Firmware issues The other day I upgraded my router's firmware to 2.20 from 2.18. The only new feature/fix was that it gave you static DHCP, not a big deal but I figured I would keep up with the updates.

After installing it on my D-Link 614+ I started to notice that traffic accross port 80 was incredibly unstable and no possible on some of my machines. I thought it was an issue with the machines so I fiddles with them for a few hours but nothing seemed to fix them. Both wired and wireless connections were screwy.

So I contacted D-Link support letting them know what was up. I got a reply a few hours later saying that I should reboot the router, set it to defaults, then change the settings to what I needed. Well I had done that about 40 times. Slapped them another email saying I had done that and after going back to 2.18 everything was hunky-dory. Ended up I got another reply saying I should just stickwith 2.18. This kind of ticked me off, just because there is an issue I shouldn't have to stay with the old stuff, but i didn't email them back, just stuck with the old stuff.

Ok, so today I jumped over to the 614+'s page on the D-Link site and noticed that 2.20 is no longer available for download. I found it odd that right after my complaint it was taken down. I had been up there from July 1 - 28 and then finally taken down. I'm guessing they'll just skip 2.20 and fix the issue in another upcoming release.

I've been very happy with my D-Link router. I have an SMC WIFI router around but it gets VERY hot and since I keep my networking stuff in an inclosed space I don't need something that will produce that much heat.

In a related issue. This is a question for all you geeks out there. Back when I had my old HP notebook (Betsy) I could get 100% signal strength as long as I was within 20 feet of the router (using my D-Link DWL-650 WIFI PCMCIA card). But not with my new Asus notebook (Janelle) I can't get ANYTHING over 90%. I have tried both the drivers on the CD and the drivers on the D-Link website. I thought maybe it was a power issue but I can't seem to find where to change that. Don't get me wrong it covers most of my house but the connection just isn't as solid. I'm using the same card in the new notebook as I did the old one and I don't have another machine to test the card out on. Any thoughts/idea? Posted by chris at 12:36 PM Hardware • (6) Trackbacks