My friend has a D-Link router that constantly fails. He lives in my townhome community in the same style house as I do. I have a Linksys Router that never fails. Anyone know if D-link just sucks? Or am I just lucky?
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Ted
What do you mean by “fails”? What does it do?
attaturk
What Ted said, how does it fail?
Does it constantly need to be recycled? (turned off and then on?)
Michael D.
Ted: It just konks out. Here’s the email from my neighbor:
Any thoughts?
mitch
Michael, if I may chime in, my parents were having the same problem. Their router would be working correctly, then suddenly conk out inexplicably, then kick back in again, seemingly without provocation. And my pops plays a lot of online poker, so there were some expletives tossed about. I eventually just came to the conclusion that D-Link sucks (after many a call to Mumbai) and we got a Linksys router. Haven’t had a problem since.
Psycheout
Ah, another vanity post in the “I got a new TV” vein. Fascinating.
Mike, you might want to check out this wonderful invention called teh Googal. It’s much like an oracle with mystical powers.
Its vast knowledge will astound you. Try it sometime.
Psycheout
I encourage others to forward email they recieve to this thread. It might help the discussion along. Let me check my spam box. BRB.
taodon
Actually, the router is just called “Link” – the ‘D’ is just the grade of quality given to all of their products. Cheers!
cleek
yeah, i had trouble with a D-Link wireless route, too. Linksys has been much better.
and Psycheout’s right: for all we pay for this site, we should get topics that are interesting to 100% of the audience 100% of the time.
sneakerchad
Well yeah D-Link does suck LOL but have they tried updating the firmware? Its worth a try.
Psycheout
Ah, here’s one I found in my spam folder that thankfully had nothing to do with getting a larger p3n1s:
Somehow this early morning spam from TZ Industries seems surprisingly relevant. Hmmm, time for some more Crystalis®.
&y
I’m pretty sure we have that same router (D-Link 624S). And we used to have the same problem–wireless would come and go sporadically, we had to reboot it way more often than you’d think necessary, etc. I recently “fixed” the problem by disabling wireless functionality and plugging my family’s two computers in with Ethernet cables.
It’s a lousy router. When I get some spare money, I’ll replace it.
Darkness
There is such a thing (no guarantees, of course) as a firmware upgrade for most devices like this. Have him go to the manufacturer’s website and look under downloads for “updates” or “firmware” or something of that sort. Firmware is the programming/”software” that the device ships with, hard coded into its chips. There is a process to write over that code with updated code. So when a device is behaving, well, like a computer that needs a newer version of its software, you usually can give it a new version. Just follow the instructions carefully, and DON’T reset the device until it’s done, like it says. Otherwise it will be a brick.
Jeffrey Boser
Most low end routers (the kind you get for $60 or less) have very low ram, do not handle many simultaneous connections, and often will bork out on you. No matter what the brand.
I spent a long time trying to find a router that would stay up with a large household sharing it, including things like torrent use, someone constantly using vonage, another who runs a ventrilo server, and constant online game play. Went through a low end Linksys, and a low end D-Link, both would reboot in the middle of things every few days. The linksys went into reboot cycles actually, once it tried to handle large numbers of tcp streams.
I ended up with a DLG-4300, a D-Link gaming router. It has been beautifully stable over the long term, and has the extra capacity to handle everything we need. But it wasn’t cheap as the others, and it beat the other basic Linksys routers that we tried.
So I’ve come to realize you get what you pay for here. Some people get lucky and find a low end router that ends up fitting their limited needs, and thats great. But if you’re getting lots of reboots, you probably need a higher capacity router.
rachel
His router might be in a bad location.
Pinacacci
It could be the router’s firewall (happened to me). You can find instructions on how to turn it off at the manufacturer’s website.
Also agree with Darkness: update the firmware.
Don McArthur
Swap with him for 24 hours and see.
Psycheout
There may be a garden gnome in the vicinity wearing a malfunctioning wristwatch. Make sure that the time has been correctly set.
If the gnome’s watch is dark or blinks “12:00” over and over again, you might want to check the battery. People often forget that. Batteries don’t last forever. Not even the alkaline ones.
T. Scheisskopf
One of the best ways to find out if it is the router is to get the model number off it, head over to NewEgg, find the router and read the reviews. If the thing has inherent problems, you will definately find out about them there.
That said, if it is one of those flat, silver boxes with one antenna, my best recollection is that they aren’t exactly “best of breed”. Both Linksys(now Cisco) and Buffalo make far better routers.
I build computer systems and home networks and I buy a lot of stuff from NewEgg. I have yet to go wrong by going to the “See All (Item)” listings and sorting it by best reviews. You get some crap from people who shouldn’t be allowed to chew their own bubblegum, but you also get True Dinkum.
slippytoad
I have a Netgear NEXT wireless. I had issues with it when I first started using it, then I updated the firmware and for almost a year now it’s been rock-solid. I can take my laptop into my front yard and get a 130 mpbs signal.
