offer great coverage.
Items of note:
1) Probably the single most important thing to know before you go to buy this router is that ICMP must be enabled on your ISP's network or you won't be able to use this device as a router.
ICMP communications are used for many tasks. One is to "ping" another machine and see if it is responding. Sadly, many hackers use ICMP communications to find out information about a network and then use that information to launch attacks. Belkin routers ping your specified DNS server to find out if it is reachable. If the ping fails, the router assumes it is not connected to the internet and refuses to work as a router. (After you configure it the settings stay for 30 seconds until a timeout waiting for the ping response fails and then it clears out all the settings and says it is disconnected.)
The problem is that many ISP's are disabling ICMP communications on their networks to reduce hack attacks. If your provider has done this (or plans to in the future) you can't use this device as a router (only as an over priced WAP.) If you are seriously considering this device a) ping your DNS server and see if you get a response (if you don't know how to ping you are probably in over your head with this router and should consider using a Linksys) if you do get a response, b) contact your ISP and see what plans if any they may have for disabling ICMP communications as this will determine the lifespan of your router.
2) All of the installation software and documentation assumes that you have 1 computer connected to one modem. If you are buying this router as an upgrade or to otherwise replace an existing router, I would suggest that you first regress and reconfigure to connect to the internet without your existing router, before begining the install. Customer service was not sure what would happen setting wise if you had a router in place when you ran the install software and thus can't tell you much debug wise.
3) Customer support is about as bad as it gets. I spent 5 hours one Friday night trying to get this system installed. Then after going through the basics again with the customer support person she finally told me that she would have to escalate the call and someone would call me back within the hour. That was 1am Saturday. She verified that I would still be available in 1 hour so I hung in there... I kept doing other stuff and even caught a late night movie, but no call so I went to bed at 4am. On Tuesday, at 4:30pm I finally got a call from the escallation team. BTW, the escallation team is only available business hours M-F, so you might have to take off from work to debug an issue if you plan to use this device at home. For those accustomed to the Linksys support site, you find almost nothing at Belkin.
Long story short: The wireless portion of the router works great, though I can't compare it to any other wireless router as I was wired before. I've had to keep my old Linksys router in place at the modem and just piggy back this Belkin router onto it as nothing more than a wireless access point because of the ICMP issues. One can only hope they will come out with a firmware upgrade, but the escallation folks said nothing was planned.
If I had to do it over again... I think hard about a Linksys again.
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Slightly better range but unstable link - read this review before you buy, August 29, 2005
By triode fan (California)
After spending hours online reading mostly favorable reviews, I purchased the Belkin Pre-N router. I plan to use the Pre-N to replace my Linksys WRT54GS router.
WRT54GS is a solid router but I was not happy with its wireless range. I constantly got a less than 50% signal strength (low to very low) and the transfer rate hovering around 11 mbps to 18 mbps. When my son played PS2 with his wireless controller or my family used the microwave, the interference was bad enough to make the video stream went crazy.
So I had high hope that this Pre-N router will do the magic. Well, not quite. I did notice the signal strength improved to about 57% which is still considered low. My tranfer rate jumped around from 24 mbps to 54 mbps but quite unstable. Within 2 days of usage, I lost the wireless link 3 times.
I went out to get the Linksys WRE54G range expander even I read all the horror stories over the net.
What a difference! The installation was a breeze (I spend less than 5 minutes to disable WEP, auto config, and turned on WEP on my router and my WRE54G) contrary to what I read. BTW, I got the version 2 which may be the reason.
Anyhow, maybe my situation is unique, but the Pre-N is over-rated in my opinion especially after I tried it out. I am certainly keeping my trusty WRT54GS with the range expander. Now, I got excellent signal strength at 54G rate.
