D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router

10 Review to this product

• 

  Neil Gandhi
  February 14th, 2007 on 7:46 am

  Rating

  Im sitting on this thing right now. Man oh man…im getting a “very good” signal where my connection used to be dropping…

  I used to have a few problems with WiFi. The first problem was obviously the range…as I said a few moments ago, the DIR-655 fixed that…I mean, even though it claims 6x range, but I was going to be happy with just a 25% improvement…I seriously think that this router increased my range 50-75%!

  I used to always be frustrated with the lack of settings in many routers. Some would have QoS (Quality of Service…something that can prioritize important internet activity like Voice Over IP…internet phone) but it didnt really work. Some would be lacking in semi-advanced routing features…others would barely have any non-novice features at all…This one has plenty of options for the advanced user to have a lot of fun screwing with settings. The most beautiful thing about it though, is that there is a wizard in the interface so that even the most novice of users can set up a great network with strong security. It also has context sensitive online help…what that is, is when you are trying to adjust settings and you dont know what something means, there is a little help button right there that you can click to get an explanation right then and there! Its kinda like the Yin-Yang of routers…

  I want to mention that I have been looking at draft-N routers for a few weeks now and have been reading the reviews. The reason that I am writing this review is that it was so hard for me to find a good review on this router. Cnet doesnt even have an official review (as of 2/13/07) but it does have very positive user comments. From my homework though, (user reviews, and more importantly official reviews from Cnet, engadget, etc) every Draft-N wireless router has some kind of problem. Some dont work well in environments with more than a couple neighboring networks, some dont have good throughput, and some dont have better range. Again, I didn’t want to buy this one because I couldn’t find any solid review on it. After going through a couple of different Draft-N routers, Let me help you out. This is the one.

  BTW…im not running an “N” wireless adapter…this thing even increases the range of “B” and “G” signals. GREAT JOB D-LINK!
• 

  Jeremy Williams
  February 21st, 2007 on 1:42 pm

  Rating

  I agree with the first reviewer in that it is hard to find reviews of this product anywhere online. After reading lukewarm reviews of other draft-n routers, I picked this one up on a whim, hoping for the best. I am extremely pleased. The other D-Link products I own are a mixed bag in terms of level of control in the firmware, with the DGL-4300 being leaps and bounds better than the DI-LB604. Luckily, the DIR-655 firmware is akin to the DGL-4300 in terms of control, features and flexibility. It’s even a little snappier thanks to fewer graphics and has better Firefox compatibility.

  Setup was a breeze (if you know what you’re doing, you don’t need to insert the CD first as instructed by the unit — just toss it) and though I haven’t had it long connectivity has been stable for the past 24 hours. I have yet to try a Skype session, but the “intelligent QoS engine” promises improved call quality. Overall, I’m very satisfied.
• 

  Justin Rossetti
  March 9th, 2007 on 4:49 am

  Rating

  I previously had a Linksys WRT54G and was moderately satisfied with it until it started exhibiting signs of ‘cheapness’, like general flakiness, inability to load the web management (it’d load a blank screen), etc. After getting frustrated enough, and desiring a router with gigabit ports, I started searching, until I came across the DIR-655.

  The first best part (and there’s more than one) of this router was unpacking it. Honestly, it’s the sexiest networking device I’ve seen in a long while. There’s a button hiding stealthily on the right side, if you take note, but no mention is made of it in the manual. Also included in the package is a little black plastic stand, so you can stand the router on end – that’s pretty standard for D-Link, and I like that. They threw in a Cat-5 cable, was that a joke? What am I going to do with a Cat-5 cable on a gigabit router? That’s very amusing.

  I elected not to run the software included on the CD. There’s no real need if you know what you’re doing. However, for more advanced users I’d recommend connecting the router to your computer, but NOT connecting to your internet connection (cable modem), and just spending a few minutes familiarizing yourself with your new sweet toy and all of her options.

  Now for the good stuff: This router is amazing! The main ‘Setup’ page is basically divided into 2 parts for each section, a ‘wizard’ for quick-and-easy setup, and a ‘manual’ page. Basically, if you’re a beginner, stick to the wizard pages. If you wanna get up and running fast, go through the wizards, you can always go back later and manually tweak the settings to your liking.

  Connectivity is top level. I tested it by transferring 25 GB of large files then 25GB of small files between two hosts connected to this router, both using 10 feet of cat6 each. 100% success, no packets lost, no fragmentation, and the transfer was about 4% faster than the same transfer straight through on an unmanaged gigabit switch. Internet connectivity was great too. Thanks to the built-in SPI firewall, all the ‘network noise’ (thanks to all the other ‘dirty’ hosts on comcast’s network) is effectively eliminated, and honestly speeds up my internet activity significantly over what I’m used to when using the WRT54G. Checking the logs revealed the dirty details of all this crap that’s filtered out, and I like it gone.