ThymeZone
Input problems (from the broadband modem that the router is connected to) can knock the router offline.
What’s the broadband situation? Cable modem? Good signal strength? If he connects a PC directly to the modem (skips the router) is it stable?
dougie smooth
D-Link blows psycheout.
teh
I think the quality of networking equipment is essentially random. I’ve had Linksys, Belkin, D-Link, and other brands I can’t remember die right out of the box before.
On the other hand I have a D-Link wireless card I paid $20 for 3 years ago in my desktop and it has worked perfectly ever since. Go figure.
Kit Smith
[fark] I fix routers for a living, so I’m getting a kick out of all of these replies.[/fark]
Actually, the best solutions have already been posted. Try the firmware upgrade first, there’s usually a new version for any router that isn’t already a couple years old. After you’ve tried that, if you’re still having issues traffic is the next place to look… if he’s running a lot of traffic across it (and by a lot I mean more than just web surfing, e-mail and chatting, it’s got to be a lot of file downloading with something like BitTorrent), see if there’s a setting for TCP Session Timeouts.
As stated before, a lot of the cheaper routers don’t have much RAM, and the time it takes for the firewall part of the router to discard old traffic passing rules often is very high to prevent disconnects in normal software (like a VPN connection). BitTorrent works so well for downloading because it floods your internet connection with multiple connections to other computers (sessions) which often don’t time out for a day or more. The cheap routers will be overwhelmed by the number of sessions and just start ignoring new ones.
Is his wireless secured? It may not necessarily be him who is creating the traffic issues if his AP is letting anyone sign on and run traffic through it.
Those are the three easiest technical solutions without getting into even more technical troubleshooting and making the assumption that it’s the router that is the problem (usually a safe bet, but not always).
Kirk Spencer
One bit I’ll add to Kit Smith – how many other wireless routers are running in the area. Conflicts – especially on the same channel – are an entertaining experience.
DR
Yep, D-Link sucks. Hard…
Linksys is owned by Cisco.
Avoid D-Link like the plague. They’ve had QA issues for a long, long time.
tBone
Seconded. A lot of routers are set by default to channel 6, and almost no one ever bothers to change it. You might try switching to channels 1 or 11 and see if that helps.
As noted upthread, though, a lot of SOHO routers are just fundamentally shitty. My old Linksys WRT54G is the most reliable one I’ve ever used.
Lisa in Bama
Interestingly, I just had to replace my D-link yesterday. It just gave out – it had always been pretty slow anyway. Replaced it with a Linksys that I still had to spend 45 minutes on the phone with tech support, because apparently there is a conflict of IP numbers on DSL modems. But the tech was very helpful and took plenty of time and she might have been in Mumbai but she spoke perfect English. So I don’t know much about the hardware for other brands, but Linksys tech support kicks ass.
Gus
D-Link makes crap. I’ve had a D-Link wireless router for three years that I’ve never had a single problem with, but I’m the exception.
MNPundit
Lucky. I’m using one right now.
Delia
Here’s what happened to me when I got my first laptop about a year and a half ago. The salesman at Office Max sold me a D-Link wireless router because he said they worked fine and were cheaper. I tried to set it up following the instructions and nothing happened. Now I am no tech genius, but I’m not an idiot, either. So I called tech support, which was in India, of course. The tech support guy spent about fifteen minutes scolding me for various things, beginning with the fact that he thought my laptop was booting too slowly, and telling me I should take it back. He was the most unhelpful tech support person I’ve ever talked to. Then my cell phone very sensibly dropped the call. I bundled up the D-Link router, went back to Office Max, and exchanged it for a mid-level Linksys. I inserted the Linksys disc in my desktop. It had step by step instructions that a child could follow. I had the whole system up and running in twenty minutes.
End of story.
ThymeZone
It has to, their products don’t work as described in the docs and the scripted setups.
That DSL IP address conflict you are talking about existed on their product 4 years ago, I went through it myself.
It’s not exactly rocket science to fix it and make a product that just plugs in and works …. but Linksys has never been able to do it very well. Yes, their offshore tech support call center is very adroit and helping, if you don’t mind spending the better part of an hour on the phone.
This whole networking for the masses thing exposes the soft underbelly of crap software that’s out there. I have a brand new Vista machine that can’t Hibernate and then recover itself to network-ready condition without my help and some patience every time. WTF?
The art of good clean user-friendly software is …. rarely seen. It’s because programmers run the computer industry.
Pb
I recently had a Linksys router die on me. Well, it’s sort of catatonic–the lights seem to blink properly, but other than that, it’s a toaster–a blinking toaster. On the other hand, my old Linksys router works fine as a replacement, but it doesn’t do wireless.
dr. luba
called Apple.
