D-Link's DIR-655 Draft N Router: This Thing Rocks

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/DIR-655.jpg

This isn't a "real" review, more of a personal recommendation: over the past two years, I've had two different 802.11g wireless routers (Linksys and D-Link) and two different pre-802.11n wireless routers (Belkin and Netgear). For one reason or another, I've swapped them all out: slow performance, random lockups, poor wireless signal, etc. I swore I wasn't going to try another 802.11n router until the hardware was 100% final and they were no longer "pre" or "draft" spec routers, but when I got fed up with my Linksys router a few days ago I decided to pick up a D-Link DIR-655 (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=530&sec=1). Best damn wireless router I've ever used - the admin tools are awesome, the performance is excellent, and so far it's been 100% stable, even when I've been testing with multiple torrent downloads. Oh, and I'm now linked up at gigabit speeds from point to point in my network. Excellent. D-Link really nailed it with this router!

[Dyvim]

I'm curious what problems you had with the Belkin pre-N router? I've been extremely pleased with mine. The admin tools are a little clunky, but then again usually you only need to set it up once and then only tweak it occasionally.

[Doug Johnson]

I also have this router, but I don't like it at all!

It slows to an absolute crawl whenever my brother (who lives with me) pulls up an bittorrent client (and I can't get him to quit), so I have quit using the router portion of it completely, going back to my D-Link DI-604 (which handles P2P just fabulously).

I also haven't been able to use the N wireless functionality of it at all. I bought a Dell Inspiron E1705 in March, with an Intel 4965AGN wireless card, and one of the two isn't compatible with the other... they just won't connect with any sort of encryption enabled. I don't know whether it is the fault of the router or the wireless card, but the combination just won't work together. And it keeps getting worse. With the shipping firmware for the router and the original wireless driver for my laptop, they would occasionally connect (but would eventually quit talking), but with the latest firmware upgrade for the router they won't connect at all. Very, very disappointing. And half the time when I was able to get the two to connect my laptop wasn't able to get a Default Gateway address from my DHCP server, so it wasn't able to connect to the Internet.

The only reason I haven't gotten rid of it is that I'm hoping that a future firware update will fix the problems I've had with it. I know it gets good reviews online, but so far I haven't been able to benefit from any of the features it promises. I wish I had bought something else.

[Tim Williamson]

I'm going to be needing a new router in about a month, so I'm open to any recommendations I can get from you guys. Planning on having a gigabit backbone, so it will need to support gigabit speeds.

A tip to bittorrent users, check out the latest version of Azureus (2.5 or 3) both have a feature that will automatically adjust your max upload speed based on a ping time threshold. Seems to work great!

Are there any routers that support QOS where it will give priority to gaming/streaming music/streaming video over bittorrent traffic?

[RichL]

I've got the draft-n Linksys router you mention and I agree that it's terrible. It was so flaky that I went back to using my old 802.11g router.

I've also got the matching Linksys draft-n PCI card and it's just as awful. There are no 64-bit drivers for it and even on the 32-bit version of Windows I can't maintain a signal for more than a minute. My old card has a broken aerial and it's far more reliable!

Linksys have gone totally downhill since Cisco bought them. All of their support has been outsourced to India and getting competent technical support for their products is now impossible.

I think I'll wait a while before testing the 802.11n waters again.

[Doug Johnson]

Just an update to my earlier posting...

I spent several more hours with my DIR-655 and I think I've got it working well enough to actually maybe use it. Though there is still some weirdness with it.

It keeps sending broadcast traffic from 192.168.3.1, which is not an IP that it is assigned to, and I can't figure that one out. And some of its broadcasts were causing another access point on my network to disconnect all of its clients a few seconds after connecting, and my laser printer to quit talking to the network at all. But I isolated the WAN side of the router on its own VLAN with my Internet connection and the other public IP addresses on my network (I'm running a Layer 2 managed switch with VLAN capability) and that seems to have taken care of the issues of the access points dropping clients and the printer losing its network connection, at least for now. It's still broadcasting traffic on a strange IP though, and doing it quite heavily - sometimes as much as a few hundred packets per second. I also was having an issue where the router would flood my network with broadcast traffic, so much so that it would completely bringing the whole network to its knees, but that seems to have disappeared after isolating the WAN side on the VLAN as well.

I assigned the ports used by Bittorrent to QoS level of 255, so everything else is higher priority, and that helps, but it still seems quite slow whenever there is a Bittorrent client running anywhere on the network presumably due to the large (>400 for each BT client) number of connections established at any given time. I wish the firewall on this router could actually figure out what is legitimately Bittorrent traffic (using SPI) but I have to rely on filtering by port number and hope that the BT clients on my network use ports in that range.

It turns out the issue with the disappearing Default Gateway may be a Windows Vista issue, as Microsoft has released a patch, and it seems to be working.

So after all is said and done it looks like I've got mine working now, even though there is still some weirdness about it. For the average user it might be fine.

[Jason Dunn]

I'm curious what problems you had with the Belkin pre-N router?

If memory serves, it would just randomly crap out and stop working. I'd have to pull the plug and restart everything.

