D-Link DGL-4300 "Gaming" Router.

[ShaunO]

Anyone have one of these? Looks real nice. If I can't get a good deal here I'll import one from the USA.

What do you guys think?

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370&#DGL-4300

There's a good review here:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/d-link_dgl-4300/

Newegg has over 500 reviews 8o

http://newegg.com/Product/Product.a...N82E16833127158

They are quite pricey though..

This is for a house with 2 wireless laptops and 3 wireless PC's, with people who like to browse the web and download all the time. And I get really ****ed off if I'm playing a game and have above average ping or get a single lag spike or even worse, disconnect >:[ I guess I gotta pay for that but I also may need to go for a different antenna too because I want the wireless to be reliable throughout the whole house and the router will be going in the rafters above the ceiling/below the roof, any experiences?

Cheers.

 

[KenAF2]

Better to get the DIR-655, which is an updated version of that router with a faster CPU and gigabit switch. Did I mention it had better wireless range as well? It is $99 shipped at Frys.com.

 

[JackBurton]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: KenAF2
Better to get the DIR-655, which is an updated version of that router with a faster CPU and gigabit switch. Did I mention it had better wireless range as well? It is $99 shipped at Frys.com.</end quote></div>
Yep I LOVE my 4300, but I bought mine before the 655 was released. If I needed to buy a wireless router now, I'd get the 655, no doubt about it.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: KenAF2
Better to get the DIR-655, which is an updated version of that router with a faster CPU and gigabit switch. Did I mention it had better wireless range as well? It is $99 shipped at Frys.com.

Agree that the DIR-655 is probably a better buy now. But I doubt the "faster gigabit switch" part -- I've demonstrated somewhere around 950 Mb/s through the DGL-4300's switch here; there's really not much room for improvement.

I could be wrong, and there might be specific circumstances under which the DIR-655's switch would give better performance. I'd love to see this concretely demonstrated.

 

[JackBurton]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Madwand1
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: KenAF2
Better to get the DIR-655, which is an updated version of that router with a faster CPU and gigabit switch. Did I mention it had better wireless range as well? It is $99 shipped at Frys.com.</end quote></div>

Agree that the DIR-655 is probably a better buy now. But I doubt the "faster gigabit switch" part -- I've demonstrated somewhere around 950 Mb/s through the DGL-4300's switch here; there's really not much room for improvement.

I could be wrong, and there might be specific circumstances under which the DIR-655's switch would give better performance. I'd love to see this concretely demonstrated.</end quote></div>

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Yep, my main reason for getting the 655 over the 4300 would be for the greater wireless bandwidth (802.11g vs 802.11n). What's kind of weak though is neither the 4300 or the 655 support jumbo frames. I thought D-Link would add that feature in the 655, but I guess not.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have the non wireless version of that router with the gigabit switch. I can't say anything about the gigabit as most of my network is still 100 as I have yet to find a gigabit nic that works in Linux and most my servers are Linux. But the router itself I have yet to get any issues with. My linksys use to always randomly lock up, I have yet to get that issue with the dlink.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
I have the non wireless version of that router with the gigabit switch. I can't say anything about the gigabit as most of my network is still 100 as I have yet to find a gigabit nic that works in Linux and most my servers are Linux. But the router itself I have yet to get any issues with. My linksys use to always randomly lock up, I have yet to get that issue with the dlink.

intel gig nics....I don't even care what OS you run, they are not too expensive, and they are the best.


Stay away from Nvidia ones, and the Marvel Yukon ones. Crap on 8 pins.

 

[ImDonly1]

DGL 4300. Gaming router with GameFuel. Let me tell you right now the gamefuel is pretty useless. I disabled that portion of the router a day after I got it. The fragmentation or whatever causes lag (at least in BF2). Its a ok router. It doesn't lock up or anything. The admin page is buggy sometimes and causes the router to stop responding. Also a lot of restarts are needed when configuring it. Those are the only bad things about it. I am using it through wire. I have a computer hooked up wirelessly to it but I can't really tell you how that is since I dont use it much.

 

[KenAF2]

Originally posted by: ImDonly1
DGL 4300. Gaming router with GameFuel. Let me tell you right now the gamefuel is pretty useless. I disabled that portion of the router a day after I got it. The fragmentation or whatever causes lag (at least in BF2). Its a ok router. It doesn't lock up or anything. The admin page is buggy sometimes and causes the router to stop responding. Also a lot of restarts are needed when configuring it. Those are the only bad things about it. I am using it through wire. I have a computer hooked up wirelessly to it but I can't really tell you how that is since I dont use it much.

There's far more to Gamefuel than Dynamic Fragmentation.

I don't use Dynamic Fragmentation either, as that is really meant for connections with 384Kbps or less upstream.

However, the Gamefuel (aka QoS) is extremely useful for prioritizing different forms of traffic. D-Link did not make the functions or the interface on QoS particularly intuitive, so it's not clear to some customers how to best make use of it. But it is a powerful tool if you know what you are doing, especially if you use p2p or others use the network while you game. It is only useless if don't know how to use it.

 

[Tarrant64]

Been using it, probably a year and a half now, and it works well for me.

As of late though, the router has been dropping the wireless signal randomly about once a week. Could be the cable service though as it did it 2-3 times a week and had them come out here to check it and they replaced a cable. Hasn't happened since...today actually. But it's still annoying. In the middle of a game and it DC's.

I think it's the router because it's the actual SSID that dissapears, the internet doesn't just die anymore, the whole router just dissapears. Mine was running for a good 10 months straight though, and I know at one point it did get really hot in the office, so there are a number of things that could be wrong with it now.


If there was ever a problem(when it first came out a couple of bugs), I just updated the firmware, things ran smoother. Just stay on top of things.

All the features I found useful. I tried them all out at least and it worked well. Gamefuel was hard to test because for different games it reacted differently. I have been able to run a fileserver, teamspeak server, my desktop for gaming/school/surfing, and my roommate's for about the same, and a couple of wireless laptops...off of this one router just fine. Ran like a champ.

That's just my experience.

OH, and the biggest thing to note, the blue-led lights? ANNOYING if it's somewhere where you can see it directly. I used to have it in my bedroom when I first got it. I took tape to it and covered it up. It was THAT bright. That's about the only CON I have for it.

For the price though, should have been 6-8 port. Oh well. The whole package is worth the cash. Works well with any other wireless cards I've used.