A friend gave me his old AIrport. I pushed the reset button (to get rid of his settings) plugged it in, opened the set-up program, answered a few questions, and it worked.
Simple.
ThymeZone
Better.
Joey Maloney
Without addressing the specifics of your neighbor’s problem – D-Link just sucks. Aside from their sucky user interface, every one I’ve had has lasted for the length of its warrantee plus ten percent.
I had an Asante for years; it was bulletproof. When it finally died I was devastated to discover that they have left the home/small business market.
I have a Netgear WPN824 now. There are some quirks with its interface, and I could do without the stupid Alienware-style ice blue blinkenlights, but it’s pretty solid.
Badtux
I actually have had very good luck with both D-Link *and* Linksys routers over the years, though Linksys routers have gotten a bit suckier since Cisco took them over (Cisco “fixed” them — i.e., made them more complicated with more features that nobody understands and more screens that are incomprehensible to anybody who isn’t a certified Cisco engineer). What I have *not* had luck with is Wireless-N routers. They’re all pretty much beta-quality as far as I can tell, where routers with one chipset won’t talk to laptops with another chipset. My Macbook has an Atheros Wireless-N chip in it which would not talk to the Marvell Wireless-N chip in the Netgear router and would not talk to the Broadcomm Wireless-N chip in the Linksys router without randomly locking up. It works fine with a new Airport Extreme which similarly has an Atheros Wireless-N chip. The only reason I tried the other routers in the first place was because Apple didn’t have an Airport Extreme with gigabit Ethernet ports at the time. Now they do. And it’ll use the Wireless-A frequencies for higher performance in crowded airwaves too. So I put my Airport Extreme up there, put my Airport Express down in the crowded Wireless-G airwaves for my other laptops (which only do Wireless-G), and all are happy.
Summary: With the new Wireless-N routers, you should buy one with the same chipset as is in the laptop you intend to use with it. If you have multiple laptops with multiple chipsets, stick with Wireless-G for now, or go with multiple routers. And, oh yeah, Apple is Teh Bomb. But you already knew that.
– Badtux the Network Geek Penguin
Ryan S.
From my experience with D-Link and Linksys they are excellent… excellent missle weapons, they fairly light and make a satisfying crunch when they hit concrete.
I once convinced my boss to let me install wireless APs in the building. He being always frugal picked the cheaper D-Links so I installed four of them and everything was alright for about 9 months then the one in the office died, took the one from the warehouse (wasn’t really using that one anyway) and replaced it. Then about a week later the one in the plant died, then a month later the second one in the plant died. All three seemed to have died in the SAME way, when tested with a signal detector… nothing, no signal and yes I did check the signal detector. Then I replaced both the SINGLE working one and the newly dead one with a couple of Trendnets.
So to make a long story short yes they’re great if you need to hurl something across the room, but to connect computers together or bridge networks no thanks. I would also recommend a netgear for home use they are by far superior.
MarkusB
Twice I’ve had a brand-new D-Link product (a NIC, a router) fail to work when I really needed it, and a different product worked fine. Maybe it’s just me, bad luck, random chance, or whatever, but I stay away from D-Link anything now.
Badtux
Ryan S., in my opinion the Netgear Wireless-N product is complete junk. It requires a very time-consuming reboot of the router for every single thing you change, and it randomly locks up when connected to laptops that don’t use the exact same Wireless-N chip and the only way to get it back is to power cycle the router, it won’t re-establish a connection with that laptop again until you do that. It *is* pretty, but pretty don’t move the bytes around.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.
– Badtux the “I returned it” Penguin
Kit Smith
Kirk Spencer had a good point, though from the symptoms that were being provided with it just stopping all wireless traffic I doubt that’s the issue. Couldn’t hurt to download NetStumbler and check, if nothing else he can find a channel range that is open.
Keep in mind when you’re doing this that a wireless channel uses +/- 2 channels. So, channel 6 also extends into the frequencies for channels 4, 5, 7, and 8. There are 3 channels that are non-overlapping (1, 6, and 11), so you want to avoid as much congestion as possible by choosing a channel that is the most isolated from surrounding traffic. As mentioned, the default is 6, so going to 1 or 11 is almost guaranteed to improve the reliability of your wireless signal.
With NetStumbler, just check out the Signal to Noise Ratios (SNR) of the surrounding networks. If you see anything below an signal of -85 dBm, you can pretty much ignore it as a source of interference. Noise floors usually hover around -97 dBm, and you don’t get stable (albeit relatively slow) connections until you’re at about -80 dBm or higher (closer to zero).
But as I said, given the symptoms of the wireless just cutting out completely until a router reboot, I don’t think it’s signal issues that are causing you your trouble. Signal issues would more than likely see your connection bouncing up and down, or resolve itself as you got closer to the router.
