January 23, 2005

Duh-Link
   by slac

Well, I did it. After a year and a half of swearing, pulling my hair out and just gazing at little green blinking lights... I removed my D-Link 624 Wireless Router from our home network. I have never seen such bad software management or quality from any tech product. (Well, except maybe for my Creative Jukebox mp3 player which caught fire.)

The problems with the D-Link were endless. The DHCP server would not give out IP Addresses, and when it did, it would take forever. The "Save Settings to Hard Drive" would work, but the Load Settings would never work. D-Link would release new firmware, only to remove it, and then release it again. New software would not have a new version number, while re-released old firmware would get a new number.

The same product came in many different versions. A, A2, B, B2 and C... all very different with different firmwares. Why not call the box something else? The super G (short for gizmo?!) 108 Mbps never worked with their super G wifi card. Fast ethernet file transfers would always top off at 30 mbps, taking for ever to transfer my DV files to my server. Three to four times a day it would reboot with no explanation, making me lose my connection (i.e. not good for e-meetings or for streaming wifi music during parties) and then have to wait to get that ever-so-precious IP Number. The AC / DC adapter died, meaning I had to go to a tech shop and buy a new one. Last weeks firmware update made the DHCP server behave a lot better, but then the firewall slowed to a crawl. This means that it would take forever for people to reach my web server...

Pfft! To Duh-Links crappy products. Never again.

PS. I went over to a Linksys now. So far so good. A lot faster, and no reboots after 12 hours... a new record!

Published: January 23, 2005
Editor: stacy