Belkin F5D6231-4 Wireless Cable/DSL Router

10 Review to this product

• 

  Gokul Donthi
  November 13th, 2010 on 2:39 pm

  Rating

  Earlier had a DLink DI-614+ wireless router. The router and the wireless card worked great. However, the concurrent VPN connections were very very intermittent. I got fed up and finally gave up on this Dlink Router. Bought this new Belkin wireless router and the wireless card which had a great rebate going.

  As advertised, the installation was a breeze. Just followed the instructions and I was online both using the wired and wireless connections. They have very good installation procedure. I guess everyone could do it..

  I didn’t encounter the VPN problem that I encountered with DLINK DI-614+. I didn’t do any setup with this Belkin Router, yet the multiple concurrent VPN connections went thru’ without any hitch. This was great after spending too much time with the DLINK router.

  Great product for a Great Price.
• 

  Corey Smith
  November 14th, 2010 on 8:58 pm

  Rating

  I love my router and feel I need to defend it. I got this thing, unpacked it, stuck it on my DSL modem and it runs…well. No resets, I get excellent signal strength all through my 3 floor brick house, MAC filtering works perfectly (doesn’t block connections, but they are useless) and the encryption is as good as you can get from WEP. The PPoE works great and the DHCP assigns wireless IPs without fail.
  
  I might suggest that some of the people who had problems might try to make sure the thing is sitting away from their computer case, as is instructed in the manual.
  
• 

  Anonymous
  November 15th, 2010 on 3:36 am

  Rating

  I had an older model wireless cable router and it worked great but started acting up after about two years. I had decided to buy another and when I called support to ask a question about compatibility with my wireless cards they tried to resolve my problem. When they couldn’t, they sent me a new model – FREE.

  Try calling support for the other vendors — I did before I decided to buy Belkin. Sure, it is easier to whine and rant given the short warranty of a lot consumer products, but I suggest those that are unhappy take advantage of this unique warranty (which includes 24-hour support).

  BTW: My new wireless Cable/DSL router (this one) works like a champ so far. When it starts giving me problems I’ll just keep calling Belkin support until I get it resolved or they send me a new one. ;^)
• 

  Anonymous
  November 16th, 2010 on 6:52 pm

  Rating

  Wireless router is a must have for laptop users. It provides a range of freedom unparallel to any wired set up. If you go to a university or work for a company that has wireless connection everywhere, you will truly appreciate the convenience of wireless internet. It has revolutionized internet as much as cell phone has revolutionized telecommunications.

  Belkin’s 802.11b router is a good router to have if you are using it for only wireless internet and sharing connection. The installation is very easy for novice users. It’s just a matter of following a bunch of diagrams in the manual to get everything started. If you run into problems, Belkin has an excellent 24/7 free tech support program. I got almost a no-wait response. However, the regular tech support’s knowledge is very rudimentary, knowing less about networking than me. I think they just following a manual of FAQs.

  With that said, I have found some problems with the 802.11b router running more advanced features like De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). Because many programs such as file-sharing programs, video conferencing, etc. require non-standard ports, you’ll need to either forward these ports or DMZ the computer. With the 802.11b, the DMZ feature does not work at all for me. I’ve talked to Belkin’s high level tech support but to no avail. I have to manually forward all the ports that I need to be open, even port 80 for web server. On top of that, the router allows port forwarding for only 20 programs. If you need to forward more than that, you will do some manipulating. You can get around this by forwarding a series of ports, which only takes up one slot in the virtual server feature of the router. Say if one of your program runs on port 1024 and the other one runs on 1030 you can forward 1024-1030. The draw back with this is that it compromises the security of your network. I sometimes change the port of one program so it will run consecutive with a port of another program, so I wouldn’t have a bunch of unnecessary ports opened.

  RATING:
  One star off of ease of use and performance because of the the problems with advance features. Other wise 5 for ease of installation and cost/benefit. Average to 4.5, but since there’s not 4.5 option, I would give it a 5.

  FINAL WORDS:
  All in all, the 802.11b router has an unbeatable value (…)The Tech Support is great. But for more advanced functionalities, it becomes quite a nuance.
• 

  AHMED K. ELARABY
  November 18th, 2010 on 2:15 am

  Rating

  I got this router inspite of all the negative reviews. it is cheap so I won’t lose much. It is true it is 802.11b series not 802.11g so it is theriotically less speed, but who said that 11mb/s is low speed? If ur DSL connection is less than 10MB so u won’t have any problem!
  
  It worked like charm, I just followed the instuctions and within 5 minutes I had both my wired and wireless devices working. MAC address filtering allowed me to restrict access to only my PCs and Laptops – I am in a big building so many others might get the signal if i dont block them.
  
