# D-Link DIR-890L AC3200  router - User Review (Spoiler: Don't buy it)



## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

I managed to win this router in a competition, so hooray for an un-biased review where i don't have to pander to making a company (or an employer) feel good by lying about a product.
Yeah, consider that a spoiler about how harsh i'll be on this units flaws.

At the time of writing this, this unit was for sale over $300 US, upto $350 Au.




Spoiler: A brief primer on WiFi, with specifics on WiFi AC below.



Everyone knows what WiFi is, except Geoff. This article is not for Geoff. Sorry Geoff.
WiFi has been increasing in speeds and suddenly boomed with the invention of smartphones and tablets.
Over the last few years progress was slow and steady, with a few proprietary attempts to speed it up that never really worked due to compatibility issues. (108Mb WiFi G, 450Mb WiFi N, etc)

a lot of my insights came from this article here - WiFi AC is more complicated than previous versions of WiFi, with a lot more marketing speak confusing the issue. Without reading up on it various things wont make a whole lote of sense.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/gigabit-wi-fi-802-11ac-is-here-five-things-you-need-to-know/
(first four points are good, point 5 seems like total garbage. even AC3200 doesn't come close to saturating gigabit, and if they use WiFi bridging or 10GbE it becomes irrelevant)

A basic summary of WiFi technologies is here:
802.11b - 11Mb - where it all began for most of us.
802.11g - 54Mb - still really, really common for home routers to this day, especially for people who've been on DSL for years.
802.11n - ranging from 72Mb to 600Mb, this is where things started to get confusing. WiFi N 600Mb runs two different, *separate* WiFi networks, a 300Mb 2.4GHz and a 300Mb 5GHz - and you *cannot* use them both at once, so its better to think as 2x300Mb, and not 600Mb
802.11ac needs its own damn chart (insert image here)
You end up with tri-band routers at the end, 2.4GHz + 2x 5GHz. The routers are meant to be 'smart' and automatically shift you between them on the fly (2.4 at long range, whichever 5 has the least congestion) although due to lazy reviewers its not clear if its part of the AC3200 standard for the smart switching to include 2.4GHz, or purely work on the 5GHz.
For the router i have, it seems to be able to switch between all three WiFi connections, and will try and lump slower 5GHz devices together (if you had three N600 5GHz devices and one AC, it would keep the N and AC devices separate for best speeds)

This article goes into detail about some of the stupidity going on with wifi naming at present

"You can safely ignore claims of 600Mb/s speed for 11n WiFi on the 2.4GHz band – even though all the brands represented here except Apple are doing just that. It’s the bogus ‘600’ number that’s currently inspiring router brands to print AC1900 on the boxes, the sum of 600 and 1300 from two independent radio systems."

"... suffice to say there are no laptops or mobile devices which can join this particular wireless network. It’s worth noting that in the real world, the best theoretical wireless sync speed on the 2.4GHz band using three streams is 217Mb/s. This can give a best-case real-world throughput closer to 170Mb/s."





Detailed facts about wifi AC:
If you're lazy, let this image be your guide as to why the "AC" speeds are misleading, keeping in mind that the max real speeds are 300Mb in 2.4Ghz and 1300 in 5Ghz.







Spoiler:  wifi AC specifics



1. Speeds are a lot slower than the numbers make it seem. 'gigabit' wifi is anything but, for a single user. the aim is less congestion for multiple devices, not high speeds for one device.

2. Beam-forming is a new AC feature that is poorly documented, but from what I've gathered most AC routers handle 8 streams (some may do more), and most AC devices use 1 (433Mb) or 2 (867Mb) streams. The goal seems to be that the aerials face in slightly different directions and the AC routers only communicate via the 1 or 2 with the strongest signal - so unlike wifi N that pumps traffic in every direction, AC does its best to only push the signal in the direction directly towards your device.
This will definitely help with congestion as the 5GHz band becomes more popular, and could potentially reduce the ability for hackers to breach networks/sniff traffic.

3. The 2.4Ghz band is capped at 300Mb, despite claims of 450Mb and 600Mb at times. No AC adaptors exist that can use these speeds.

One important thing here with a device that has so many aerials, is that you suddenly have a lot more ways to tweak the orientation and router location to remove or accidentally create dead spots. Have it placed at one side of the house? point them all towards the far side of your property for the best coverage. Got it in the middle of your love dungeon? spread the love, and angle them pointy bits around.




