Excited about the great functionality and low pric ...
Weaknesses:Locks up and dies.
Posted Oct 16, 2001 - Excited about the great functionality and low price, I purchased the DI-713P, fired it up over Ethernet, upgraded the firmware, and had it working perfectly with my DSL modem within minutes as a WIRED router. When I turned on my Windows 2000 laptop (with an 802.11.b wireless card inserted) the wireless router worked perfectly. But then it seized up after several minutes and could not be reset-- not even by unplugging it! D-link tech support (very hard to get hold of) confirmed that the box was dead (because the M1 & M2 LEDs were on solid). They told me to get a replacement from the retailer, which I did. But the new one failed the same way! After the second one failed, D-link tech support admitted a design flaw.
Both the DI-713P & SMC 7004AWBR use the same networking chipset (& core firmware) from AMIT. I have personally seen the exact same failure on both. The user reviews on PracticallyNetworked.com are littered with similar complaints of units dying. These two routers offer such a great feature set for such a low price that everybody is hopeful that they'll release firmware that will fix the problem, but several firmware updates later, and they still have this fatal flaw. So I'm going to get the Netgear MR314 which lacks a print server and is a bit more expensive, but actually works!
I'm an electrical engineer. My two wireless laptops work perfectly at the office and with my Orinoco RG1000, so the fault definitely lies with D-link (or actually AMIT) on this.
Did you find it helpful , unhelpful, or inappropriate?