- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 25 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"So far so good. I'm happy."
Pros: Mulitiple Languages. Nice design. Decent power. Quicker, and I'm only on G band
Cons: Firewall can be finicky, but improved over older Pre-N. Issues with XP Network Certificate notice bubble and WPA2/Radius.
Summary: I'm very happy with this router so far. I've only owned it a day, though. It's got plenty of power for my 2 bedroom apartment-style villa, which just about any router has enough power for. It is must quicker on the uptake than my previous Zio brand wifi router was, even though I'm only running on the G band to an HP notebook, an HP printer, and my PS3. I can click between pages much faster. My PS3 also seems to load and play streamed songs three times faster than the Zio did.
As mentioned above, a negative is that Windows XP Home on my HP notebook seems to have an issue with this router if I have it setup at WPA2. A bubble keeps popping-up in the lower right side of the screen which says something about Windows not being able to find a certificate for this network. It was annoying. I did some googling, and discovered that it has something to do with XP and WPA2/Radius. Another user apparently had this same issue. As suggested, I switched it from WPA2 to regular WPA with PSK, and this solved the problem. The average home user has no real need for WPA2 anyway (which, as I understand it, is for multiple router situations). I'm sure they'll work this out in a firmware update -- very minor.
I used to own a Belkin Pre-N, which was an awesome router, and the most powerful I've ever seen for basic home use, but the Pre-N always gave me firewall troubles with streaming video, as well as MSN audio/video chat. If I turned off the firewall, all was OK. This newer N router has more choices available to Port-forward past problems like this. I couldn't get it to stream TVUPlayer correctly for a good hour or two, but eventually I got it working. I had to reboot the router entirely, as well as reboot my computer, and it finally worked -- even though applying changes appeared to reboot the router, something wasn't working right. Total reboots of both solved this. Oh, and I bought the Korean model (I am in Seou), which hasn't has as many recent firmware updates as English models. Maybe more issues have been fixed with newer English firmware. By the way, I love how Belkin lets you select a language from the firmware when you type the IP address of the router. That's wonderful, given that I'm an American in Korea!Updated
I forgot to mention that my Belkin N came with a half-sized AC power adapter, which is awesome! I'm so tired of the fat box-style power adapters that hang over the outlets on either side of your outlet strip. This AC power adapter plug end is skinny enough that it doesn't cause problems with other plugs next to it on the outlet strip. I've got the Korean model, so yours may be different, but I really love this.Updated
I've found that this program conflicts with Windows when Windows XP manages my wifi connection. I keep getting an error message balloon in the bottom right corner which says Windows can't find a certificate to log onto the network (not exact words). It is annoying, because it continually pops up as many as several times per minute. I tried many net suggestions, but nothing worked to fix it. Finally, I downloaded and ran the Intel program for my wifi device, and am letting that manage my wifi connection instead of windows. Success! Now I get no error balloons, and all runs great.
Another issue I had was with the DNS setup. This is something somewhat advanced that most users probably won't mess with. It's the function which allows you to access your home network from another computer from anywhere on the net. To do this, you need to sign up with a free service at dyndns.org. I may have been doing something wrong, but I'm not sure... it ended up not working, and my router got corrupted somehow. I lost all hardwire connections to the router -- it was weird. The only thing that saved me was that I did a full reset to factory default. That fixed it, and I started from scratch and just set up the security again.
One last note: I am in South Korea, and running a different (older) firmware version than what Americans get. They seem to do firmware updates more slowly for this part of the world. It may well be that these problems have been overcome in the US version. Also, being in Korea, I haven't bothered to call Belkin service yet.
All routers have kinks. Eventually, they get worked out if the router stays popular. I feel this is a pretty good router overall, for the money. Most users will find it more than satisfactory. It's not nearly as powerful as my Belkin Pre-N router, but it is more powerful than most, and quite fast. Overall, I'm still happy.Updated
I tried to set this router up using DDNS again, so I could access my network from work. Still no good. And whenever I attempt it, something in the firmware goes wacky, and the router starts having all sorts of problems. This is the 2nd time I've tried, and the router went haywire as a result. Everything else works great, but I suggest you stay away from the DDNS function (unless they note a firmware upgrade that fixes this issue). Specifically, I lose hardwire connections, and the lights on the router stop responding correctly. This time, the internet light wouldn't stop flashing orange, and the wifi signal light wouldn't work, despite having a wifi signal. The only way to resurrect the modem is to do a hard reset. I had to do this 3 times this time before I could get that darn internet light to stop flashing orange. I'm too scared to try DDNS on this router again. Everything else seems to work great, though. I'm not going to play with it again until a new firmware upgrade comes out.
Where to buy
Belkin F5D8233 Wireless N Router:
$29.10 - $102.30
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$89.99 | Yes |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$29.10 | Yes |
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$102.30 | Yes |
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