Now onto the review:




Spoiler: First Impressions



Everyone knows that "ITS CHRISTMAS" face as the mail package appears. My son volunteered for the unwrapping/drool smearing part of this.









DRINK PEPSI








The unit is huge, with a honking ridiculous 60W power brick that looks like it belongs on a laptop. Due to its height and pyramid design, this unit really wont stack nicely with other routers, and needs to be on 'top' of whatever your networking setup is, or wall/ceiling mounted. The aerials cannot be removed and only rotate certain amounts (due to beamforming?) so placement of the router is more important than on units with more aerial freedom.

Box came with the bare minimum you'd expect, router, power brick, Ethernet cable. Nothing fancy here, so boring i forgot to take a photo.



Test Setup:
mine arrived on firmware 1.0.2 which online has a poor reputation,  so i manually updated to 1.0.3 before any testing was done. D-link sent me a beta firmware 1.06 which was meant to resolve various issues but in fact, changed nothing except for adding one new undocumented menu option to the QoS settings.



'Casual user' testing

Initial setup is plug and play (its a router, what do you expect?) and the webUI is actually nice and simple. I really do like this UI as everything is simple and easy to find.

"smart connect" seems flawed with Samsung phones that support WiFi AC. my note 4 (2x2 AC) connects at 192Mb while my Note 10.1 (2014) with 1x1 AC connects at 96Mb. They connect at 270Mb/135Mb respectively on my N600 GHz network.
Disabling (not so) Smart Connect got me 866Mb and 390Mb respectively on WiFi AC with those devices.
As a basic throughput test, this meant my note 4 on "smart connect" capped out at 7.2MB/s while close to the router, vs 13MB/s (limit of my SD card) when manually connected to 5GHz. As far as i'm concerned that makes this feature something to definitely be avoided, since it is literally halving the speed of the WiFi connection. Despite D-links tech support telling me firmware 1.06 fixed this issue, it has not.





The router GUI:




The UI is quite simple and user friendly, and to be honest i like it. Its simple and it works well. The one major flaw is that almost every setting you change requires you to 'save' it, which often reboots the router or locks you out for 30-90 seconds. Most other routers let you 'save' the changes on various pages and reboot when you want to apply all of them, this definitely slows down an advanced user who wants to make a lot of changes - such as when setting up a brand new router.








Advanced feature testing

I feel like a torrent or download client would really fit with this router, its got high speeds, a DLNA server, USB 3.0 storage and a decent processor -  it'd tie this device in as a router and a NAS in one.

Android App:


Spoiler



So far the "mydlink lite" android app seems really simple, they have a paid upgrade version but i'm not going to pay for that to test it. The free app shows current WAN bandwidth usage (but not in real-time, you have to refresh) and allows you to see and boot devices off your network, and reboot the router.

The TP link app has a few more features, but is more clumsy to use so i feel they're pretty similar with offerings here.









Spoiler: Renaming Devices/static IP



It's quite easy to rename device names (for the user to identify) and set static IP's within the router.. no manually typing or pasting MAC addresses required here (but still possible via the big plus icon) and this feature does not require a router reboot - when the device connects again next, the IP changes.










Spoiler: VPN



The router has a basic incoming VPN, but unfortunately its restricted to one user only. While i can see many uses for this, it's quite ridiculous that only one user can be connected at a time, and even more ridiculous that only one username and password can exist at any one time.









Spoiler: Guest network



The guest network has no bandwidth/QoS limits. at the very least it'd be nice to have a tick-box to force guest users to the lowest QoS priority, at best it'd be nice to match TP-link with a hard bandwidth cap. (note: TP link have $40 routers with this function) It does have the ability to lock guests to 'internet only' which is good from a security standpoint.





Spoiler: File transfer speeds



Windows to Windows (Gigabit Ethernet on PC 1, WiFi AC1200 USB 3.0 adapter on PC 2. Both using SSD's)
I'll possibly bore you with some screenshots of windows 8's file coping later, but for now the basics:

Wired gigabit was exactly as expected, managed around 110MB/s - nothing abnormal there.

The speeds are erratic on this routers wifi. My N600 router manages far smoother, consistent transfers at this same distance.
Speeds managed a whopping 43MB/s peak with my AC1200 USB 3.0 adaptor - but the 23MB/s my N600 network managed were so much smoother, it actually finished the same file transfer in less time. I will re-test this thoroughly later, but i worry the "beam forming" is screwing with the maximum throughput speeds in this short-distance test by hopping around too rapidly.





