| 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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Great Router, was hard to setup, November 28, 2005
By Cecilia Dangan Gacayan
This router is good for the price, so if your looking for a good wireless router, definitely buy this one. Im outside my house and i still get a perfect signal. The speed and range is excellent. I definitely recommend this router. The only downside is it was hard to setup. The installation is trash and never helps at all. I recommed calling some of your IT friends as i did with mine and he finally helped me out. Did some MAC filtering so only my desktop, laptop, and PDA would get on. Before that, I just left my computer and wireless unsecured and my firewall did the rest. As i was setting up security. An unknown IP address was using my connection. I ultimately banned it from connecting to my network. So far, its pretty good and does what its supposed to do. The installation sucks so I'll give this a 4. but overall its a great router for the price :)
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You get what you pay for, November 28, 2005
By Nicholas B. Nelson (Tucson, AZ United States)
There's a reason why this router is often "free" or heavily discounted: it's a sub-par model. High-speed transfers, downloads, and radio streams are often suddenly dropped because of spotty reception. I've been kicked off of internet game sites, and a friend of mine gets kicked off of X-Box live all the time with this router.
Sure, it's cheap and relatively easy to set up, but I recently got a Netgear router, and it's much better, especially in terms of reliability and security. I hear Linksys is pretty good too. If you don't use the internet very much, then this model is fine, but if you want something reliable, get another brand.
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Excellent value, outstanding tech support, November 13, 2005
By Michael S. Alper (North Kingstown, RI USA)
I purchased this router 3 months ago, and meant to submit a review earlier; my delay has the advantage of letting me vouch for the product's reliability after 3 months of use. It has functioned without a hitch, communicating flawlessly with my laptop even though I have the router stashed on a rack under my desk. Since I have a Macintosh desktop and laptop computer, I had some difficulty setting up the router according to the instruction manual (as usual, the instructions for Mac setup were skimpy); however, D-Link's tech support operator was able to talk me through the process efficiently and pleasantly. I can't imagine getting better quality at this budget price.
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It's an excellent product and service, November 1, 2005
By Jorge Sayago Pealoza (Bogota D.C., Colombia)
The service was excellent and the product is perfect.
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Pretty Good but needs some work in the web interface, October 28, 2005
By M. Hamed (Baltimore, MD United States)
I got it for a reasonable price and it is doing well so far. The web interface has some shortcomings. Most notably in the virtual server, you cannot define a range of ports to forward from the router to an internal computer. This is inconvenient when there is a service that uses a range of port and if you want to enable them all you need to do them manually one by one. So inconvenient. Either than that the interface is usable to me.
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very good, October 25, 2005
By JOSE (BARRANQUILLA, COLOMBIA)
The only drawback is the little list ( 12 keywords) for URL blocking.
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Small and good, October 25, 2005
By University of Phoenix (Phoenix, AZ USA)
I got DI-524 when I bought a D-link package that included this wireless router and a wireless notebook card. My only reason I bought this was the price ($80 for the whole package).
The installation of the DI-524 was supposed to be straightforward because of the installation wizard. The browser-based wizard detects your broadband connection and launches the appropriate means to configure a static or dynamic IP address or one that's PPPoE - or PPTP-based. After I ran the wizard, I checked the status page and sure enough the router seemed to be properly connected since it was served the correct IP address.
But when I tried to access the Internet, it failed.
After an hour of unsuccessfully figuring out what the problem was, I called the D-Link tech support. It took an hour and a half before a technician was able to talk to me. It turned out the the problem was that my DSL modem (an actiontec from Qwest) had the same IP as the default IP of DI-524 (they both had 192.168.0.1). When I changed the IP address of the wireless router to 192.168.3.1, the internet connection worked (thank you Jose of D-Link support!).
After I installed the wireless notebook card (it was a breeze) and after setting up WEP for secured wireless coneection, I tested the wireless connection around my apartment (3 bedrooms, living room, patio). The wireless connection signals are superb throughout. I then left the wireless router running for 24 hour to see if it will break. Not anytime did it break.