  Wireless-N connectivity was also good. Not much can be said here, it works like it should, and I have no complaints.

  Administration is also very nice. As usual, the router is administered via browser, and while that’s cool, I’d also like to be able to ssh into it and take care of business via CLI, but alas that is not to be. But otherwise, the web management is well designed, fast and easy to understand. This router also checks periodically for firmware updates and notifies you via email if you have the email settings enabled.

  Other items of note: VoIP works flawlessly, as does all online gaming that I tried. Latency is noticeably reduced (on my favorite server, from about 80ms to about 60ms avg) in Half-Life 2 deathmatch. torrents worked fine. So far I have no real complaints about this router. It’s now my most favorite part of my network.

  Overall, I give this 5/5. Honestly, I’d easily say it’s worth the price I paid for it (at the time it was $140), and for my network it is a perfect match. If you’re a ‘normal’ computer user, don’t buy this just to impress your friends; the features and complexity would be lost on you and are not worth the price.

  PROS:
  
  -DHCP Address Reservation
  
  -Easy administration
  
  -Quick Setup
  
  -Email logs
  
  -Incredibly easy port forwarding and per-application settings
  
  -SPI + NAT + WPA2. Nuff said.
  
  -Great documentation and help files.
  
  -Port forwarding scheduling.

  CONS:
  
  -No SSH or CLI administration.
  
  -Reboot required after changing most settings.
  
  -No matching high quality D-Link cable modem to go with this.

  Congratulations, D-Link, on crafting yet another incredible piece of networking equipment. The DIR-655 is worthy enough to sit on my desk, instead of crammed behind it like the Linksys was!
• 

  L. Arthur
  May 2nd, 2007 on 8:48 am

  Rating

  Wow! I used a Linksys RT31P2 for the last year or so. It was a piece of junk!! Would slow down, get constipated, and finally died. Since we are Mac family (I have been an IT consultant too long to stay PC) I used the Airport Extreme (802.11g) for a while also. It was reliable.

  BUT WHEN I PLUGGED IN THIS D-LINK ROUTER, I realized that all my previous routers had been huge bottlenecks. Over the Airport, my upload speed on Comcast cable modem increased from 4Mbps to 20Mbps. Wow. Didn’t even realize Comcast had opened up that much bandwidth. [...]
  
  So in my house we have a wired Mac, wireless Mac, wireless TiVo, Vonage adapter, Airport printserver, Airport iTunes, and they all work fine. I am currently using 802.11g and WPA2 since I don’t own any 802.11n stuff yet. Signal strength for 802.11g has doubled on the fringe areas from 30% on my Tivo adapter to 60%.

  I bought the D-Link vonage ATA adapter and plugged into one of the ports. I was concerned my phone calls would get choppy since the ATA is behind the router. HOWEVER, THE D-LINK ROUTER HAS SOME VERY GOOD QoS FEATURES AND USING THE AUTOMATIC SETTINGS, THE VONAGE CALLS ARE NOT CHOPPY AND EVERYTHING WORKS FINE.

  Build Quality: This router is built a lot more solid than many other routers I have seen, especially the Linksys P.O.S. I just placed in the trash can (best place for it really).

  Summary: Gigabit switch is awesome. Router can do SPI and even some deep packet inspection such as H.323 (Netmeeting) compatibility and QOS stuff while maintaining lots of speed. It is VoIP aware and supports SIP and QOS is tuned for VOIP. It works great in a Mac environment and I’m sure would in a PC environemtn also. VERY extensive router setup settings for the home user including INCOMING filters, flexible DHCP server with ability to reserve IP addresses for specific MAC addresses (nice). Will email you the log files, and automatically checks D-Link’s website for firmware updates. Overall an awesome router for the money.
• 

  R. Fishman
  June 14th, 2007 on 8:01 am

  Rating

  Having tried the Linksys WRT350N and Netgear WNR854T – two competing gigabit etherner/Draft-N routers – I can truly say that the DIR-655 is by far the most reliable, solid device, that performs as advertised IMHO. It just worked for me. I miss the promise of USB Disk connectivity from the Linksys, but it never worked properly anyway (huge reliability issues). Plus the D-Link has a fantastic adaptive QoS implementation, ensuring my VoIP device works with almost no configuration. To be fair, the Netgear device had worked fine but died almost exactly 1 year after purchase, with Netgear refusing to help (it was pretty much cheaper to buy a new router) – poor reliability from the Netgear product!

