D-Link DI-524 Wireless 54 Mbps High Speed Router (802.11g)

It can be laid flat on the desk, or propped up on end vertically using the little rubber feet that are supplied. There are 4 ethernet ports that allow you to connect via 10/100 Ethernet and the WAN port to connect to cable, DSL or LAN. The antenna is on a swivel and can be rotated to just about any convenient orientation.

The only thing I don't like about the router is that it doesn't have an internal clock, so every time it is powered off the router's system time goes back to it's default start value. It can be configured to set the time from an NTP server, but only if it's connected to a WAN network (via DSL, cable or LAN). It's only a minor inconvenience though. The other thing is that the router's web interface only seems to work properly if you use IE. Using Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox sort of works for most things, but not everything.


Does the job   June 2, 2005
N. Caine (Los Angeles, CA)
40 out of 44 found this review helpful

I've recently had the opportunity to set up two wireless networks for my friend's and now my home, all on WinXP systems. For my friend, I picked up a Buffalo Airstation on advice of the head of the tech department (not the floor salesguy) at a computer retailer, and it installed flawlessly in minutes, including a firewall, valuable 128-bit WEP security, plus --what is even more important to me to prevent hacking-- MAC filtering. For my own home, I went with a sale and got the Hawking 54M wireless G, and I couldn't get it to work. Even with tweaking (I've been doing non-networking IT for fifteen years), I couldn't get the router to connect with my ISP through my DSL connection. I went out and bought a D-Link (also 54M wireless G) on heavy discount at a different retailer, and like the Buffalo, it went up and running right away, and I easily set up the firewall, 128 bit WEP, and MAC filtering. [MAC filtering, for those of you who don't know, allows you to specify exactly which machines are allowed to connect to the router, and all other ones are shut out. This keeps the neighbors and others from hacking into your network, since WEP passwords aren't foolproof.] I like the D-Link.


Great and Small Router! And a tip for those with WAN issues.   May 10, 2004
Jack Szwergold (Brooklyn, NY United States)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful

I purchased this router to replace my D-Link DI-614+ and it works great! The first thing I noticed immediately out of the box was the size. The DI-524 is VERY small. About 1/3rd the size of the DI-614+. But it still has all of the same great features. Antenna signal strength is stronger and I am very pleased with this unit.

And here's a quick note regarding the problems some people seem to have connecting this device to the Internet via their Cable or DSL modem. It seems that the WAN port is configured out of the box to be locked in at 100 Mbps. This is where the problem comes from. The vast majority of Cable and DSL modems out there operate at 10Mbps per second only. Uh-oh! Bad move D-Link! Because if you plug the router into the modem out of the box and you have a 10Mbps modem you won't be able to connect the devices and you won't be able to go online. Very dumb move D-Link. I bet tons of routers have been returned for service just because of this simple and fixable issue.

This is easily corrected by logging into the router and going to the "Tools" menu and then choosing "Misc". Scroll to the middle of the page and find "WAN select to 10/100 Mbps" and select 10Mbps and click APPLY. Once the router reboots, your router and Cable or DSL modem will be working happily together and all is good. But there really is no reason that this device should be shipping with 100Mbps switched on by default. I hope that future firmware revisions will correct this issue so more novice users can easily setup this great router without issue.

Otherwise, a very good purchase and very good piece of equipment for anyone who is looking for an affordable and reliable WiFi router. Highly recommended.


Unreliable, problematic, poor support, buggy firmware   February 14, 2006
booshleeg
25 out of 29 found this review helpful

I bought the DI-524 (Rev A2) after my trusty Linksys WRT54G v1.0 croaked. At first, everything appeared to work well with DI-524. Web browsing and small file transfers on the wireless intranet seemed to go without a hitch.

But once I started doing some heavy file transfers and run some bandwidth intensive applications, the problems arose. I noticed repeated DHCP Requests in the log (approximately every 2-5 minutes), dropped packets, DNS resolution failures, slow transfer speeds, and consistent problems with wireless connections. According to the log, the router would also reboot itself almost every day (the log would automatically clear itself whenever the router reboots).

I would consider myself much more tech-savvy than the average person, and I tried all kinds of settings with this router to make it perform better. To no avail, it simply did not work as well as my now dead 3 year old WRT54G.

Based on my experience, if you get this router...

- Forget running any kind of P2P application (azureus, utorrent, bitcoment, emule, limewire, etc.). The issue is not related to firewalls, uPnP, or any other router setting you would typically configure to ensure an optimal P2P transfer. Because of the router's inability to maintain a stable connection (whether PC to router or router to ISP), any kind of P2P activity will be negatively affected, period.

- Forget transferring any kind of large file (600MB+) between 2 wireless clients or even between a wireless and a wired client.

Here are some 802.11g file transfer scenarios I've tried:
Between a PC running Windows XP SP2 and a Mac with OS X 10.3.9 via Samba.
Between two PC's running Win XP via Windows file sharing.
Between a Mac with OS X 10.3.9 and another Mac with OS X 10.4.3 Server via AFP

None work consistently well. About half the time, the file transfer would be interrupted and fail, or it would look like the file was still being transferred, but nothing was actually coming through. Occasionally Windows Explorer or Mac's Finder would lock up due to the router's poor communication with clients.

- Forget about mixed wireless environments where you have both 802.11b and 802.11g devices. Max transfer speeds between a "b" and a "g" device were less than 100kbps.

- Forget about using any web browser except Internet Explorer or Opera to configure the router. There is a Javascript bug on the wireless configuration page that renders the "Apply settings" link useless in browsers like Firefox or Safari. This bug exists in firmware version 1.20 and 1.21 (the two latest). When I raised this issue with D-Link support, their official response was "Downgrade to firmware v1.11 if you need compatibility with Firefox" I kid you not, folks.

- Forget connecting any kind of networkable printer to the router's ethernet port. Due to the many reboots or some other unknown reason, print jobs to my networked printer would not spool to the printer sometimes, even though the printer was visible on the network (via Rendezvous/Bonjour).

I did email D-Link support a few times raising the issues I mentioned above. Their answers never really addressed the issue, or the solution they provided was not acceptable (see "downgrade firmware").

After 3 months of tinkering I finally gave up on the D-Link and bought a Linksys WRT54G v5.0, even though I had major reservations due to all the negative comments about the v5. My worries, however, were put to rest after the first couple hours of use. Every problem with the DI-524 I mentioned above does not exist with the Linksys WRT54G v5. Comparing the two routers is like night and day - the difference is astonishing.

I've used the WRT54G for about a week now in the same environment, and so far not a single hiccup even under heavy bandwidth duress. For all intents and purposes the WRT54G v5 works as well as my v1 did, if not better.

So my "professional" geek recommendation based on the 3 months I lived with the DI-524 is to avoid it at all costs, even if you are just a basic web surfer and don't plan on doing any heavy file transfers. Don't be fooled by the low price after rebate or its compact size compared to other routers. This is not a quality product and your internet experience will suffer for it.


Bad product, do not try   March 15, 2005
Y. Wu (Dallas, TX)
18 out of 22 found this review helpful

[...]

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.