Spoiler: USB storage



Note: this router does have a basic DLNA server for 'smart TV's and other connected devices, but i've never really liked or used that technology (and only have dumb HDTV's in the house) so i've skipped testing that one feature.

It takes about a minute for a USB storage device to show up once connected, but when it does it behaves like a regular windows file share - which is great for compatibility. It takes mere seconds to connect to and save a bookmark or shortcut with "ES File Explorer" on android, turning this into instant wifi media storage.

I tested the USB storage with one of my cheap and nasty Lexar 16GB USB 3.0 drives, and over gigabit it happily maxed out the drives capabilities at 39MB/s - sadly this was where the fun ended.

At this point i was super happy with how it worked, and decided tested larger and faster drives respectively. The good initial experience did not last. All the following results were tested from windows over Gigabit as well and received the same results.

I tested three drives, starting with "old and slow" - a 16GB lexar USB 3.0 stick. It worked perfect at 40MB/s read over the network, maxing out the drives capabilities.
Next up was my newer, faster, smaller USB 3.0 drive, a 32GB Sandizk Cruzer Fit capable of 140MB/s on my PC... and it only ran 11MB/s on the routers USB 3.0 port. I formatted it between NTFS, EXFAT and FAT32, but nothing changed.

A 2.5" 320GB SATA2 laptop hard drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure didnt fare much better as my 'high capacity' test, achieving erratic write speeds that varied from 5MB/s to 35MB/s, spiking wildly. Maybe its the size of the drive, but performance couldnt have varied more wildly between the three i tested. This needs retesting with more drives, and/or a firmware update of the router.





Spoiler: Advanced QoS



The one shining light to this router. I have goddamn terrible internet. During the day i get 8Mb down, 0.8Mb up. Between 7PM-Midnight, i get 2Mb down, 0.4Mb up. Welcome to Australia, if the spiders don't kill you - the lag sure as hell will.
Previously i'd simply used TP-Links "Bandwidth Shaping" and set a bunch of bandwidth limits so no one device could max out my download or upload (which was a nightmare with my varying speeds)

The following screenshot shows the almost too simple click and drag QoS setup. I was incredibly dubious about such a simple feature working better than the complex bandwidth limits i'd used in the past.
I feel like it needs the option for more high or medium slots, since this routers AC3200 standard *is* designed for heavy users with lots of connected devices.
I had the QoS set the game server as "Highest" with the teamspeak server ("Default") and my gaming PC as "High".





As a nightmare of a torture test, i did the following:
1. Hosted a game on my game server
2. Hosted Teamspeak 3 on a second PC.
3. My brother joined both of those over the internet - whilst i connected locally
4. To do something utterly insane on a crap internet connection like mine... i started uploading youtube videos of our gameplay, while he was still connected.

His ping went from around 80 to 110, but teamspeak stayed clear and he noticed no lag in game. Without the "QoS Engine" or "Advanced QoS+" (D-link have different names for it in the router software and the physical box) this definitely would not have worked. *This* feature worked fantastic, and makes this router worth having to me.

As a side test after all this was done, i checked his ping as he idled in teamspeak afterwards - it spiked to over 220ms as the videos were still uploading. As soon as we started talking again, it dropped very rapdily back to the 110ms range. Its definitely doing this dynamically and doing it well.





Spoiler: Statistics



Buried away in the router settings is something i find useful, which shows you real-time bandwidth usage on the WAN port, 2.4GHz, 5GHz and LAN. Rare to see stats per interface and not just one global, so this is quite nice for an advanced user.














Pros:
Fast WiFi speeds if Dumb Connect(TM) is disabled, average to good wifi range.
Clean, simple UI even a beginner could use.
QoS works like it should, even for someone with garbage internet. Exceeded my expectations on this one.


Cons:
Large, Heavy.
Odd shape makes it difficult to fit where most routers would fit fine.
Potentially really hot if it uses that 60W of power
Features that do not function as expected (USB storage, VPN, "smart connect")


Conclusions:
What the hell D-link? For a $300+ router you expect high end performance, high end features and a well thought out product.
What we've got is a half assed one, where it feels like a bunch of features got tacked on in a rush and never tested before launch.
Super high speed WiFi with the feature to become a NAS? go for it, just don't use a drive bigger than 16GB?
VPN functions to allow others to join your network... well, just one actually.
A smart wifi function that... cripples your WiFi speeds?