The DI-524's feature set offers a virtual DMZ and VPN pass-through. For wireless security, you can choose between WEP, WPA with preshared key, or even 802.1x security using TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) through a RADIUS server.
If you're looking for a reasonably-priced wireless router with a full feature set, DI-524 is worth a look.
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nice and good router, October 22, 2005
By Milap N. Shah (San Jose, CA)
Router works qiute well and dint have any problem regarding it.
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Easy to install, easy to configure, easy to use. :-), October 16, 2005
By ShopperGuy1234 (Virginia Beach, VA)
I purchased this item because I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Unpacked it, followed the simple installation instruction and bingo, I was on my way to fully functional, full fledged wired Ethernet/Wireless network. I used to have a Ad-Hoc network and wanted to upgrade to a secured wireless network. In order to do that, all I had to do was to assign the network security key and that's it, in less than 5 minutes, my entire network was up and running. Originally DI-524 came with version 3.02 firmware, I upgraded it to the newest version. If you don't know anything about hex numbers, you will have to spend some time creating security key for the network Overall, I have Intel 801.X a,b,g wireless adapter in my laptop and I am able to connect at 54MBPS, OVerall, excellent features, ease of use, price to features ration. Thums up to this router.
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Unstable product - buy something different, October 15, 2005
By mshw777 (plano, tx)
DI-524 wireless router: Bad choice! I bought this router due to the low price after rebate, about $24. After 10+ hours of troubleshooting and calls to Dlink support, the wireless connection relentlessly continues to drop every 5 to 15 minutes. My field is in systems engineering; I now refer my friends and family away from this product and tell them to do their research on Dlink home routers - something I should have done. I am in the process of pulling this DI-524 piece of cr_p and replacing it with a Linksys.
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Works Perfectly, October 15, 2005
By Mark (Illinois United States)
If you follow the instructions that are in the provided booklet, you will not have a problem at all. The only problem that I encountered was with my own network settings in Windows XP. One quick call to D-Link support at 3:30 AM (yes 3:30 in the middle of the night) and my issue was fixed within 5 minutes. Great Customer Support! You can set your network name, security settings functions and everything from the FTP site that D-Link has you go to when you are installing the router.
It works perfectly with the D-Link USB adapter from across my house, and signal strength.....when the box says up to 54mbps they are telling the truth. The lowest signal that I had was 48mbps. This is a great product and I'm amazed at how easy it was to set up, and it actually works. I'm thrilled!
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Good Choice, October 12, 2005
By Sergio Luiz Azevedo
In the market, this is the easiest of setup, efficient
Very good
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Crappiest router ever made, October 7, 2005
By Gnana Hunter (Chicago, IL USA)
I am writing this review after a thorough research done in the past 2-3 weeks. As it clearly stands out, this is the worst product I ever used. The network connection drops all the time. No reason whatsoever. The router admin page is very poorly designed. Like someone else mentioned, you can't practically do anything with this router. Currently, I connected my old Netgear 802.11b router as my main router and added this one to it. I got it in a deal where I paid only $20 for this. So I have no hesitation in trashing this.
Stay away from this router - I dont know about other D-Link products.
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Unstable, October 2, 2005
By Brett
First off, I have used countless firewalls and have been involved in computers and networks for 30 years. Maybe if you use this product absolutely without configuring any of the security or filtering features, it works, but if you do anything else, it's unstable and flakes out. I spent about 10 hours with this product and reset it to the factory defaults at least 8 times in order to get it to work where I could reconfigure it all over again. The DNS proxying flakes out. Once you apply any filtering rules such as IP or MAC, it intermittently crashes/flakes out, and if you add firewall rules, there is no way to delete them other than factory restore. I don't have the patience to reboot and reconfigure this thing everytime my wife complains the network is not working. The higher-end D-Link models have received a lot of terrible comments about their stability and bugs, but I figured it was just with the "bleeding edge" versions. My mistake, anything more than an out-of-box configuration is unstable. Don't waste your time because you want to do some configuration if you have any clue about security.
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Easy to install and flawless performance, September 15, 2005
By Luis Badolato V (Caracas, Venezuela)
This is my second D-Link router, and they seem to be getting better...
