It's time for getting a new router, which one is the best choice?

[RamGuy]

So the time has come.. It's time to purchase a new router as my D-Link DGL-4500 just died and as I was so stupid to buy it from the US (as it's only sold in the US) and I myself live in Norway D-Link isn't really caring much about what ever problems I might have as I don't live in the same country as the router was bought

It all started with crappy wireless range, then the entire wireless got defected with this "wifi init failed" message, and now I suddenly are not able to update or revert back the firmware, not able to change any of the settings or anything WHATSOEVER. So now finally I've declared it dead once and for all!


The DGL-4500 was my first D-Link router, to be honest we have only gotten ourselves two routers up in the years, it was our old Linksys WRT54Gv5 and now this DGL-4500.

Let me start with my feeling around the DGL-4500, we it seems that it might have been somewhat "defective" from the start, so that might have been the reason for all my troubles. But the fact that the wireless range seemed that poor as it did, it actually didn't even cover 75% of the range our old WRT54Gv5 managed to? That was really disappointing to say the least, but as the entire wireless radio fracked it self after a while perhaps it didn't really work as it should from the start? But when reading on D-Link Technical forum etc.. It seems like a lot of people are complaining about the DIR-655, DGL-4500 and the DIR-855 having somewhat disappointing radius on the wireless?

I also had a lot of overheating issues, and even one from D-Links technical crew Mr. "Lycan" admitted that the DGL-4500 don't really have proper cooling when you think of what's inside of that small box. And that says a lot, doesn't it? And this overheating causes a lot of problems when the router gets stressed by multiply people being connected at once, P2P and torrent download etc.. So it really doesn't help much with a good CPU and the router itself being able to handle lots of connections at once etc.. if it turns out to drop the WAN-connection every time it's being a little stressed because of overheating!


But those are just technical issues, perhaps a A2 or A3 version of the router would have solved a lot, just the fact of having a not defective router might have changed quite a lot!

But there is one thing I didn't really like about the D-Link routers, and that's the UbiCom firmware. It seems to be quite a lot issues with them to begin with, so fresh routers need a lot of time before they get decent firmwares. Also it seems impossible to make the router NOT blocking stuff from specific IP-addresses? Which really is a pain in the butt for me! I tried with opening EVER SINGLE port to my static-IP, I tried DMZ-hosting it etc.. Tried basicly everything I could, still the router kept on blocking things, and that got really annoying!


That really makes me miss the support of awesome third-party firmwares like DD-WRT, Tomate, OpenWRT etc.. All letting me configure my router the exact way I want it to be!



But sadly all the technical best routers / the best specced routers on the marked does not have support for third-party firmwares, which really is a real shame if you ask me! If you think of the hardware, the best routers on the marked currently is the DGL-4500 and the DIR-855? And they are bound to the ubicom firmwares which is somewhat a drawback / downside in my opinion.


So then I got this little dilemma, should I go for the router seeming to be the most stable and fastest one in the DIR-855, or go for what seems to be the best one which supports DD-WRT and other third-party firmwares, the Linksys WRT610N or the WRT350N?

The question is, what is the best choice between the raw hardware power of the D-Link DIR-855 and the awesome possibility of great third-party firmwares combined with the hardware of the Linksys WRT610N or WRT350N?

 

[thiggins]

I don't know what your problem was with IP address blocking. I have never experienced it in my 1+ year use of the DGL-4300.

The Ubicom routing engine is about the fastest and solidest one currently in the market and supports the most simultaneous sessions.

Atheros seems to be winning market share in draft 11n chipsets.

But don't go for the DIR-855, since I believe that it will be replaced by the DIR-825. Unless you need 5GHz support, get the DIR-655.

 

[RamGuy]

Are you saying that the DIR-825 is going to be better / the same as the DIR-855 when it comes to performance?

 

[thiggins]

I expect the 825 to be similar in performance and will be a higher seller. The 855 has had a troubled past and, in my opinion, an uncertain future.

 

[glitchbit]

RamGuy, your assessment would be correct, Ubicom routers are technically superior due to hardware but they ultimately fail.

I have worked extensively with resolving problems with two Ubicom routers (DLink,Trendnet) before coming to the conclusion that it is likely that most if not all Ubicom routers are built with defects. Those defects are both hardware and software.

The biggest issue is that after months of use heat causes the ubicom processors to fail by generating errors, I have verified this by mounting a heatsink on one of them and that resolved a big part of it going down on me.

The other issue however is how it deals with packets, these routers do not stream well at all. Ultimately I will never buy another Ubicom router again, for now on I will only purchase dd-wrt compatible routers.

I will also note that I flashed all sorts of firmware updates on both of these routers, even some beta firmwares from the companies and it seemed like they broke more things than they fixed and sometimes nothing was fixed at all.