Overall rating: 6/10 - While the wifi speeds are great (if a little inconsistent), having half the advertised features on the box non-functional or crippled really sours the experience of such an expensive device.

D-link will be emailed a link to this review and contacted about this, and they are welcome to reply at any time - and i will happily update this review as new firmware updates come out.



Bonus Image: I won the router in a contest saying i'd use it to scare women and children. No need, the australian variant of this is actually a red-back router, and tends to make its own webs and hang around the ceiling to improve signal strength.


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

this was a little rushed with tidying it up, point out any screwups/repeated parts/missing screenshots and i'll fix it up.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 22, 2015)

The antennas can't be replaced?





The main screen doesn't look very good compared to Asus's.  Asus is at least able to retrieve the motherboard/NIC manufacturer from virtually every connected device.  All that shows is unknown over and over.

For the ridiculous price, it seems it falls flat everywhere except wireless performance.


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> You should put titles in the spoiler tags.  e.g. [spoiler=Advanced QoS]
> 
> 
> The antennas can't be replaced?
> ...



i'll look into the spoilers, forgot we could do that. and yeah the rest of it sums up my thoughts for a $300 router


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2015)

No guest limits on QoS??? not even a speed cap??? wtf?


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## GreiverBlade (Apr 22, 2015)

last pics ... OMG IT'S A FACEHUGGER!

thanks for the review!


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2015)

it's scrrrry lookin. indeed


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## Ferrum Master (Apr 22, 2015)

Those bugs, seriously WTF? 

I would like to see one more test, max parallel connection and bench them, for example running torrents on each device with 50-100peers and on how it performs with 1 or 2 and 3 devices and using 2.4 and 5 simultaneously, maybe youtube streams can also do the trick.

And mate... child photos... really ?


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

Ferrum Master said:


> Those bugs, seriously WTF?
> 
> I would like to see one more test, max parallel connection and bench them, for example running torrents on each device with 50-100peers and on how it performs with 1 or 2 and 3 devices and using 2.4 and 5 simultaneously, maybe youtube streams can also do the trick.
> 
> And mate... child photos... really ?



1. my internet connection is going to throttle that long before torrents or youtube get in the way.
2. i tried taking them without him. he's... persistent.


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2015)

I think the pics were cute LOL. And he's gonna upgrade the firmware by drooling on it!


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## INOCsolutions (Apr 22, 2015)

Thanks for the review. It's hard to find an unbiased review for router systems nowadays, and your review does have some interesting points of comparison. Still, as with Ferrum Master, I would like to see more tests on how these babies go when exposed to extensive internet use.


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

INOCsolutions said:


> Thanks for the review. It's hard to find an unbiased review for router systems nowadays, and your review does have some interesting points of comparison. Still, as with Ferrum Master, I would like to see more tests on how these babies go when exposed to extensive internet use.



and as i said to him, you provide me with better internet and i'll do it. 8Mb DSL is the best money can buy here, and i already hammered the crap out of it for the QoS testing.


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## dorsetknob (Apr 22, 2015)

Good Review
were your USB hard Drives powered by the USB port on the Router or were they PSU Brick powered ?

How many USB ports and how many Volumes does the device support

eg *Supported Volumes:* Only two USB storage devices with up to eight volumes could be activated simultaneously, up to four USB storage devices with about eighteen volumes could be recognized.


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

dorsetknob said:


> Good Review
> were your USB hard Drives powered by the USB port on the Router or were they PSU Brick powered ?
> 
> How many USB ports and how many Volumes does the device support
> ...



one USB 2.0, one 3.0
all devices powered by the router.

no idea on max volumes, all my drives are single partition and windows wont allow you to format USB mass storage into more than one.


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## dorsetknob (Apr 22, 2015)

another Query
cross comparing Functionality    (of Course)

Does it have a FTP Server feature

If So whats the Tranfer/bandwidth speed ?

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server allows you to share the files on the USB storage device to the local or public network. You will need to define the shared folders and assign the user's authorization for the different folders.

Any onboard Media Server ?


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

it has a DLNA server, but no FTP. SMB sharing only.


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## dorsetknob (Apr 22, 2015)

Ah'em  Hint  Suggestion


Spoiler: Future Plans



How it fares with open 3rd Party  firmware


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

dorsetknob said:


> Ah'em  Hint  Suggestion
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Future Plans
> ...



theres only one beta DD-WRT released for it, with zero documentation or support.


