Home > Consumer Reviews > Belkin Wireless-G Router DSL/Cable Gateway

This router works for one or two days and then drops its connection. Cycling the power is all that will clear it up, and in another day or two it happens again. As other reviewers have said, Support is no help, and firmware does nothing to help with the problem. Look around the internet and you'll see how many people can't get this router working well.

Belkin makes good computer accessories, but do yourself a favor and spend a little extra up front on a wireless router with a name behind it like Linksys or D Link. The Linksys that replaced this Belkin has worked flawlessly, while the Belkin is collecting dust. I couldn't bring myself to give this headache to anyone else on Craigslist....

I just bought this item and it seems to work great. I have one computer connected over wire and two wireless. Both work great. The wireless works at further distances than the linksys I owned and just dumped. Setup was easy (except that the default SSID described in the manual isn't the same one that was configured - but this was easy to figure out). I have 64bit WEP enabled and have no problems. I also like that it has the parental control feature (although I have not yet tested that).

I bought this router in July when my Siemens Speedstream wireless router somehow fried. To date, I have only had to restart the router a handful of times (all during electrical storms)and since I upgraded the firmware in September, I have had no restarts.

The router works seemlessly with my G4 Mac with a Belkin PCI wireless card running 10.2.8 and my Windows XP laptop using a D-Link PCMCIA wireless card. The mac address filtering feature included in the router software is a very useful security feature for apartment building living and setting it up is very easy.

I highly reccommend this product.

UPDATE: I have had it for over a month now, looks like a keeper. WPA and VPN work well. Occasionally (once a week?) I have to power cycle the router, but nothing more. I was lucky?!

I bought this from a local chain store for 30 bucks - didn't want to spend double that (dislike rebates) for Linksys or D-link, and figured Belkin was worth a shot (30-day return policy...) Belkin includes WPA, MAC address filtering (though haven't tried that yet), seems good enough.

Day 1: Spent a good half hour with the included installation software (Easy, HA!) - the software couldn't detect the Internet connection ("the ten tries are normal" part), even though I did exactly as asked.

Day 2:
Read a couple reviews on Amazon, opened the User Manual (PDF, included in the CD), went to the website (192.168.2.1) - just follow the instructions in the PDF file for manual configuration. There's a lot of explanations for each tab on the 192.... website, so you have to skip a bit to get to the important parts (see below).

Some tips:
A green "CONNECTION OK" in the upper right corner of the 192... webpage means you are connected to the Internet.
The first time I tried "logging in" with the default *blank* password, no response - so skipped to the other tabs, and voila - it worked! Later, I had no problems "logging in". Change the password!
Haven't updated the firmware (I have a ver.4000).
Each time you click "Apply Changes", the router reboots after 25 seconds.

For CABLE MODEM (sorry, I don't have DSL or dial-up) ONLY:
(Disclaimer: This is to the best of my recollection!!)

WAN:
Connection Type (Dynamic)/
DNS (Auto from ISP)/
MAC Address (clone computer's... only when you are setting up the router with the computer on which you initially set up the cable modem)

Wireless: (if you don't want your neighbours piling on to your wireless, keep Broadcast SSID OFF, use WPA-PSK, but be careful*!)
Channel (default 11)/
SSID (whatever name you want - don't broadcast*, WRITE IT DOWN!)/
if you don't know, g&b/
Protected Mode OFF (if you have only one wireless computer, or limited wireless traffic)
Security (I kept WPA-PSK (no server)/TKIP, but (*) WRITE DOWN your SSID and Pre-Shared Key (PSK) exactly as you enter it to configure your computer's wireless connection, if Broadcast SSID is OFF.)

Up and running, works great in my 2-bedroom apartment.

A funny thing - the router I have has just one antenna, that's what the box shows too, even though the website of the chain store and other stores/Amazon show two antennas for the same part #. Dropped a star for the software.

First off: People who have EffecientNetworks SpeedStream 5100b DSL modems (I got mine from SBCYahoo DSL) will need to set your modem to 'Bridge Mode' to use this router. See your instructions to do this, it is pretty easy after you know you need to do it.

Okay, Router: I had the Belkin 802.11b router, and that thing was excellent for what it was. It was limited, No WPA and b speeds, but it worked perfectly out of the box and had excellent coverage. I don't have a g wireless card, but I figured I can future-proof myself a bit as well as upgrade my security to WPA. Out of the box you can see it has a different PCB layout than the b version, made me nervous since the b was such a solid performer. I hooked it up and it wouldn't connect to my DSL modem. I troubleshot for 2 hours and then called Belkin. They instantly diagnosed that unlike the b version, the g needs `bridge mode' on my DSL modem. So I contacted SBC and got excellent directions on how to do this, but still no connection. Long story short, I called Belkin back and got an AWESOME technician who tirelessly helped get this thing up and running. She even troubleshot my SBC-provided modem. We got everything set as it should be, no connection. Then I had to hang up to go to an appointment, and suddenly the router connected. Since then it has worked perfectly. No drops, no reboots and solid performance (does what it is supposed to do). Bottom line, it has been working perfectly for a week now, but seems a little more sensitive/touchy than the rock solid b version. However the features etc. are much more sophisticated. Within my test conditions wireless range is comparable to the b in the sense that they both give excellent connections throughout my house and yard, but it seems to reconnect every now and then. This is not a problem and I only know it is happenening because I see a "Wireless connection found" window every now and then, it is just curious. In all, this router is not as solid of a product out-of-box and through installation as the b version, but Belkin's excellent technical support makes up for that.