CBeck
If you or anyone you know is up to it, I highly recommend getting a Buffalo and replacing the firmware with Tomato It’s really not that hard to do, though it can be nerve wracking if you’re not a techie, your reward is a kickass router for about the same price as a POS linksys or DLink.
mclaren
COmputer networking is very very very complicated, so the information that “the router just conks out” doesn’t tell us anything. A whole lot of things have to line in a computer network for everything to work.
Example: does your friend use DHCP, or a fixed ip address? Is our friend mixing linux and Windows machines on the same network? Mac and Windows machines? (SASL doesn’t work the same as Windows authentication protocols, and I have seen Macs unable to log onto a computer network on which Windows machines work perfectly. This is not due to any defect in either machine, but simply to a slight difference in the miuntia of the authentication protocols for each type of machine. I have also seen weirdness like my linux machine unable to access my hotmail account, while Windows/OS X works fine. Again, this is not because linux is inferior, but because its internals differ slightly from Windows/OS X.)
There are a whole lot of things that can go wrong in networking. Another example: some comptuers and some Windows installations default to ipv6, while routers and ISPs’ DSLAMs typically expect and use ipv4.
There are a ton of specialized options int he networking options submenus of modern machines, and putting int he wrong setting in any of those dialog boxes can screw your network up. Yet another example: what’s the ip address for your primary and alternate DNS server? Are you using ips that your ISP has given you, or are you using the ips for something like OpenDNS (I use OpenDNS myself, but if you’re not knowledgeable in this area, you should avoid it). In Windows machines if you enter an incorrect password to log on to the network and it doesn’t work and you leave the box checked, your computer will retain that old incorrect password and keep using it. You have to uncheck the box that tells your computer “remember this password” before you log on with the new password, then log on, then re-check the box. And so on.
In short, there are just a bezillion things that could go wrong with a network. Your neighbor really needs someone with genuine networking expertise to take a look at the situation. It’s almsot certainly not as simple as just “replace the router” or “upgrade the router firmware.” Fore instance, have you looked at your computer’s ARP table? Bad MAC addresses can persist in an ARP table and may require regedits to flush and replace with new ones. Do you even know what an ARP table is? If you don’t, and if your neighbor doesn’t, he should seriously think about paying someone with serious networking expertise to take a look at the problem.
Computer networking is just really really really complicated. And before the deluge of contemptuous sneers from scrip kiddies who claim that, no, computer networking is trivial and easy and simple, bear in mind that LAX’s entire network got shut down for 6 hours a few weeks ago. The cause? Turned out one of their computers had a bad NIC card, and the problems just cascaded. That’s what can happen in a computer network. Some trivial glitch can cascade into a giant outage.
Best to let someone with real computer networking expertise take a look at your neighbor’s problem instead of asking a bunch of “one trick fixes everything” power user wannabes online.
Badtux
“power user wannabes”. Huh. (snorts coffee out nose). Note that you have a diverse readership online. Including some people who, well, actually design network firewall appliances for a living like this humble penguin commentator. The guy asked if his D-Link router was the cause of his outages, and while you are correct that no definitive answer can be given, it certainly seems likely given that the router handles all of wireless, DHCP, and firewall duties in his network. The question of how to handle the situation is a bit more complex, maybe it’s a configuration problem, maybe the firewall just needs re-flashing with the latest firmware, maybe it’s a buggy WiFi Wireless-N chipset and not remediable short of pitching the router into the nearest dumpster, but simply saying “it’s too complicated for anybody to diagnose remotely” is utter drivel.
– Badtux the Network Geek Penguin
Darkness
The point about channels reminded me that my dad’s problems started with a new cordless phone. First he forgot the DSL filter (we finally installed one filter in the basement for all the house except the line to the dsl model) THEN of course every time the phone rang the network went down and d-link seemed to need a reboot to recover from that, for no good reason. Changing the channel to 11 helped, some. But, really if you like wireless… only use 900mhz phones. Don’t buy in the 2.4Gighz range because that will only stomp on your network in ways that are transient and a biotch to track down.
Countervail
If it’s a wireless router, you should check to make sure other wireless routers in your general aren’t on the same channel.
Just like wireless phones, wireless routers run on channels and if another close router is operating on the same channel you’ll get all sorts of interference and issues. Just get a little piece of freeware that will list all the wireless routers in your neighborhood and make sure you’re on a free channel.
I’m on a mac and use a widget from macwireless.com
sglover
I’ve got a D-Link wireless router from Verizon when I signed up for DSL 2-3 years ago, and it’s worked fine.
The Other Steve
Thirded.
This is especially the case if you notice the network stops working whenever you answer the telephone.
2.4 Ghz telephones = same frequency as 802.11