The Belkin Wireless Cable/DSL Gateway Router lets you share files and a broadband Internet connection among all your computers-without using cables. It's never been easier to access files and networked peripherals such as hard drives, printers, CD-ROMs, and DVDs. An integrated, 3-port 10/100Base-Tx Ethernet switch also allows you to connect wired computers to the network. The Router offers NAT firewall to protect your network from outside intrusions by hackers, and an IP Sec pass-through for remote access through Virtual Private Networking (VPN). DMZ hosting lets you play accelerated games over the Internet. A simple, browser-based setup, guided by Belkin software configures your wireless network and broadband modem in minutes.
1 (...)
(...)
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT.
It's a lousy piece of hardware. I gave it away and bought a Linksys router that actually worked as advertised.
The Belkin tech support guy actually told me to "call Microsoft because their having a lot of problems with their browser". True story.
2 not worth it
$129.99 is a "hot buy"????
I bought this on clearance from the Belkin website 2 months ago for $30.
I wouldn't even recommend it at that price.
The firewall will not close off everything it leaves "port 0" open no matter what. And the only way to stealth port 80 is by redirecting it to a fake ip address.
It also slows down such that browsing the web becomes an excruciatingly slow experience. The only way to fix it is to unplug the power and plug it back in whenever it goes slow. I have read reports that turning off the router's DHCP server might prevent that from happening... but DHCP is not something you should have to do without.
This is an out of date product. Badly put together. Definitely not worth what Amazon is asking for it.
Try to find a good deal on a Linksys or something... do not walk, RUN away from Belkin products.
3 THIS WILL SPAM YOU!
This router will take a legitimate connection to a web site and turn it into an ad for belkin products! The older models don't but if you update the firmware (like maybe to close a security hole in the future, or for compatibility of a network game) you will start getting ads! There are a couple of articles that are at popular news organizations that confirm this. BOYCOTT, DO NOT UPGRADE THE FIRMWARE!
4 Very dissapointed
I have had this router for a month and i still can't get it to work . I get recognized all the way up to the part where I have to activate it over the net then nothing. this stinks I do not recomend
5 Inconsistant service
My dad purchased was convinced by an instore Belkin rep to buy this router. He installed this router with ease. He has NO networking experience, so I give them credit for ease of installation. However, the router yields inconsistant service. As other reviewers have noted, our router has to be rebooted every 3 days or so because it slows almost to a griding hault. We have 1 computer hardwired to it, and 2 that are wireless. We use a Belkin reciever on one remote unit and a linksys on another. Both work the same quality. Watching a graph of my download speeds shows how the router slows about once a minute for 5-10 seconds. This is unbearable to play games or surf the net. It does the same on both wireless computers. About 5-10 seconds out of every minute it slows to a griding hault.
The web setup of the router is nice too. However, the "Demilitarized zone" does not seem to work. Even turning off all the nice security settings (NAT, DMZ, DHCP, and encryption), I still couldn't host an online game on the internet.
Using any sort of encryption slows the wireles connection to an unbearable speed. Without any encryption enabled- I benchmarked my speed (wireless to wired on the router) to be 400kbps, and (wireless to wireless) to be 300kbps. The router is rated at 11000 kbps. That's only 3%. However, this never kept me from DL'ing files at 200 kbps accasionally.
I wonder if my router is defective. I have updated the firmware and little has changed. I would recommend you go with another brank- Linksys.
Pros:
-Very easy to set up- my 50 yr old dad did it.
-Somewhat cheap costing
Cons:
-Had to unplug every 3 days / too slow
-Would slow 5-10 seconds out of every minute
-DMZ didn't work
-Very slow transfer speeds between computers
6 Repeatedly Hangs
This router has good functionality and ease of use, but reliability is more important for me and this router hangs about once a day, so I'm giving it 1 star. You need to unplug the power cord and plug it back in every time to get it to work again.
The range is a bit disappointing, too. About 30ft indoors.
On the plus side, 128bit WEP and ability to limit access by MAC address are nice, and it's very easy to set up.