[Jason Dunn]

It slows to an absolute crawl whenever my brother (who lives with me) pulls up an bittorrent client (and I can't get him to quit), so I have quit using the router portion of it completely, going back to my D-Link DI-604 (which handles P2P just fabulously).

How many torrents is he trying to download at once? I've tested with up to eight torrents and that seems to be when the DIR-655 starts to fall apart a bit. But it can handle around four without slowing things down on the network. Other routers positively WILT under the pressure...I'm honestly shocked that the old DI-604 has no problems...!?

One way to optimize using the router with torrents is to configure it to re-direct all traffic on a specific port to that specific computer.

[Jason Dunn]

Are there any routers that support QOS where it will give priority to gaming/streaming music/streaming video over bittorrent traffic?

The DIR-655 has a crapload of QOS settings and options...

[Jason Dunn]

It keeps sending broadcast traffic from 192.168.3.1, which is not an IP that it is assigned to, and I can't figure that one out.

Hrm. That's indeed quite bizarre - I don't understand enough about networking to really grasp why that would happen. How does one check for such a thing? Netstat? Have you tried calling D-Link tech support about this issue?

I assigned the ports used by Bittorrent to QoS level of 255, so everything else is higher priority, and that helps, but it still seems quite slow whenever there is a Bittorrent client running anywhere on the network presumably due to the large (>400 for each BT client) number of connections established at any given time...I have to rely on filtering by port number and hope that the BT clients on my network use ports in that range.

Perhaps this is a silly question, but exactly how many BT clients could/would be running on your network at a given time? Are you providing Internet access to a whole neighbourhood or something? ;-) I honestly think the key is to ensure that the Bittorent client isn't set to be stupid and try to pull down 10 files at a time.

[Tim Williamson]

The problem with Bittorrent seems to be more with most people's connections slow upload bandwidth. I've regularly pulled down 6 or 7 files using a total of around 700 kb/s, and the rest of my internet is fine as long as I limit upload bandwidth. I'm currently using a D-Link DI-614+.

[Don Tolson]

Just an update to my earlier posting...



I assigned the ports used by Bittorrent to QoS level of 255, so everything else is higher priority, and that helps, but it still seems quite slow whenever there is a Bittorrent client running anywhere on the network presumably due to the large (>400 for each BT client) number of connections established at any given time. I wish the firewall on this router could actually figure out what is legitimately Bittorrent traffic (using SPI) but I have to rely on filtering by port number and hope that the BT clients on my network use ports in that range.


I have the 655 and had the same problems with my nephew and microTorrent. It was opening hundreds of sessions and brought the entire house network down to a crawl. He didn't even know he was doing it -- which is why he's getting his own internet connection when he returns in Sept.

As for the rest of us, the 655 has been very stable and consistent. Very easy to connect up to and throughput has been very high.

[Tim Williamson]

Just went to the D-Link site for the DIR-655, and on the right there's a link for "Emulator" that allows you to navigate through the router settings, neat stuff.

[Jason Dunn]

I have the 655 and had the same problems with my nephew and microTorrent.

It's funny, the concept of bittorent is amazing - it's a technical marvel - but it's stunningly hostile to most routers...you'd think the software designers making clients would have thought a LITTLE about that... :roll:

[Don Tolson]

The problem with Bittorrent seems to be more with most people's connections slow upload bandwidth. I've regularly pulled down 6 or 7 files using a total of around 700 kb/s, and the rest of my internet is fine as long as I limit upload bandwidth. I'm currently using a D-Link DI-614+.

Sounds like a good plan, how do I do that on D-Link routers?

Thanks.

[Tim Williamson]

Sounds like a good plan, how do I do that on D-Link routers?

Thanks.

I use Azureus as my bittorrent client and it allows you to set the max upload/download speeds. I think most BT clients allow this.

[Don Tolson]

I use Azureus as my bittorrent client and it allows you to set the max upload/download speeds. I think most BT clients allow this.

Ah, I thought this was something I could control from the router. Right, well then I'll stick with my original plan and nephew can get his own internet connection. :!:

[Jason Dunn]

Ah, I thought this was something I could control from the router. Right, well then I'll stick with my original plan and nephew can get his own internet connection. :!:

Haha. Probably the best idea of all. ;-)

[casinova]

I have a modded wrt54gs (actually have two). I run dd-wrt. Its amazing how stable it is. I NEVER reboot or administrate it. I download atleast 4 torrents a day and I have had 8+ downloading on occasion. The router and wireless still work like a champ. One trick with bittorrent is that you want to make sure you don't allow the client to max out your upload bandwidth. If you keep a little upload bandwidth for browsing, you won't notice any delays in surfing the web. I have modded one for my dad and friends. Again, no complaints. If you aren't aware, it runs a linux kernel. dd-wrt has a great web interface for it with lots of packages to extend its usefulness.

If you want range, turn up the milliwatts with the dd-wrt firmware. If you want more range, get a 9dbi antenna. Its works great for me.

I know someone will mention gigabit. My house is gigabit and I just chain it off my gigabit router. Oh I guess I should mention in this situation that I have another wrt54gs as my firewall/router (no wifi) connected to my cable modem. Again because of its flexibility (snort, kai) and stability.