kony said:
If you were having problems why did you keep buying the same
brand until now? Why not return the faulty product while
still in warranty or did they all crap out later?
It takes a while to realise there is a pattern happening. PC products have a
reasonable number of failures and at first it can just seem like bad luck.
The supplier I used during that period only sold DLink so it was extra
effort to purchase something else. Their products appear to be pretty good
when they work. It's a pity they are so unreliable really.
I can't say I'm a fan of their gear but do have a few items
with mixed results - An old router which worked flawlessly
but had to be replaced due to 10Mb WAN port bottleneck, an
802.11b wifi router which was never used for much routing
(rather as an access point as it was a fraction of the cost
of an access point at the time due to a rebate, and it
worked fine as an access point though the requirements of
location for it meant it's range was low), a PCI 802.11b
card that worked fine, and a USB 802.11g network adapter
that has poor range and a buggy driver... though just
yesterday or the day prior I found that bug and through some
research tracked down a couple newer drivers than on their
US web/FTP site. Overall the Dlink gear I have is all older
models that seem to have been a fair value at the time as
they were purchased when offered with a large rebate.
I think their older products might be ok. From what I can tell there was a
point in time when they decided that buying the cheapest of cheap crap
components was a way to make a greater profit.
There are lots of networking products that have minor issues
in the low end consumer gear. With network cards the
problem tends to be drivers and DLink's ability to produce
and get newer drivers distributed to their various FTP
servers and webpages updated is terrible.
Generally I've found their network cards to be ok.
As for switches and routers, some people use them (Dlink)
with no problems so I would wonder what is different about
the scenarios in which they failed. Were many of the
problem units the same or very similar model which might be
bad and the rest a more typical problem rate compared to
other brands?
I think people who purchase 1 or 2 dlink products won't notice the problems.
If it works then it works but if it fails then it might look like a one off
failure. They have no way to realise it is part of a pattern of failures.
Have you opened them and checked for excessive heat and/or
failed capacitors? Have you tried using a different power
supply if the one used isn't integral? Different firmware
for the router?
I haven't opened anything to see what the problem is but it is anything that
uses an external power supply. It's not just the power supplies dying as
I've had both the power supply and the box die in different cases. At one
point I had quite a collection of dead dlink stuff and would match up
working power supplies with working boxes.
It is easy to blame a brand but much of their gear isn't so
different from anyone else's. Finding root cause is better
than not, helping to avoid similar problems in other branded
gear.
Yes it is, it fails *much* more often than any other product I've used,
period. The only thing I've ever used in my entire life that was less
reliable was my first car but it was over 30 years old.
I'm not aware of any other brand they make stuff for or sell
parts to. Other most popular brands look (both casing and
PCB) different enough that they appear to be separate
productions although some may use the same chipsets or base
firmware as some other product brand and model.
That's probably not going to be a problem.
You may have similar problems with many lesser brands, it is
always best to research a specific brand and model before
purchase instead of the idea of buying everything from one
company, though if you insisted on going with only one I
would suggest 3Com or for lower price Linksys is popular.
Network gear is everywhere these days so don't be surprised
if you find plenty of people with Linksys gear that has
problems, but being a popular brand you would need consider
that the rate of problems may not be especially high and
again consider the root cause and whether your needs are
going to make that cause a problem.
Linksys sounds good. I purchased 1 linksys router and it appeared to be
pretty good. I'll probably get one for home.
If you're talking about things like ethernet PCI cards as
well, those are a dime a dozen and many practically
identical from several brands.
PCI cards I've never had a problem with but I'll probably avoid dlink just
because I detest them so much. Generally it's all onboard anyway.
A better question is what changed inbetween the time the
product was new and later, since we should assume you would
return the gear for refund if it didn't work right when new.
With any gear you will need test it's functionality in the
intended use, then focus on the same things as with many
other computer gear, good power (site AC in the case of much
network gear), checking heat levels.
The gear tends to last the warranty period and then expire some time later.
Generally the only thing that happens inside warranty is the flash losing
its settings.
Personally I find it better to put a heatsink on network
processing chips if I find they run hot, and drill a few
(addt'l) vent holes in the product casing to promote longer
lifespan. The other alternative is selecting a product with
a fan in it though these days such products tend to be rarer
and rarer, mostly reserved for enterprise class gear, and
rightly so in some cases since small higher RPM fans tend to
make noise many home users find objectionable.
You might also check the customer product reviews at places
like Newegg.com, Amazon.com, particularly focusing on
problem reports and rates rather than reports everything is
ok though in some cases especially networking and router
configurations it can tend to be that the user simply didn't
know how to set up networking themselves... these days
anyone who clicks a mouse in windows feels able to tackle
more than this and sometimes without a good result or
willingness to do a bit of research and learning along the
way about basic networking configuration.
Thanks.
Michael
PS, due to my dlink router's crapiness I had a lot of trouble sending this
message.
