- was crashing 3-4 times a day due to a circuit overheat. My friend replaced a heat sink with a larger one. Now it seems
to crash about once a day. This makes it useless for attaching my Vonage telephone.

- won't use dynamic DHCP assignment from my cable provider. Static assignment has worked OK and I have yet to try updating the firmware.

I have DSL service. Once the 614+ got into this loop, it would NEVER get a PPPoE connection, even if I shut down my notebook. Major PITA -- I would have to power down the DSL modem, power it up, then restart the 614+.

I downloaded the latest 614+ firmware. If anything, that made the problem worse.

After days of tweaking configurations and trying things, I finally gave up and called their "live" tech support. I waited for an hour before I actually got a live person (thank goodness I have a speakerphone).

The first thing he told me was to NOT use 128-bit WEP, that the 614+ could not handle it. He said that the packets were too large and overflowed an internal buffer. So, I tried 64-bit WEP. Same problem. He then told me to disable WEP. With WEP totally disabled, I was able to connect the wireless notebook.

As if I could stomach having my LAN up without WEP, I soon discovered that the 614+ STILL had other problems. If I tried to download a large file (over 100kb), the 614+ would again go into the reboot loop. Also, just trying to bring up the 614+ configuration "Status" page on my notebook would crash the 614+.

I finally solved the problem. I went out yesterday and bought a Linksys BEFW11S4. I plugged it in and instantly everything worked perfectly.

The 614+ is being returned. Does D-Link actually test their stuff before production? I don't think so.

The routers wireless freezes every few hours and the router must be power cycled. This is with firmware 2.10 wich is relatively recent.

I have since exchanged it with a linksys BEFW11S4 which is much more stable, has better range and works fine with the 650+ card.

The setup was nice and smooth. However, everything past that had problems.

First, it kept dropping my wireless connections. I called support and they told me to restart it. It kept doing it. I called back and waited on hold for them to tell me to change a bunch of funky settings (MTU, channel, etc.). Why should that be necessary for basic operation? Well, I did it and it helped.

Next, I found that it was intermittently dropping packets, maybe 5% of the time. After waiting on hold for 40 minutes, they told me to install new firmware. It kept happening. After another 40 minutes on hold, they told me they'd escalate my call. I was disconnected.

I call back. After 1 hour on hold for a level 2 tech person, I talk to somebody who says he doesn't know and he'll transfer me to a level 2 tech. Agg!! I'm still on hold at this moment, after another 20 minutes on hold. So far, I've spent over 4 hours just trying to get it to work reliably.

I've used the Netgear in the past. It is solid. Linksys routers also tend to be more reliable than this. (I work for an internet provider. We've tested a few of these things.) I strongly suggest anybody go with either of those, even if they cost a little more than the D-link.

Be sure to download the latest firmware and drivers. There is a feature that will allow you to save your router settings to a file. Use this before installing new firmware, as the upgrade will wipe out all settings (restore the saved settings from the file).

Only had one problem with keeping the wireless connection, but this was resolved after updating the driver in the laptop. You need to accept the fact that with any product, you'll have to check for new drivers every few months, at least for the first year, to get the latest security features and fixes.

Also, be sure to change the SSID, turn on 256-bit WEP encryption (make up a key), and use MAC and IP restrictions if posible. These are not set by default. Make an admin password for the router.

Range seems to be good. I can use this from anywhere in the house, even the basement under the metal ductwork, and in any part of the yard.

One final thing to consider. D-Link recently released a 802.11g version of this router that is backward compatible with 802.11b. It costs a bit more but will probably quickly replace this due to the faster speed. You may want to purchase this instead, along with the associated 802.11g network cards. I plan to use this soon in a new installation for a friend. Rebates are usually available to lower the cost.

I opened it yesterday and had the thing up and running in 10 minutes. I wrote an application to test the speed and while I was walking about the house to see how that affects the speed, the unit hanged. I hadn't upgraded the firmware because my cable modem was down.

This morning I upgraded the firmware and re-implemented my speed tests, and here are the results:

From wired to wireless:

WEP off, 579 Kb/sec, 4.523 Mbits/sec, 75% CPU on laptop
WEP 64, 461 Kb/sec, 3.602 MBits/sec, 45% CPU on laptop20% slower
WEP 128, 435 Kb/sec, 3.398 MBits/sec, 57% CPU on laptop25% slower

From wireless to wired:

WEP 64, 488 Kb/sec, 3.817 MBits/sec

The test was simply opening a TCP connection between a machine on the wired LAN and blasting data from it as fast as possible. Running with WEP 64 enabled causes 20% slow down, WEP 128 is a 25% slow down. With WEP disabled 4.523 MBits/sec is not bad at all but you really need WEP enabled to make sure random people walking around on your streets don't access your home network. Data moving from the wireless laptop to the wired computer seems to be a little faster, which is also something I have seen at my work.

The range on this device is vastly superior than my first generation base station. I find that I can get lots of work done from the toilet at the far end of the house now, which is one of my favorite places to work ;-) Even when my old base station worked (it stopped working properly which is why I had to buy a new one) it never was able to reach the far end of my house. We're talking 80 to 100 feet here ... amazing.

I am using an internel wireless card in my Dell laptop. I suppose if I put a D-link PC card into my PCMCIA slot that I could get even better thruput, but I cannot go back to having one of those stick out the side all the time.

All in all I am pleased but one feature I was hoping to be able to find is, Running with WEP off but with some sort of MAC address form of security. So I could put my one wireless device (this laptop) on my LAN but block all other devices, without having to turn on WEP so I can maintain top performance. I don't think that's possible though, even though it seems like it is almost possible and would be easy for D-link to add.

Oh - no packet loss or reboots since I upgraded the firmware at all.

Oh, and I am running in access point mode, not gateway mode. I have a linksys router/firewall right next to my cable modem at one side of my house, with the wireless base station in the middle of the house up in the attic.

Hope this review helps. I get goose bumps when lots of people say my reviews help!

[11/9/2003] So I came to find that my D-link could not hold a connection reliably. Some connections, that is. For some reason my Windows Messenger (the MSFT chat client) would continually log me out. FOr a while I thought it was my flakey cable modem but in fact it turned out to be the D-link. I talked to D-link and they were not able to help me. I know it's the D-link because (1) my wired computer never logged me out and (2) I now have a Linksys 54G wireless base station and it never drops the connection. So ... sadly ... beware.

DO NOT BUY DLINK ANYTHING - you will regret it!

speeds are great, especially with the new 4x firmware upgrades.

reliability is fine for me. i read that other people have had problems, but i have probably read just as many that said the've had no problems. i am int he no problems catagory. i can try and get online via my laptop wirelessly at any time and the router is up and running just fine. i have MAC filtering on and 128-bit WEP on.