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watta pain, August 27, 2005
By Silver (Austin,TX)
just bought this router based on good reviews I read here. Don't believe everything you read. Have had nothing but trouble. First, I did not get any boost in performance. Placed Belkin F5D8230-4 in same location as my old Netgear router and I still have problems using a wireless notebok located 50 feet away. Was expecting 54Mbps but getting between 24 and 36 Mbps... About the same as Netgear. So much for extending the range and boosting performance. Also, have lost capabilities-- my online stock brokerage software no longer works because it requires port 443 which belkin blocks. Tried configuring router to allow port 443 but no matter what I tried, it don't work. How about that Belkin tech support??? Tried them but was placed on hold for extended periods of time - after 15 minutes- gave up.
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Belkin Pre-N Router, August 15, 2005
By J. Lancaster (NE USA)
Great! We were able to achieve wireless internet connection in our house and at the house across the street! Nothing like checking your emails while watching the boats sailing on the bay!
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Awesome!, August 13, 2005
By Mary (Louisiana)
Wow!! The Pre-N works great.
I spent hours reading and rereading the reviews for the Pre-N router and PC Card adapter before purchasing. I first purchased a router that claimed to have a 200 foot range, but it didn't. So I decided to gamble with the Pre-N despite the added cost and the mixed reviews. It is awesome!
Installation was a breeze. Although some reviewers reported trouble with the compatibility of the adapter, the Pre-N adapter for my Toshiba laptop has worked just fine.
I have two houses on my property about 60 feet apart. The internet cable is connected on the second floor of the back house. I wanted a wireless internet connection in the front house. The distance from the router is 125 plus feet. The signal has to go through the walls of both houses and downstairs. No problem! I get a good signal with a steady speed of 108Mbps. That puts my old telephone modem to shame.
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Great for range and speed, poor for management features, August 4, 2005
By K. Conner (Denver, CO USA)
Pros: Increase range, can be used for pre-N MIMO which increase range, speed even more and decreases interference. Also, it is a simple device to setup and fairly easy to manage. I saw a range increase of over 20% on the 802.11b standard. While this doesn't come close to the marketing hype a 20% increase is still a good thing.
Cons: A simple device to set up usually means not much in the way of management control. That holds true here. If you know your stuff (My trade: IT security engineer) then this router is lacking. Ex. you are limited on the bit size encryption and must use their pass-phrase algorithm made from a short password.
Overall: Great router for range and speed, poor router for security and management.
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This is the one, August 4, 2005
By Ken Spiegeland (Freehold, NJ United States)
I first tried the Netgear RangeMax. I found no difference from my existing netgear wireless router. I returned the RangeMax and bought the Belkin PreN router and that did the trick. I installed it without a hitch. THE BELKIN PERFORMED AS ADVERTISED. The first thing I noticed was that the range and connection speed increased by two times. I was surprised by this since my wireless router is set up in my basement's office which is constructed of metal studs. Great Product
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So far, so good, July 27, 2005
By SgtP_USMC (Overland Park, KS)
I finally upgraded my wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N router and notebook card. I had been making due with a Netgear WGR614 router that worked, but just barely. I would often find it necessary to shift my position a few feet in this direction or that in order to get a reliable signal while I was in the house. Unless I was in the same room, I was pretty much limited to 6Mb/sec.
Now to the Belkin, I bought the unit about a week ago. Setup was a breeze. I didn't have any problems setting up the Netgear, but the Belkin setup is a near to idiot proof as you can get. Now instead of limping along at 1 - 6 Mb/sec I now can get 108mb/sec anywhere in my home!
Time will tell if the unit is reliable, but I couldn't be happier with it in the first week.
Update Sept 12, 2005: I did have one strange issue with the router. Periodically the network connection would completely drop. The signal strength stayed consistently high, it would just disconnect. After a few minutes it would come back. After fiddling with various security settings I finally called support. The wait wasn't exactly short, but it wasn't horrible either, and the tech was able to resolve the problem within just a couple of minutes. The problem was that the channel was set to automatic and periodically it would sense a bit of interference and switch channels on me. Specifying a channel has completely eliminated the problem.
I still have awesome range and bandwidth and now it's been rock-solid for a month.
