| D-Link DI-524 Wireless 54 Mbps High Speed Router (802.11g) |
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Model: DI-524
Brand: D-Link
Manufacturer: D-Link Systems, Inc.
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 253
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Share your Internet connection with built-in 4-Port switch
Compatible with 802.11g and 802.11b networks
Advanced Firewall and Security Controls
Built-in 4-Port SwitchOperating range of up to 328 feet indoors, up to 1,312 feet outdoors
Quick and easy set-up |
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| Description: |
| D-Link AirPlus G 802.11g Wireless Router - The DI-524 from D-Link can handle all of your networking needs. Utilizing the built-in 4-port 10/100 Ethernet switch, you can wire your computers together in the standard fashion, or you can go wireless with 802.11g technology. Transferring data through the air at up to 54Mbps! The router and built-in firewall portion of the DI-524 allows for easy & safe broadband Internet sharing. Advanced Firewall Features - NAT with VPN Pass-through (Network Address Translation) MAC Filtering IP Filtering URL Filtering Domain Blocking Scheduling Dimensions - 5.6 (l) x 4.3 (w) x 1.2 (h) Weight - 7.8 oz. |
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| User Reviews (253 total): |
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Bad product, do not try, March 15, 2005
By Y. Wu (Dallas, TX)
[...]
As a regular user, I tried all possible solutions such as moving closer, tried three different brands of wireless adaptors, choose all kinds of different configurations, so on and so forth.
As an experienced computer engineer, I tried different firmware, tried to use network strumbler,tried linux, and more.
Nothing can prevent this router from crash. You can literally tell the router automatically reboot by just looking at the light leds on the front panel. It blinks for 40-50 seconds, and whennever the traffic through the router goes a little bit higher, all leds lighted up staticly and then all shutdown. There you go, re-----booooot!
Someone may say, you get what you paid for. Yes it is CHEAP. but for this product, I would rather pay NOTHING. I won't bother to call the customer service, they could not be more proficient than me. I would not waste more time on this product, otherwise, I would ask D-link paying me for all the time I spent to disgnose this crap.
So, DO NOT BUY! And if you happened read this, and you do agree, please try to click the LINK stating that you think this comment is useful. So that no more victims would suffer as I did in the past few days.
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It was cheap and it shows, March 11, 2005
By happysushi (San Diego, CA)
Well, I guess I got what I paid for. When I first got it, it didn't work AT ALL until I downloaded the v.1.05 firmware update. But now, it's still pretty wishy-washy. My connection gets dropped a lot and that's pretty annoying. I've been having problems with the MAC filtering especially. I'm basically just waiting for the next firmware update that will hopefully fix a lot of the problems. I'm not holding my breath though.
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Pretty Cool stuff, March 8, 2005
By SR (Milwaukee)
I just bought this a month back along with a USB wireless device. Both work fine. The wireless router was pretty easy to install. The connection is great, although sometimes the link strength reads ~50% but I havent seen a drop in performance. Overall I am pretty happy with this.
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FIRMWARE NIGHTMARE, March 4, 2005
By Miles W. Reetz
DON'T DO IT!!!!! Current firmware 1.05 is flawed notorious for disconects......waiting for new release....
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piece of junk, February 21, 2005
By Rahil Shah (Michigan)
Even when it was working it would drop the signal every 30 minutes. However, just over a year of having it, it suddenly stopped working. No power at all. Call customer support - tough luck it was over the one year warranty. You get what you pay for. Stay away from this piece of junk.
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Nice little box, February 13, 2005
By R. Kirk (San Luis Obispo, California)
First of all, setting up a secure wireless network with encryption, connected to a wired network through a cable/dsl modem, and enabling filesharing without security holes, is not easy. This is a relatively new market, people, and this stuff is just not plug-and-play. If it is, then you probably have some major security holes. 90% of all wireless networks in the U.S. are wide open (that means most of you). I bought this router and set it up for my parents, and changed a lot of features. If you know what you're doing, you'll have no problem. If you're willing to spend some time following the wizard and possibly talking to a friend or tech support, you'll have no problem. If you want instant wireless connectivity right out of the box, frankly, you have a pipe dream. Your internet connection and personal computer are likely to be compromised in less than a week.
Tips for wireless security:
- Disable SSID broadcasting
- Enable WPA/TKIP pre-shared key (NOT WEP, which easily is crackable)
- Filter wireless access by MAC
- Change router's IP to nonstandard address
- There's more than this, but these are the basics. Read up on the internet.
The D-Link is a good router with nice features (reserved DHCP is something Linksys doesn't have unless you mod the firmware), it's small, and it looks nice. The hardware is a dime a dozen; there's nothing wrong with this router! If you want alternate firmware and a Linux shell, this is not the model for you. If you want a small, compact, cheap, nice-loooking wireless router, don't hesitate to buy it. Just know that you're going to have to spend a little time with it, just as you would with any other model.
