Home > Consumer Reviews > D-Link DI-604 Cable/DSL Router, 4-Port Switch

I did a lot of surfing of reviews here on Amazon to decide whether or not to get this Di-604. I decided... what the heck, some reviews are good and it's kinda cheap. I'll take a risk. Here's what I have to say about it:

This router is unbelievably inexpensive and feature packed. It came nicely packaged with a STATIC BAG over the router, not some cheap plastic wrap. Every page of the manual is in NICE PRINTED COLOUR. I can't believe it. For a router this cheap you would expect they'd print their manual on toilet paper like other products I've bought. I think D-Link really set a goal for making the BEST 4-pt home router for the BEST price.

I'm very picky about things, and before I bought this, I was fantasizing that maybe the router firmware programmers would add the option to select the WAN speed (10 or 100mbit), which I thought was just simply asking too much cause it's such a small detail many wouldn't care about. It turns out in one of the firmware updates that they decided to INCLUDE this. After learning this, I know this was the router for me.

Here's what happened when I brought it home: I was super worried that it wouldn't work at my house with 2 mac users and 2 PC users cause of the bad reviews. Right out of the box with old firmware (3.30) it worked FLAWLESSLY, no hassle, just simply plugging all the cables in. I couldn't believe it. I was very happy. I installed the new firmware and it's just simply working beautifully with no hangups so far. So, take my review into consideration THIS WILL WORK ON MACS (they are newer iMacs).

Also, I have REVISION E, the newest model of this baby. I honestly believe that the majority of the complaints here on Amazon are from people who bought it earlier and have the earlier revisions. Before you hand the money to the cashier (if you choose not to buy here), make sure you look at the back of the box, there is a sticker that says that revision it is (look for the letter). Don't get anything before the "E".

PS: It doesn't say on the box that it's 10/100mbit for LAN purposes, so I was a bit worried that it might not even go at 100mbit. Of course this is silly in this day of technlollogy. I ran the "iperf" network tester between two computers and the results were just as I hoped they'd be.

Excellent value and I'm very happy with this router. I used to run OpenBSD to do the job before the computer exploded during a vacation when I wasn't home to fix it for my roommates, and now I am using this puppy. Also, it's much easier to set up TCP/UDP port forwarding using its HTTP inferface. It even allows port forwarding ranges to make BitTorrenting setup easy. Google for the BitTorrenting FAQs on Dlink's site and they have a few interesting ways of setting it up.

Thanks for reading.

The DI-604 is a great little router. Though I would never recommend that someone who knows nothing about configuring a router to try it on their own, this may be an exception. It has effective wizards and a remarkably user friendly interface that is accessed through your favorite web browser. The firewall seems to be effective, though my single complaint does come from that part of the device. I am yet to figure out how to shut it off when I would need to. . . But, it can be done.

I share a DSL connection over this router. I also file share and print share through the device. It has done a great job at all of the above. I have recommended this product to countless people since I purchased it in September.

epc

I bought the di604 because I wanted to be able to share broadband (cable modem) access with more than one computer. After having first bought an ethernet hub, thinking that was what I wanted, then returning it when I discovered that I needed a router, I picked the di604 based mostly on price and the customer reviews here.

Set-up took just a minute, plug in the cords and you're done. The software is easy too, a web-based interface that the paper manual walks you through. It sounds like other customers had no problem at all with the software setup; for me, however, it didn't work at all. As soon as I finished the setup steps, I found I had gone from broadband on one machine to no internet at all on any machines.

Needless to say, I called tech support. Needless to say, I waited on queue for a long time. But what makes me give this product five stars, after using it for less than a day, is the outstanding job that d-link tech support did. My problem turned out to be very odd and very difficult, and this guy patiently, politely and doggedly kept walking me through solutions until one worked perfectly. That alone sets the company apart in my opinion. Add the fact that the router works as advertised, and this was certainly a five-star shopping trip.

The only caveat I would include is that I haven't yet figured out how to share files between my two computers. Clearly that's one of the router's intended functions, and other customers have said in their reviews that it works. I don't doubt that it's there and I'll figure it out sooner or later, but there are no specific instructions in the documentation for this functionality. Not enough to subtract a star from my rating, but if I find I just CAN'T figure it out, you can bet I'll be back here, writing another review with a couple fewer stars.

All in all, I would heartily encourage anyone who wants to set up a home network or use their cable/dsl on more than one computer to choose this router. And it's cheap!

Installed the D-Link DI-604 with 2 computers, one running Windows 98 and the other one running Windows XP Pro. The installation took about 20 minutes. The firewall works well. I tested the firewall by using Shields Up Test ...I recieved the newer DI-604 case than is shown in amazon.com picture. I did update the firmware by downloading the binary file from D-Link's website. The web based interface for the configuration is nice and does it's job well. And I do like the ability to turn off or control the times of use for a network connection hooked up to the DI-604. One thing I do wish it did have was a log showing all traffic or website pages that were surfed to. The unit is a bit on the light weight size and it is physically kind of small. The DI-604's WAN network connection to my Cable modem is only a 10MBit connection, but it's more than enough considering the maximum the Cable modem can deliver is 1.5Mbit. The other 4 LAN connections are 10/100MB connections and work fine at 100MB. Overall, quite a nice package with good performance for the price.

Within the 3 months I've had this thing up and running, I have had only a few snags in operation. Two of them were when our ISP went out for a couple hours or so, and the other was when I was figuring out how to allow certain ports to be passed through to a certain IP address. It didn't take long to figure it out, but I did have to get out the manual.

Other than those issues its been working perfect since day one. I have upgraded with all the firmwares that were released since I bought it and although I didn't know I needed it UPnP came in quite handy when I got XBOX Live for my birthday. All I had to do was plug in my XBOX into an available port on the DI-604. Next thing I know I can play games online.

I haven't had to call tech support since this is so easy and everything I've needed has been in the manual. I highly recommend this Cable/DSL Router. It has worked for me and all my games, PC or XBOX.