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Crummy Router, July 10, 2005
By gfweb (pa USA)
I bought this thing because I needed more power than my old D-Link wireless router could give.
First, I couldn't get the unit to connect properly despite over an hour with the Belkin service people on the phone. They gave up and said that they didn't know how to fix it.
Second, I measured the wireless signal that it put out and it had less range than the D-Link that I already have!
Maybe its just a bad unit, maybe not.
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Excellent speed & range, June 15, 2005
By Tyrod (Florida)
I'm not quite sure the speed and range are as good as Belkin claims but it is still head and shoulders above the rest. If you've had difficulty with wireless range, in the past, give this one a shot. I have alot of experience with wireless home networking and I found this router/AP to solve alot of problems the other wireless systems would have. This MIMO stuff really works. Range with this router and a Netgear G PCCard was much better that the same card with the Netgear AP. The Belkin PCCard could connect with the Netgear AP at extended range as well. The Belkin router with the Belkin PCCard was phenominal in both range and speed. As for the fancy stuff like VPN and gaming, I can't attest to because I don't do that on my wireless system.
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not ready yet, June 11, 2005
By algor77 (Brooklyn, NY)
If you want a nice looking router(let say to place in your living room) or extended range / stronger signal this is for you.
If you need a stable connection or security like WEP, WPA or WPA-PSK go with something else or wait for the few next firmware updates. Or use BELKIN network udapter(s). I spend a week, trying to have all my 4 computers + IPAQ, with different network cards to work using WEP or WPA security and gave up(WINDOWS XP SP2) and Windows Server 2003.
So I end up just using MAC to restrict connected clients. And once in two days speed starts degrade, so it requires power down cycle. So, if you have more than one computer and non BELKIN adapter(s) be ready for a challenge. Good luck.
3 weeks usage update: have one wireless card replaced to Belkin 56 Mbps, have canceled all security (WEP,ets) and still have unpredictable performance degrading- even sitting 10 feet away from the router, the connection speed can starts degrade from 54 down to 2-3 Mbps - and then it may stop working. This happens on several computers. Sometime I have to re-initialize connection on computer, sometime it does not helps - I have to restart router. May be there memory leak in router's firmware? My old D-Link 11 Mbps router worked for last year with no rebooting at all. Obsiously firmware need an upgrade. And average speed is not that great.
2 month update: After spending for router + cards about $400 I am giving up on Belkin-Shmelkin. I cannot explain why my speed degrades down to 2-3 Mbs and then my computers just do not see the router. Even when I am sitting just 10 feet away. I can see my neighbors wireless routers but not this one. I have channel moved 5 channels away from others. After 5 -15 min it comes back. MAy be I have bad unit. May be 3 antennas is not enough. My son and wife attaking me few times per day to put back old one. I need a workhorse, gong to D-Link DGL-4300 wireless 108G
Will see what one antenna can do... :-)
Last update: have DGL-4300 for 4 days: range, of course, is not that great. Speed: in par or somewhat better. And: NO PROBLEM. No rebooting, restarting, re-initializing,etc. For wired connection extra benefit - gigabit hub. So, happy man again.
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Fast, works, interface awful, UPnP doesn't work, June 8, 2005
By maxvideo (Philipsburg, PA United States)
I'm a programmer, testing this in a lab to see how easy it is to setup, and to see whether UPnP works, so I can't speak to whether it has great wireless range or not. But at close range, the throughput is excellent. I'm pushing 1 Mbit/sec live video streams through it, and it has no trouble handling it, with no packet drops.
It was also very stable: no locking up or rebooting on me.
If you are just a very simple user who will plug this in to do nothing more than surf the web and read your email, this thing will work great. i.e. if you have never even used the web page interface to change settings on your router, you probably wouldn't care if the settings pages are lousy.
1. The user interface through a web browser is clumsy; it's hard to find the right pages for things to set.
2. UPnP is a no-go. Ports will set up on it, but the router doesn't forward anything on them. If you have no idea what UPnP is, then you can ignore this. But if you plan on getting gaming, Messenger, video conferencing, or other such tools to work, get yourself a different router.