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## Batou1986 (Apr 22, 2015)

Mussels said:


> having half the advertised features on the box non-functional or crippled


This is why I stopped buying Dlink routers.
I had one of their DGL gaming routers a while back and it failed in every way.

Not to thread hijack but Open source firmware like DD-WRT has been keeping up with the wifi speeds and such right ?


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## dorsetknob (Apr 22, 2015)

I was not Suggesting that you Flash your new toy but to Revist the thread in the future when open source firmware has caught up with this and is more reliable


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## Mussels (Apr 22, 2015)

dorsetknob said:


> I was not Suggesting that you Flash your new toy but to Revist the thread in the future when open source firmware has caught up with this and is more reliable



oh i definitely will be at some point, i'm just giving Dlink a chance to sort out the issues first.


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2015)

Never really rely on consumer router usb
Best to get a NAS. Every router Ive tried with USB sucked with speeds and they often fry the drives.


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## OneMoar (Apr 22, 2015)

can't say I didn't see this coming Dlink are garbage
would probably be fine with DD-WRT Or OpenWRT  meh ...
ARM support on DDWRT/OPENWRT is still really spotty


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## Mussels (Apr 27, 2015)

I missed a secondary feature of the router (statistics) and have updated the review to include them.


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## remixedcat (Apr 27, 2015)

Too bad it doesn't show application usage like my meraki does.. and at 300dollars ... my meraki was 160


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## Mussels (Apr 27, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> Too bad it doesn't show application usage like my meraki does.. and at 300dollars ... my meraki was 160




while there may be better, at least its still one feature thats above average. doesn't affect the final score because its basically a trouble shooting option and no more. if it recorded bandwidth per IP/device, that'd be awesome but it does not.


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## remixedcat (Apr 27, 2015)

Its stupid the Amped ones only show.. PACKETS PER SECOND. Like.. why are you supposed to do with that.'. no bytes, bits. Etch.


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## Mussels (May 5, 2015)

I got an email from D-link and they said its fine, because on their test android device (note 4, 910G like mine) it works fine on their custom ROM based on android 5.1 (must be CM 12.1)

I waited two weeks to get told that a custom rom fixed their router issues -.-


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## Ferrum Master (May 5, 2015)

And now you must seek if CM team uses binaries/source from their own device or kanged from another lol. Dlink must push a talk with samsung then themselves not leave the fight to end user, stupid imbeciles. 

They suggest voiding warranty for another manufacturer device in order to get their own buggy device working?


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## remixedcat (May 5, 2015)

d-link are shit for telling you to use a custom rom to fix THIER ISSUE!!! [insert foamy the squerrl meme here]

shouldn't have to do anything of the sort and void warrantees and such... what if it's a work phone you are not allowed to dick with? like OMG dlink is so stupid


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## Bo$$ (May 5, 2015)

Mussels said:


> I waited two weeks to get told that a custom rom fixed their router issues -.-



this is a problem currently affecting the S5 and the Note 4, hardly D-link's fault.


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## lZKoce (May 5, 2015)

I don't get on what basis people trash D-link on a general note. I don't own this router- no, I have DIR-850L and a smaller one which I don't know the name of and they are by far the best routers I 've had so far. I can't say this for TP-LINK however. I am running the 1st on stock firmware (updated to latest version) and the second on DD-WRT. But generally I am satisfied. This autumn I am planning to get a 3rd Dlink router, just because I see how reliable they are. It is true I use 0.001% of all the functionality they offer "on paper", so I might be terribly wrong about them. May be if I get a good deal, I might pick up some Linksys. I don't know about Asus and routers....but I am skeptical.


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## Bo$$ (May 5, 2015)

lZKoce said:


> I don't get on what basis people trash D-link on a general note. I don't own this router- no, I have DIR-850L and a smaller one which I don't know the name of and they are by far the best routers I 've had so far. I can't say this for TP-LINK however. I am running the 1st on stock firmware (updated to latest version) and the second on DD-WRT. But generally I am satisfied. This autumn I am planning to get a 3rd Dlink router, just because I see how reliable they are. It is true I use 0.001% of all the functionality they offer "on paper", so I might be terribly wrong about them. May be if I get a good deal, I might pick up some Linksys. I don't know about Asus and routers....but I am skeptical.



