Home > Consumer Reviews > Belkin F5D5230-4 Cable/DSL Gateway 4 Port Router

I'm what would be considered a computer geek and have found this router to be a waste of time.

As with the other's that have had problems, I myself am included with this group. I have earthlink aDSL and after playing with the tcp/ip settings, the PPoeP settings on the router and many more troubleshooting theories....being on the phone for endless hours with my ISP assuming that that was the problem, it was finally concluded that this router was it. It works great when it wants to and when it doesn't...it tells you by not allowing a connection. The info on the website is a joke, since all it tells you is what the settings "should" be for your ISP. It doesn't tell you what to do when the router decides it doesn't want to work.

And now, after having it for a month and a half, I have bought a D-Link router.....and after 72 hrs of un-interrupted service(a 1st)...I think I can finally enjoy what I paid for.....high speed, always on internet service for my home network consisting of 4 computers.

I had been using software to share my Net connection, but found this router locally on a good sale and decided to pick it up. I already had a home network in place, so it took me less than 15 minutes to install the router and get everything to work. The manual covers the basic installation and setup of the router, but some of the more advanced features ("Virtual Server Settings" and "Special Application Settings") are not explained at all. I suppose that if you knew what they were, you'd already know how to use them. Belkin's Web site does not have any more detailed explanation of these features. Fortunately, these aren't necessary for the main use of this product - to share your Internet connection. Online games have worked fine without any special setups, such as turning off the firewall or putting my PC outside the firewall (the "DMZ"), and I haven't had a problem getting disconnected from my DSL line so far. The only weirdness I've run in to is that Netscape won't connect to the router (to do the setup and change router options) at all; I have to use Internet Explorer (I have to hit "reload" a few times before I'll get the login screen mentioned in the manual) or Opera. So in short, it does what it is supposed to do, though it would be nice if the documentation discussed the advanced features so that I can tell if I need them or not.

I bought this router one week ago and it has stopped working for 3 times. And I had to disconnect all cables, reset my cable modem and reset the router in order to get the connection back, and still I do not know what the cause was. I followed every step in the setup and I'm sure I didn't do anything wrong. Definitely do not choose this if you need it for home office, because it is extremely unreliable. Even if you need it for personal use, I would not recommend a router which needs resetting every 2 days for getting normal connection back.

This rotuer is fabulous. I have a roadrunner cable modem connection here in Jackson, MS. I bought the router and plugged up the cables and all was done. No configurations, no setup, nothing!! It gave IPs to both of my connected machines right away and are connected at 100 mbps. (Actual modem speed floats between 2 and 3 meg though) I have XP Pro on the master machine and Home on the other one. To share files I just enabled sharing on the folders that I wanted. I installed the software just for fun, and when you select the netsetup it brings up the XP home networking wizard, so you might opt just to leave out the software. The internet site was cool, but again unneeded. I even managed to hook up the Xbox and play Halo online using the Gamespy tunnel software. Highly reccomend the rotuer if you have a cable or dsl modem with the LAN port on the back of it. If you have a usb or other connection, then you might need a switch. Great product, go buy now if you want to network and share your broadband connection.

upgrade your firmware as soon as you get it. Then all the disconnection problems, as reported by other reviewers, will be solved. it is easy and takes about 1min.

the router has a cute design. intuitive web based set up page and reasonable price. Come with basic security set up, although not very advanced. The performance, is superb. I didn't do the test but some professional web site did and says it is one of the fastest cable/dsl router.

the only thing I hate it is the color. It looks much better on the box. Anyway I only care about the performance.