The first one works fine but installation was troublesome, this DI-524 installed easily and works perfect. A good buy
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Not bad, but lacks performance a bit..., September 15, 2005
By vratner (Upstate NY)
I bought myself D-Link media player (DSM-320RD), and due to the fact that it required a "g" standard router, I had to upgrade my existing Linksys, which was a "b" standard (slower). Also, I thought that since the media player is made by D-Link, it could be beneficial to have a router by the same company, in case I would have to call support for example. The router was a part of a wireless kit - it also came with the DWL-G630 wireless card adapter. The router is not bad by any means. I have a wireless network in my house, and it works well with it. The setup was fairly easy and straight forward, even for a wireless connection; however, I did notice a lack of performance. I do run some utilities on my laptop to measure the network performance (download/upload speeds, etc.), and I noticed that it is virtually equal to what I previously had when I used supposedly "slower" Linksys router. I know for a fact that this is mostly card adapter's fault, but the router has a "part" in it also. Like I said before, the router by itself is not all that bad. It's easy to use, and for the most part it'll get you what you need. The web utility is also very nice and user-friendly, however, it only seems to be working properly with Internet Explorer, and not Netscape or any other browser. The bottom line is I would probably recommend this router on its own, but would still pick Linksys over it.
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Very nice product, ridiculously easy set-up, September 9, 2005
By Steve (Maplewood, NJ)
I bought this with some trepidation as to how the heck I would set it up. The concept seemed daunting. The reality, however, was that I had the thing up and running in less than 30 minutes. The set-up wizard was very straightforward, and thankfully with very little technobabble.
The only issue I had was in setting the encryption key, so I called the D-Link tech support number (on a Sunday, no less!) and they patiently and nimbly walked me through the process in 10 minutes.
So now I can surf on the laptop in front of the TV! The signal is strong, the connection flawless and with no apparent interference with my desktop base PC. Very happy guy here.
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It's all good here....lovin' the wireless, August 25, 2005
By Bakken
After reading some reviews, I've come the conclusion that (exactly like cell phones) you simply can't buy a wireless router based on user reviews. There's 1 star reviews followed by 5 star reviews. From what I can tell, the three big companies (linksys, d-link, and netgear) mostly make good products but also all have their problems too. Of course, you can blame users or service providers for some of the problems.
Anyway, I've recently set up a Netgear WGR614 (with Yahoo/SBC DSL) and this D-Link 524 (with Insight cable modem). Both use dynamic IP addresses. For whatever reason, the Netgear one had problems, some of which were addressed on their FAQ specifically with Y/SBC, but still, it needs to be reset every once or two weeks. At least that was better than every day before the FAQ fix. This D-Link one had minimal problems. I did the Wizard and then I had to run the Insight connection program to get back on the internet. Then the next day, I had to shutdown ZoneAlarm before I could get on the internet. But who needs a software firewall when you have a router...
So I have to say I'm happy with this router but I could also see people just simply getting defective products and being very unhappy with them. At least the price is good so it's worth it to buy it and try it.
Cheers.
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Awesome router, the best, August 18, 2005
By R
This is a great router. I chose this over netgear and linksys because I heard a lot of people having problems with those two; particularly the linksys. My laptop manufacturer's forums are chock full of people having problems with the linksys routers. I am running my Dell inspiron 6000, HP 3115 pocket pc, and my home desktop pc (wired) all off this router, and have had absolutely zero problems.
Also, setup was incredibly easy using the built-in wizard. The router's admin menu is very intuitive as well, much better than the one on the (wired) linksys one I had a couple of years ago.
Highly recommended.
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piece of junk, August 16, 2005
By Michael H. Le
this router is not worth it. here are my two quirks with it:
1) i would lose signal once every 2-3 hours
2) the antenna was so cheaply mounted that it just broke off. i moved the router around quite a bit, but the di-524's physical structure vulnerability is needless.
3) the router has very bad ventilation. it gets HOT. my linksys wrt54g is much cooler, and i've yet to lose signal on it (had it for about 3 weeks now)
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