I've used dlink, linksys netgear, asus and tp link routers recently. I would only recommend asus for high performance routers and the tplink for budget routers with amazing features. Although there may be some unicorn models i don think it's unfair to say that.


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## remixedcat (May 5, 2015)

I have a d-link "enterprise" ap and switch and they both are crap.


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## Mussels (May 5, 2015)

Bo$$ said:


> this is a problem currently affecting the S5 and the Note 4, hardly D-link's fault.



D-link never told me that. To clarify all they've said is "we tested and it works" when asked specifically about the samsungs and when i pressured them since i've tested on half a dozen in the house, they said it works fine for them - on a custom ROM. (not that the custom rom fixed it, just that 'it works')

At no point have they told me this is a samsung issue, or even a smartphone issue, i wait a week to get one line answers that ignore most of what i've written to them. You seem to know more than they do.


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## Mussels (May 5, 2015)

because i am nothing if not thorough and/or petty, i have flashed the latest CM12.1 nightly to my second phone.

These are identical 910G's from the same carrier, same modem/bootloader files, only different custom OS.







Problem is not resolved, although i do see the CM12.1 phone jump to full speed initially, but then it drops and simply never recovers.


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## remixedcat (May 5, 2015)

wow. they potatoed that sooo muuuuch


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## Mussels (May 5, 2015)

In order to give some real world results to show its not just the connection number playing up:

Smart connect on (as per previous screenshots)





Smart connect off, 30 seconds later:












Even on a 'slow' device like a smartphones wifi to an SD card, we're easily talking about half the speed with this feature enabled.


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## remixedcat (May 5, 2015)

what the hell is it supposed to really do?


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## Mussels (May 5, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> what the hell is it supposed to really do?



push idle/low bandwidth devices to 2.4GHZ, and then even out the devices actively transmitting on 5GHz between the two bands, so that idle/long distance devices don't cause slowdowns.

In reality it pushes everything to 2.4GHz, slows them down below the 300Mb they should be getting... and sits there. Other devices (2.4GHz and 5GHz N) have the same speed issue, so its not like its an AC only issue.


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## remixedcat (May 5, 2015)

LOL wow.


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## rtwjunkie (May 5, 2015)

@Mussels Is that your own trademark: Fast WiFi speeds if Dumb Connect(TM)?  

If it is, I like it!


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## Mussels (May 5, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> @Mussels Is that your own trademark: Fast WiFi speeds if Dumb Connect(TM)?
> 
> If it is, I like it!



i made that as a joke initially, but it turns out D-links tech support was the punchline.


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## Ferrum Master (May 5, 2015)

Meanwhile at D-Link support line...


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## Sasqui (May 5, 2015)

Mussels said:


> Bonus Image: I won the router in a contest saying i'd use it to scare women and children. No need, the australian variant of this is actually a red-back router, and tends to make its own webs and hang around the ceiling to improve signal strength.



If you turn the ceiling fan on, the signal will be moving faster!  Please include a video.


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## Bo$$ (May 6, 2015)

Mussels said:


> because i am nothing if not thorough and/or petty, i have flashed the latest CM12.1 nightly to my second phone.
> 
> These are identical 910G's from the same carrier, same modem/bootloader files, only different custom OS.
> 
> ...





It's a samsung problem, doesn't happen on the M8 or M9 HTC only the S5


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## Mussels (May 6, 2015)

Bo$$ said:


> It's a samsung problem, doesn't happen on the M8 or M9 HTC only the S5




I'm not seeing the problem on just an S5.


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## Mussels (May 12, 2015)

another update: i tested the stats server on the router because it was giving me odd numbers, and long story short... its wildly inaccurate.


It always shows 2x-3x the actual bandwidth being used, being as 'accurate' as showing a 2.7MB/s throughput on a 7Mb DSL connection (speedtest and bandwidth monitor pro both agree on the 7Mb at the time of the 2.7MB/s reading)


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## remixedcat (May 12, 2015)

Ha ha this is like ixchariot's numbers how they derped heavy on some routers I've tested and the reason I don't use it for my reviews anymore.  I've had -900mbps or -230mbps numbers lol.


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## Mussels (May 24, 2015)

as an update i removed this from being my primary router and went back to my TP link and learned something interesting.

The "smart connect" feature works as long as you leave all the settings on default - not sure which one breaks it (changing the IP range for DHCP?) but i can make it work and break by factory resetting, and then putting my settings back in again.


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