By the way, the Broadcom chip (108 mbps SpeedBurst) is overrated for internet use. 95% of all users will not need the higher model than this, especially when your internet connection is is <3 mbps!
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Great product from Dlink again for a happy DI-614+ user, February 7, 2005
By dvd+r user (Chicago, IL)
I decided to upgrade my DI-614+ (which works great!) to this model so I can have 802.11g support. Some of negative reviews got me to think twice but they all proved to be non-existence for me. Maybe I got used to the user interface form DI-614+. I have no issue what so ever on setting up the box. I took precaution to reboot my cable modem after I plugged in the box. This thing supports UPnP as well, which is a must for xbox and MSN messenger (if you need voice, video, and application sharing). My only advice to people is read the quick setup (mostly illustrated instructions) and get the latest firmware.
My only wish is for DLink to provide porting of some configuration parameters among different boxes for easy upgrade. I had to manually configure all my static DHCP, filtering, and firewall customizaiton.
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You get what you paid for, February 5, 2005
By Matt (L.A., CA)
I bought this at 2:00pm, returned it the same day. I didn't have any problems when i hooked it up. It wasn't until when i ran the wizard to enable the encryption that i started having problems. My internet connection was disconnected. I tried read the manual but had very little info. This item is not plug and play. Look elsewhere, even if you have to spend a little more.
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Flakey, February 5, 2005
By J. Berry
Look, this is an OK product if you do not use heavy networking. If you play games or fileshare, you may have problems. I bought one for ~$20 after rebate, and I'm glad I did not spend and more on it. Mine will start the cycle of rebooting every 20 sec until I reset the thing. This was caused only during load from the wired side. This should not be a hard load for a wired connection to handle. You may want to consider a Linksys. It is worth the extra money.
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Not ready for prime time, February 2, 2005
By Product Developer (Mission Viejo CA)
This product is simply not ready for market. As a product developer for over 25 years I know when a product is ready to go to market and this ain't it. This device is not plug and play by any stretch. Look forward to spending more in time tweeking this device than the original cost of purchase. There are thousands of complaints on Google at this time and I anticipate that retailers are going to stop carrying this if returns reach a threshold of pain.
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Firmware Disaster, January 23, 2005
By DS (U.S.A.)
Firmware version 1.05 doesn't work. The router hands out new DHCP addresses to every wireless device every few seconds, so obviously your connection will drop continuously like so many people have reported here. This isn't a fluke, it's a well-documented, reproducible problem that has been discussed at length on hardware forums like BroadbandReports.com. Flashing back to old firmware 1.03 solves it, but that version introduces another issue with buffer overflows when using P2P file sharing.
At the time of this review, 1.05 is the latest firmware version available. Incredibly enough, this horrible piece of broken code isn't a beta version, it's the final release that D-Link has been recommending for months. How a company can get away with this for so long is beyond me.
I rolled my DI-524 back to firmware 1.03 and it solved all my connectivity problems. I don't use P2P so it's actually working great for me now, which is why I gave it two stars instead of one. But I spent countless hours tearing my hair out to get to this point and D-Link tech support wouldn't admit the problem, so I can't recommend buying this, or any product, from this company. Knowing what I do now, I'd buy a Linksys instead.
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Works well, but the wireless requires tweaking, January 21, 2005
By adam872 (Houston, TX USA)
The "wired" part of this router works very well out of the box. The installation wizard runs smoothly and gets you on your way fairly quickly. It detected my SBC DSL configuration and I was on the internet within minutes. At the same time, I had just bought myself a new iBook G4, with an Airport Extreme 802.11g card. Getting the wireless to work was an excercise in frustration for a couple of hours. The documentation and online FAQ, as well as Google were all consulted to find a solution. What I ended up doing was disabling *all* security features in order to get any kind of connection at all, then re-enabling them one by one. In the end, it was the MAC address filter that was stopping the wireless connection from working. My configuration now has SSID broadcasting turned off and WPA-PSK turned on, for better security (this is called WPA Personal on the Airport configuration utility). In all, this device is a good deal, but take note of some of the gotchas noted in the other reviews.
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Nice appearance; wireless connection full of bugs, January 14, 2005
By Integral (The Southern Tier, NY)
Purchased this router a week ago. The hard-wired connection works OK. However:
1) Try to change the password, then do a hardware reset; dont be surprised that admin password will not reset.
2) Encrypted Wireless connection worked for about two days; it stopped working shortly after; router is either not detectable or if it is, then you cannot log into it. Of course, you can disable encryption but then anyone near can use the connection.
3) Customer support when contacted, told me to downgrade the firmware from 1.05 to 1.03. It helped a little bit; I can connect occasionally via encrypted connection. Still, periodically router disconnects and I cannot reconnect.
4) When emailed support back and asked when is expected release of newer version of firmware; I got a reply with link to current version of firmware and suggestion of "not sending additional questions for this information"
So, if You're gone use this as a hard-wired connection router, it works good; its wireless capabilities I would not vouch for.
