hunt for the holy router/firewall

I used to be a hardcore Linksys supporter but..my last TWO linksys routers have not lasted me more than a year as far as stability and I can't afford a new router every other year or the headaches they cause.
</rant>

SO my question is about D-Link I think this is what I want to try now. I'm looking at the DI-624 or DI-524, circuit city has them for $40 and $20 respectively after rebates. I won't have any D-Link wireless cards to start so the 108mb isn't a big deal to me right now...but I've read other good things about the 624 unit. There is a possibility that "someday" I might put my wife's PC on the wireless but it would have to be dead on stable for her mmo gaming. Anyway for PC's as said I have a wired PC for my wife that I built, and I mainly use my laptop now which has an internal broadcom b/g card.

Generally with my current router I have had to keep wireless disabled and plug my laptop in but would be nice to have less cat5/6 laying around and would be nice to sit on the couch in the other room (wirelessly) sometimes. I guess I'm not sure what model is "better"? Do I go cheaper or should I go with the higher unit...I want something STABLE that will last a couple years and has good througput both wired and wirelessly. Doing tests with my broadband and my screwy router now there is a definate hinderance in bandwidth tests.

Let 'em fly!

thanks

I'm not worried about internet bottlenecks so much, I'm a test site for the local ISP (which I used to work for). The broadband coming in is also wireless and I use a bridge to connect to my local LAN. Another reason why I need something stable...I've been reporting issues to the provider when all along I'm now thinking most of them where probably due to the crappy router I've been using.

Thanks for your oppinion...I'm all for spending $20! but will spend the $40 if for some reason its a better/more stable unit...aside from the 108mb features.

Nice range! That brings up another point, I don't necesarily need alot of range...I have a small house and its one level but obviously I don't want something weak either. I have 2-3 wireless networks around me...only one of which had the know-how to secure it.

I can...I wouldn't be pleased about it...but the point is I shouldn't have to. The first unit is way past warranty, the current unit...if the warranty is over a year than its still covered...i have no clue where any reciepts are for it though (my fault). After two routers from linksys being unstable...its just time for me to try something new.

I've flashed and re-flashed and always keep my systems up to date. Power spikes/surges shouldn't be an issue, I ran a 20amp circuit just for the computer room and for the computers and equipment to be on. Also with that my home equipment is on a UPS and no where near full load. I can kinda see your comment about the firmware crapping out...not sure why this would or even could occur though. Seems like both these Linksys units I've used worked well for about a year then start to go to heck...but I've also kept the firmware up to date and reflashed more than a couple times to see if it would help.

I just picked up the DI-524 see how that does, maybe there will be a befw11s4 for sale (cheap) soon if someone wants to resurrect it.

My personal favorite user quote here at work tends to be..."I can't login!" While this could mean any number of things its usually something completely simple :P

Thanks for the input Jack. The only difference that I am to discern in my researching online between the 624 and 524 is the 108mb capability the 624 has which doesn't benefit me at this point.I'm anxious to get it up and running tonight and put it through some tests...and be able to use wireless!!

I just hooked set it up here at work and used my laptop to configure it. Definately taking some getting used to on navigating through the web configuration...but definately manageable. I did notice that backup option...very cool. I got it all setup and configured how I plan to use it at home with wireless, dhcp, etc. It is kind of annoying that it likes to reboot itself alot while making changes...but I guess that is just another thing to get used to and probably better to make less changes at ones. I guess they'll be no playing in the router while the wifey is gaming The only weird thing I noticed was in the wireless settings. I set everything up how I wanted with mac filtering (once I found it) and I disabled SSID broadcast. Once I disabled the broadcast it wouldn't let me enable WPA-PSK. I set a password and click apply and it does nothing...the only responce I could get is when I mashed a bunch of keys and it told me the key was to long, my regularly used 10 character password wasn't accepted neither was any number of combinations using more characters. So that is something to look into. I hope dlink thinks that because I am not broadcasint my ssid and that I have mac filtering that it doesn't need to enable WPA-PSK. I suppose I could try WEP but I prefer the other for now I'll leave it as is and see what she does tonight.

i didn't think about that...thanks for the tip.

re-enabled ssid broadcast just to see if it would let me use the WPA-PSK but still no dice. I sent an email into tech support... Seems to be working pretty good so far. Only hitch I've had since getting it setup here at home is the mac filtering...I'm used to the linksys only filter mac for wireless but this thing does it for all or none! Only took a minute to figure out why my wife couldn't connect...kinda a bother but as long as it stays stable just one more familiarity.