Reading around some forums makes me think that the hanging problem is not universal, so if you're lucky enough to get one that works, it's not a bad router if you don't need long range wireless.
For me, I'm returning it for a refund.
7 Reliability Less Than Acceptable
The setup was easy enough, but the reliability of the wireless signal to my laptops was not acceptable. Speed drops dramatically for unknown reason and I had to reboot the router at least once a week because speed was so slow. After turning off and back on, speed was back to normal.
8 A newer model is out!
Ignore the star-rating above. This is just a note to those who are thinking of buying the Belkin brand. They have released a newer model F5D6231-4 to replace this model F5D6230-3.
9 Lousy range, easy setup
I purchased this router to set up a home network with two wired computers and one wireless laptop. Setup was fairly easy, although there are no good instructions as to how to configure your computer or printers. The range is about 20 feet in my house. After that it gets below 21% and loses its signal. I had to call Belkin customer support for setup help, and the best I can figure, the customer support center is in India. I don't have a problem with that, but one of the guys I talked to said he didn't have a computer with XP on it, only W98. I thought that was bizarre. They were never able to even comprehend what my problem was, but I finally solved it on my own. I would consider another product rather than this one.
10 love my belkin
I'm a mac user and while I did need some help from the apple discussion board folks to set up WEP, it was very easy to set this up. The only thing that's annoying with wireless routers in general (I've worked with 2 so I know I'm not an expert on this but I've tried to find the solution on other brands websites) is that there doesn't seem to be simple plug and play action but rather you need to renew the ip which is really easy on windows but I haven't figured out how to do it on my mac since I previously had no need to do so. Much better than the Dlink 614+, if you want to complain about resetting, buy one of those and then go kiss your belkin. 8 months without ever having to reset my belkin!
11 Easy & Fast Setup - No Problems Using
Unlike some of the other reviewers, I have been using this router for almost an entire year & have never had to reset it yet. I also have never updated the software for it - why fix it if it isn't broken.
I have my DSL modem connected to it & my desktop PC (Win98 1st edition) via ethernet and my laptop (WinME) via wireless card.
It took me all of 10 minutes to connect both my laptop and desktop computers. I would and have recommended this wireless router to others.
12 Easy setup! Great with Windows XP
I bought this router in a kit from Dell coupled with 2 USB wireless adapters. I have the router connected to my DSL modem, took me about 30 minutes to complete the installation including going to Belkin's website and downloading the new software right away. Been using it everyday and don't have any problems except the signal runs in the high 50's to low 60's but doesn't slow the speed.
13 Spend a little more and get a better router
I have owned and have friends that own different routers then this one and none are as bad. Two major problems with this router:
1. Wireless range is BAD (I own a cheap router and it has twice the range)
2. Router loves to disconnect from the internet when multiple PC's are accessing the internet at once.
I have the latest firmware which states it addresses the disconnect problem but doesn't. Hopefully they will come out with a new version soon!
14 Easy setup, poor range
I bought this unit after my Linksys wireless router died; I can therefore only compare it to the Linksys.
Setup was EXTREMELY quick and easy. I got it up and running in just a few minutes. The UI of the admin app is very straight forward and I notice is strangely similar to the UI of SMC routers. I find it to be somewhat easier to work with than the Linksys UI.
I am unfortunately not pleased with the transmission range of this router. I placed it in the exact same location that the Linksys had been in. A computer that was getting solid 100% connection strength with the Linksys is now only getting 50% with this unit. Another machine that was getting around 70% on the Linksys would not connect at all to this unit until it was moved to a different location.
This would be an excellent unit were it not for the range problem... Perhaps there's a fix?
15 Good Modem
I purchased this router not too long ago. I thought it was a bargain because I didn't have to run wire all over my house, and it was. Now that I have it all configured, it works great but there seems to be just one MINOR problem. Every now and then, it disconnects itself and I have to press the reset button on the back of the router to get it working. That happens maybe once a day. But besides that, its very fast and you would think it was wired if you didn't know any better. Even though it disconnects, I reccommend it anyway.