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not for macs, probably not windows either, January 9, 2005
By Kim S. Zoss (chicago)
The signal fades away after about 20 minutes, Changing the channel does not help. It needs to be unplugged and plugged in again. This is a waste of money. I replaced it with airport express which works flawlessly. You get what you pay for. If you are having problems connecting to the internet, check out Jack Szwergold's review at the very end. Thanks Jack! This router did not work with my modem at all before following his instructions. Selling routers preset like this is a major screw up on d link's part. I called technical support and described my problem, and she did not even suggest this.
I will not purchase any products from them in the future, only from the apple store.
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A very ordinary product, January 2, 2005
By Pascal Meunier
This router required a lot of pampering to work, including downloading new firmware and manually setting the WAN port to 10 Mbps. It also requires a hard reset periodically (sometimes several times the same day). I'm not sure why I put up with it. It also reports that WEP is disabled when using the superior WPA encryption, suggesting that your network is unprotected. At least it supports WPA.
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Router beset by bugs, December 28, 2004
By TD (Natick, MA)
I purchased a DI-524 when first upgrading my network to 802.11g. While installation was easy, operation was abysmal - the router had compatibility problems with most of the other wireless systems I owned (These include a TiVo, Palm Tungsten C, an Airport Express for online music.) There were two major problems: First, the DHCP service constantly got into states where it would start handing out new addresses to any active client every 45 seconds - one minute. This had the effect of causing slow connections and lots of lost connections. This problem was particularly bad with my HP network printer, and print jobs would frequently fail or hang. The second problem (which may have been related to the first) was that it would frequently lost the ability to route between the wireless and wired network.
An amusing side effect of these were that the log file on the router would fill up constantly - I'd get two or three emails a day from the router documenting its frantic efforts to hand out DHCP addresses.
I ended up replacing the DI-524 with a Belkin F5D7230-4 after less than two months. The Belkin is a hands-down winner, both in terms of stability and features, like WDS and parental controls.
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Get the Linksys wireless G - trust me, December 24, 2004
By Bob - that guy from No Where (The Middle of No Where)
First problem was ever time I rebooted my main comp the Internet connection was lost and I had to reset IE to default.
Second it wouldn't work with my old Gateway, not only was tech support worthless, they were vaguely insulting about my still using a PII.
So having been using a linksys wired router for the last 3 years, I decided to give them a shot. Everything set up and ran perfectly, all I did was sit there and watch.
spend a little more and get the linksys- you will be happy you did.
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Incompatabilities, December 14, 2004
By Esh (Detroit, MI USA)
As long as the rest of your wireless equipment is DLink, you may never have a problem, but try using a cheaper non-DLink card and you quickly find out that you've been locked in. I've never had problems with the router, but it really narrows your choices when you're looking to use a cheaper h/w or share connectivity with non-DLink friends.
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Don't buy this router!!, December 12, 2004
By C. Cheng (NY)
Some guys here are giving review saying that other people don't know how to set up the router and so caused a lot of problems. This does not apply to my case. Although I'm not an expert, I do know something about the router hardware and parameters settings. I'm sure nothing was wrong with the settings. As said in my previous preview quoted below, connection drops out frequently and D-link tech support went through all the settings with me, trying with different sets of parameters without any success. Finally, they concluded that the hardware might have problem and I had to pay for the shipping to send it back to get a replacement. The story did not end here. The replacement router got exactly same problem. I contacted D-link again and this time they passed me to a product specialist. Still, he could not get the problem solved. However, he's willing to test the model himself and try to get a solution. I ended up waiting.
I borrowed a Belkin 54G wireless router from a friend and set up with exactly same settings as the DI-524. The Belkin worked for 5 days without any problems. No drop out at all. When I switched back to DI-524, same old problem came back. I reported this to the D-link specialist and he finally emailed me a new version of beta firmware 1.06 for me to try with.
Once the new firmware is loaded. There's no more connection drop out. It's been working for a week without any problems. So, if you are buying this router, remember to get the 1.06 beta firmware from D-Link or else you will experience drop out problems.
One last thing to note. The firware was dated a month before the first time I started complaining to D-link. So, why didn't they give me the firmware in the beginning so that I didn't have to go through that much trouble? This is why I still only give it a 4-star rating instead of 5.
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Original review quoted below
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It just doesn't work. Every thing was set up correctly with latest firmware loaded. However, it keeps reassigning IP addresses to every station every minute. That means link drops every minute (in worst case even every few seconds) and then try to reconnect. Sometimes it gets wild and just can't reconnect. Need to restart system to get connection again.
Tried with older version of firmware but that also had some other problems. Link broken every few hours and need manual reset every time to get back connection.
D-link support just keep telling me to try all that I had already tried. No solution.
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Nice router, December 7, 2004
By Keith F. Woeltje (St. Louis, MO USA)
I upgraded from a D-Link 802.11b router to this one. Works great. Set up is very similar--no trouble at all. Administration menus very straightforward. I'm using it in a mixed Mac OS X / Windows mixed -b and -g environment and having no problems.
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