  Highly recommended compared with Draft-N routers from the competition.
• 

  C. Kohnen
  June 21st, 2007 on 2:06 pm

  Rating

  Extremely impressed with this router’s speed, range, and ease of use. My only complaint (like others) is with the software bundled with this item. It’s already out of date, right out of the package, and upon installation, it will prompt you to “update to the new version, free”, and that’s fine, but what happens is the new version of the software is not compatible with the firmware preinstalled on the router. This fatal combination prevents the router from functioning. You will have to download a firmware update from the Manufacturer to get the unit working again. Not a difficult task, however technical support at D-link doesn’t seem to know anything about the software that comes with their product, so I ended up speaking to the technical support team at the software company, who immediately knew what was wrong. Kind of a letdown for this scenario to occur right out of the box. Fortunately, it was easy to do, and the router returned to life, immediately.
• 

  S. B. Colby
  July 1st, 2007 on 10:05 pm

  Rating

  I ordered this because my old router was dying. I have an older Tivo, which runs only 802.11B and a Ninetndo Wii (802.11G) in addition to two standard PC wireless connections (and a couple of wired ones). I had to dial back the wireless security in order to bring my Tivo along, which locked the router into only B/G function, but the signal strength is great and there have been no “legacy” issues at all. Color me quite happy.
• 

  Robert Salita
  October 12th, 2007 on 3:22 pm

  Rating

  Very satisfied. Smaller than expected. Fast enough to play HD-DVDs wirelessly to my notebook (Dell Inspiron E1505, 802.11BGN, 945GM, Core Duo (2) 2GHz, Vista Premium, Arcsoft Digital Theater, D-Link DNS-323 NAS). Great speed and coverage. 120 to 240 volts. Also handles HDTV perfectly via HDHomeRun device.

  Don’t forget to upgrade firmware.

  Update 11-Nov-2007: This router may be my biggest gadget surprise this year. It continues to perform better than expected, completely solving all past wireless issues and handling all tasks such as streaming HD-DVD.
• 

  critical_g
  November 6th, 2007 on 11:32 pm

  Rating

  I first bought the Netgear RangeMax NEXT. Waste of money. I was getting 50% signal strength on my laptop from 10 feet away, with no intervening walls. With the D-Link, I get 99% signal under the same test.

  I have the router in an upstairs room, with several desktops in another upstairs room – plus a laptop, Xbox 360, and Wii connecting from downstairs. All get great signal strength. It never drops below 45%, and is enough to maintain a 54Mbps data rate using 802.11g cards. It’s all about the signal strength, and the D-Link delivers.

  One slight downside is the admin console. It’s fine for basic tasks, but things like assigning hostnames to MAC addresses could be more intuitive. I used to do this with a Linksys router, but with the D-Link the best I could manage was to assign fixed IP addresses to MAC addresses, and hostnames to the IP addresses. Still gets the job done, just not as cleanly.

  I highly recommend this product. Don’t buy any other wireless router.
• 

  Mike Won
  January 21st, 2008 on 10:20 am

  Rating

  It was high time to get network speeds up to Gigabit levels, and the need for speed fed my willingness to risk going with draft-level, pre-standard 802.11n tech. With two desktops and two laptops on a home-biz and home network, routing was critical. Age and traffic-level burned out my last, wired router from the L-word company. Two teenage daughters tortured the replacement wireless WRT-350N Linksys WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link to death with incessant instant-messaging. To keep that router UP required thrice-daily re-starts. Tweaks inspired by the manual, FAQs and Forum did not definitively fix it. When two generations of firmware upgrades did not help, it became evident I needed another, real solution. TA-DA! In walks the D-Link DIR-655 D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router . BAM! It sets up in a trice, works right out of the box. It’s working! Log-in to the router web interface and dig in for a few minutes. Create a secure password. Want security? ZOOM! Use the wizard to set-up respected WPA2. Clone a MAC Address? Push a radio-button. Apple user? No problem, since all of the setup wizards are resident on the router, and use the same web interface, it works the same across platforms. I was tempted by the Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A , in fact, I run an older version with NO PROBLEMS. But the D-Link DIR-655 had four 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) W/LAN ports and cost less besides. It’s performance ranked first among six n-draft routers, did great in mixed (b, g and n) environments and only fell to the middle of the pack over long ranges (according to reviews at C-NET and elsewhere). Users gave it high marks for satisfaction. (Users gave my L-word router the finger). So, this li’l white router the size of a paperback book, with its three antennas and blinking baby blues is so reliable and cute, I could just kiss it. And, kiss that L-word router good-bye.