16 Simple and Secure
I've had this router for a little over a week and it has truly shined in that time. As others have noted, it set up in a snap. Picked up my computers instantly and did not require that I go into setup. The encryption utility is easy to configure. In my opinion, this is how SOHO routers should perform.
17 Great After Reset
The router itself has excellent features: 3 port 10/100 switch, Wireless Access Point, Port Forewarding, DMZ, etc... I did notice that my ping times were slightly higher when using this as opposed to my single port Linksys Router. Download speeds were the same however. Wireless range is excellent, with perfect connectivity from the downstairs corner room to upstairs on the otherside of the house. I would give this router a 5 if it weren't for a few very pesky problems that make your connection seem more modem-like.
1) There is no connect or disconnect button for PPPoE...you have to start the router and wait on the average about 7 minutes before starting up your computer.
2) The original firmware after being connected for a while would cause "half" the internet to not work...hard to explain...but some sites would work while others just would not. This was fixed by upgrading the firmware but a new problem arose.
3) With the new firmware...instead of half the internet not-working after being connected for some time...the connection would lag when establishing connections to servers...another hard thing to explain but when I would browse to a site it would hang for a while before connecting..after connection was made speeds were normal but occured for everything and made it impossible to game online without a router reset and was very annoying for instant messaging.
4) The router seems to have trouble with DHCP and doesn't assign IP Addresses sometimes...causing system restarts and so forth...with the Linksys I would get the Windows Network Logon dialog everytime but with the Belkin it only came up occasionally
On the whole, the router is decent, with lots of features but some pesky problems. I completely reccomend a Linksys solution over this as so far Linksys has been flawless for me. On a side note, no matter what router you buy, make sure you do not buy a Wireless USB Adapter if you use WinXP or Win2K; they inherently control this connection and it becomes very unstable because of bad Microsoft code. Instead get the PCI card or the adapter + PCMCIA card.
**UPDATE**
Belkin has released yet another firmware upgrade that actually fixes the DHCP problem. The only problem with the router now is that after some times it hangs before connecting(as I stated above in problem #3).
18 Bad PPPoE performance, terrible tech support
This router slowed my PPPoE internet connection down to a crawl, both wirelessly and even when directly plugged into the router. After multiple calls to Belkin tech support (with horrendous hold times) and several firmware upgrades, I finally gave up. Got a Linksys instead, and it works great, no slow-downs or dropped connections.
19 Installation is flat easy
Installed the Belkin Wireless Router to my main computer using a cable as I already had a NIC card and purchased the Belkin Wireless USB Adapter and the Belkin Wireless Notebook card as my plans are to network 3 computers together. Having used a non-wireless Linksys router before and having problems with it, I was a little leery but let me tell you, the installation was a snap, it picked my internet connection up without even having to go into the router's setup. I believe this was in part because my cable provider uses a dynamic address and the router ships with dynamic as the default. If your ISP used a static or PPPoE, you would have to go into setup. Installed the the USB adapter on another desktop and the internet was right there and ready to go. Installed the Notebook card in the laptop and again the internet was ready to go. I have not tried to network them together yet as sharing the internet access was my primary concern at this time and granted, it's only been two days since I installed the components but I am very impressed with the installation and the performance so far.
20 Clean and simple
The router has performed very well during a month of continuous use with Belkin and other wireless adapters and with a standard ethernet card--there is a 10/100Base-T switch. Setup was quick and free of problems.
We have two minor complaints:
1. After a cable modem service interruption, the router may require a reset to restore Internet access to the network. A reset may be accomplished, usually, via a web interface on a connected computer, so it's a small matter. (To be fair, we don't know how often our cable modem goes offline. For every time we have to reset the router, there may be 100 times when the router brings us back up transparently. Or not.)
2. Indoor range is far less than that claimed by the manufacturer. This seems to be true, obviously, for every wireless system. We mention this for completeness.
We are happy with the router and would be surprised to find a unit in the same price range that performs better.