3. Just like D-Link, NetGear and most other router companies, the tech support is awful. It's staffed by morons who can't help and can't answer any questions beyond how to plug the thing in.
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I'd pick a Netgear WPN824 over this thing.
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VPN Problems, June 1, 2005
By Ignacio Vales (Madrid, Spain)
Hi,
this product doesn't work with Nortel Contivity Client, and from what I've read the problem is the same using anothers vpn clients.
Regards,
Inaki.
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best wireless router i ever had, May 27, 2005
By 25 years pc experience (Raleigh, NC, USA)
used to have a linksys wireless b router (more or less ok) and recently a motorola wr850g (poor). i assumed the motorola would have strong broadcast characteristics coming from motorola, but, performance was much worse than the old linksys. in comes the belkin. easy to set up, easy to forward ports, lots of security features. best of all - excellent coverage of my 2 story pool home. i can finally surf the web sitting by the pool, something that never worked before. another first is that my laptops connect to the router evern when the SSID is not broadcasted. this never worked with the other routers i had.
get this one!
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Belkin Pre-N is an excellent router, May 25, 2005
By W. LEE (USA)
Before I purchased the Belkin pre-N, I bought one D-Link 802.11g which could not work with my old DWL-122 wireless network USB key (also a D-Link product). Well, I guess D-Link didn't fully test the backward compatibility. I returned that D-Link router and bought the Belkin instead. Now I am happy and surprised, it works with my DWL-122 and the connection is very reliable even if I bring my laptop outdoor.
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So Easy, It Was Scary, May 19, 2005
By Beverly Praiswater
This router was so easy to install, it was scary! After years of living in "Linksys hell" with their "b" router, version 2, I decided to take a chance on a new, highly-rated router. Out of the box, I had the Belkin installed and working immediately in 10 minutes or less!! I'm just an average user, but I highly recommend this router to anyone who is thinking of switching to wireless networking in their home. Well worth the money to upgrade.
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Forget about Linksys SRX, go with Belkin Pre-N!, May 7, 2005
By Nitin (Hickory, NC USA)
I had originally purchased a Linksys WRT54GX router along with the companion SRX wireless PC card because: 1) I wanted to replace an 802.11b wireless network in my 2-story home for better coverage (I was having to use a Linksys wireless access point in repeater mode to get "complete coverage" with the old setup); and 2) I wanted a faster wireless network.
I quickly became frustrated with the new Linksys SRX wireless setup, primarily because my laptop (a 2004 HP model) wouldn't always detect the wireless card after powering up from sleep mode, and often there would be dropouts in my wireless internet connection, even when my laptop remained stationary. In addition, even though the wireless icon in the task bar would constantly indicate a connection speed of 108.0 Mbps, it was obvious that my new wireless internet connection was often far slower than even my old 11.0 Mbps wireless network connection! This problem was especially obvious with websites rich in photo-quality graphic images, like ESPN.com.
So, I contacted Linksys tech support and, with the help of a friendly tech support agent, reprogrammed several parameters on the router. The problem improved, but only temporarily. Frustrated, I returned both the wireless router and the PC card and immediately ordered the Belkin Pre-N router and PC card (based on Cnet reviews, which rated the Belkin system higher anyway).
Both the Belkin wireless router and PC card installed quite easily with the accompanying installation CD's and my system has been up and running without a hitch--so far. One other thing I have liked about the Belkin system is that (using the included Belkin Wireless Client) it displays realtime send and receive speeds of the wireless card, which are often slower than the 108.0 Mbps the wireless icon in the taskbar is constantly pegged at; but at least I know the "true" speed of my wireless network at any given point in time (the measured speeds that are displayed are constantly changing and fluctuate mainly according to distance from the router).
Needless to say, I have been impressed with my early experience with this Belkin system and won't hesitate to highly recommend it to others considering a future home wireless network upgrade. Oh, and did I mention that the Belkin system was cheaper than Linksys'?!!
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