  It worked all over my 100 m2 flat from wall to wall, even in the balcony.
  
  I bet u won’t get cheaper wireless network with such features at that price!
  
  ———
  
  I am editing this review just to say that this item is still working perfectly till now!
• 

  P. Gephardt
  November 18th, 2010 on 7:20 am

  Rating

  Absolutely no problem setting up and using in built up area. No problem with interference from 2.4GHz phone or microwave operated near client’s 802.11b card. Setup was a breeze, 5 min. as advertised, 15 min. total to setup and configure both router and a Netgear card. Security drawback: needs implemented blocking of unknown MAC addresses. Also, turning off broadcast of SSID does not work. This device might is OK if you are not worried about security. For example, in a single family dwelling surrounded by a lot of space (c. 200 feet radius). Not bad for the money.
• 

  Anonymous
  November 18th, 2010 on 4:41 pm

  Rating

  After 25 years in the information technology industry, I’ve come to respect Belkin. Anything they do, they do well.

  This unit is sound and easy to set up.

  It is only 80211b, so it’s 11Mbps, but even a cable modem only intermittently gets above 1Mbps, so for almost everone, it’s plenty. Plus the peripheral cards for the devices you want to use with it are less than the newer 80211g.

  It does currently only support WEP, and Belkin, the last time I asked them, do not have plans to add WPA functionality to this unit, which would provide stronger encryption.
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  JOO
  November 19th, 2010 on 5:18 pm

  Rating

  I second Megabeilin’s motion!!! I too have made the switch from Linksys to Belkin. At first, this was a curiosity to see if there was any difference in 802.11b performance between manufacturers. I was pleasantly surprised with the signal strength of this WAP. The Linksys WAP worked okay with a Linksys PC-Card; however, it was unreliable with my D-Link PC-Card. I no longer have this problem…the signal strength is excellent at all points in my home. The other thing I like about this router is the ease and depth of configurations. I can set my kids Internet access to various limits based on time and date. Neat! The only quip is that the password is null after hard reset and I cannot change the port number for remote administration. Otherwise, this is a great little WAP and should be pretty cheap…lots of rebates and discounts.
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  megabeilin
  November 19th, 2010 on 11:50 pm

  Rating

  I’d been using a Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router with 4-port switch, along with 2 wireless PC Cards for my three-PC home network, running Windows XP. However, we began to experience frequent outages with our cable internet. Not knowing whether the problem was our cable internet connection or the router, I bought a brand new version of the Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router (“Linksys Router II”). But the problem persisted with Linksys Router II, so we called Comcast cable, and they sent out technicians — twice — to check our connection. Well, it wasn’t our cable connection, so I knew it had to be the Linksys router. I went to a local computer store one day, thinking I’d try out the Microsoft wireless router. But while at the store, a Belkin manufacturer rep just happened to be there, and he convinced me to try out the Belkin Wireless 4-Port Router, which he claimed would set up in 3 minutes. The Belkin unit was cheaper and also had a generous rebate being offered at the time, so I decided to get it. I also bought two Belkin USB wireless adapters; these, too, were cheaper than the comparable Microsoft USB adapters.

  The Belkin rep was right: their router and USB adapters set up MUCH more easily under Windows XP than my previous Linksys components ever did. Moreover, the router’s software configuration utility was better, more advanced and easier to use and understand than the Linksys software. Best of all, the Belkin products solved our cable internet outage problem! Now our internet connection not only goes out less frequently, but when it does, I simply reboot the router through Belkin’s software utility which automatically re-configures the router and in less than one minute (it literally counts down the seconds from 0 to 60), the internet is back.

  Yes, it’s hard to believe that the cheaper Belkin product could perform better than Linksys (which is owned by Cisco Systems!), but it does. If you’re looking for a dependable and an easy to install home LAN (and I mean EASY — you don’t have to know anything about networking since both the router and USB adapters configure themselves in Windows XP), save yourself some money and give Belkin a try.
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  Anonymous
  November 20th, 2010 on 6:19 am

  Rating

  I just got this Belkin router yesterday (Model F5D6231-4) and I set it up this morning and it is working great.

  I do have firmware version v2.00.002.

  It took me less than 5 minutes to get the wired portion working. I have two desktop computers and a color laser printer all networked through this router via another hub.

  My Thinkpad comes with a mini-PCI wireless card and it detected the router with no problem. I enabled 128 bit WEP and it is picking up signal nicely. I have a two story house and the router is on the second floor. I have signal throughout the house ranging from 2 – 5 bars. I had no problem using the web in the paces where there is only 2 bars of signal through my 3Mb/256kb line provided by charter.net.

  (…)