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Dlink DSL-2640B Review

Details

Parent Category: Equipment

Written by Administrator

Supplier    DLINK
Model of device DSL-2640B (DKT-710)
Suitable for     ADSL
Date of test    13/11/2007
Firmware delivered with    V3.06
Firmware tested    V3.06
ADSL Firmware    N/A
Wireless    Yes (B,G)
Ethernet Ports    4 * (10/100Mb)

Pre-Face

Ok I admit it, I got a bit giddy when I saw this router on sale. First of all I was amazed by the incredibly low price, around £45 for a Wireless router with ADSL modem built in? ok so wireless G has been around for a while now, but still this is a very competitively priced router. But I was mainly excited because of the last Dlink router I reviewd, the DIR-655.

The DIR-655 allows two or more xbox to be connected and both have an Open NAT, which is so crucial for Xbox gaming. Open NAT out of the box for one Xbox is a must, for two xboxes its just a rarity especially for ADSL routers as you can see here

So I'm thinking... when manufacturers write their firmware, they usually decide on a standard and tweak accordingly for the router, so what if the DSL-2640B has some of the great features of its more expensive brother for a crazy price?

Guess what - It does!

The Router

It’s pretty small and quiet, it lays horizontal, it’s not got the “iPod” look of the Netgear DG834N or the Homehub, but its a nice looking router and wouldn’t look out of place next to your other tech kit. Same styling as the DIR-655 but its mainly black and only has the one aerial, which is standard for most Wireless G router.

4 (100Mbps) Ethernet ports and green LED’s at the front indicate LAN/WAN/Wireless activity. 1 external directional aerial, that can be unscrewed and replaced by something different if you so wish.

Setting it all up

A breeze to set-up, connect the ethernet cable to your PC and the other end to one of the four ethernet ports of the routers, browse to http://192.168.1.1

When prompted, enter admin admin for the username/password. Click the "Setup Wizard"

At this point you'll be asked for the following details:-

• Change your router password (if you want)
• Which country you live in
• Which ISP you use
• What your ISP username/password is

And that's it, save the settings, the router reboots and your on the internet. Plug in the Xbox and your on Xbox live with an Open NAT out of the box.

Web Interface/Features

The web interface may look a bit complex, but it’s not, to be honest there’s very little most people would want to change from the word go. There’s setup wizard to get you online and another wizard to secure your wireless, or you can manually change the settings yourself if you wish.

But there’s some other nice little features you might want to play with, like the parental controls if you want to restrict access to certain websites or certain traffic (gaming, p2p, chat) at certain times of day.

Built in NTP (Network Time Protocol) ensures the routers date/time is always set correctly, there’s plenty of logging features available if you want to log what is happening on your router.

It has a great firewall built in that you can just leave at the defaults or tweak as necessary and also has some other nice protection features such as:-

• DOS and Portscan Protection
• SYN attack
• FIN/URG/PSH attack
• Ping Attack
• Xmas Tree attack
• TCP reset attack
• Null scanning attack
• Ping of Death attack
• SYN/RST SYN/FIN attack

Here's a list of the other main features:-

UPnP    Yes
DHCP    Yes
DHCP Address Reservation    Yes
WEP    Yes
WPA-PSK[TKIP]    Yes
WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES]    Yes
WPA2-PSK [AES]    Yes
WPA-802.1x    Yes
Wireless Access List    Not at present
WDS    No
Firewall    Yes (SPI)
Dynamic DNS    Yes
QoS - LAN    Yes
QoS - Wireless    Yes
Support for two or more Xbox With an OPEN Nat    Yes

QoS (Quality of Service)

QoS – Quality of Service. Most people don’t know what it is or even care. But these days, more and more people are doing more and more with their routers at home. Making internet voice calls, streaming video, downloading large files, emailing etc etc.

Most home routers don’t care what your using. They will just send out data onto the internet on a “first come first served” basis. Which means, if you’ve a busy house with a few users all using the same internet connection, there can be a bit of a bun fight!

One user could be downloading torrents and using quite a lot of bandwidth, if someone else wanted to use the internet to make a phone call (Skype etc) they could find that the call is “choppy” and the voice is breaking up. Or if someone wanted to play on Gears of War online, it could be laggy because of the torrents downloading.

Unlike its bigger brother (DIR-655) if you want to enable QoS you need to put some work in to identify what ports your application uses (xbox live for example) and enter them into the QoS setup. There is QoS for the LAN and WLAN (Wireless Network).

We now have a guide for enabling QOS for your Xbox here

Wireless Speeds

In terms of wireless G speeds its pretty much the same performance as other routers really. Here’s a set of tests I carried out:-

Equipment used: Dlink DSL-2640B

Laptop with Wireless G card

Qcheck Performance testing software

All the tests were carried out with the router configured with WPA-PSK configured, using the Wireless Channel mode of Auto.

File Transfer Rate (802.54g) < 1m 23Mb

File Transfer Rate (802.54g) > 6m 18-20Mb

File Transfer Rate (802.54g) > 8m 18-20Mb

NAT

As we know a good NAT status of Open is all important for Xbox live. I'm glad to say its Open out the box, so there's no issues there. This router will also support two or more Xboxes with a NAT of Open, no config changes needed, so we now have another ADSL router capable of supporting multiple xboxes and this one won't hurt your wallet.

Summary

I won’t hide the fact that I’ve been a long time supporter of Netgear routers and for a good reason.

Prior to today, if anyone asked me what router I’d recommend to an ADSL customer for Xbox Live, it would be the Netgear DG834G, it’s a great router.

Today that changes, it’s now the DLINK DSL-2640B. The Dlink wins in the following areas:-

• Even easier to use
• Price (amazing)
• Open NAT for multiple Xbox (combine that with the price and well.. it’s a no brainer)
• Featureset, it has a better feature set than the Netgear (QoS etc)
• As daft as it sounds, its also got a power button, something that's sadly missing on a lot of routers

2009 Update

Since reviewing the router I have now purchased one myself and I'm pleased to say that running Firmware Version EU_4.00 a great router has got even better.

MAC Address filtering is now an option for wireless. You can even run multiple wireless networks (SSID's) at the same time, so you can run up to 4 additional Guest networks so if you have visitors that require internet access you can give them access without having to give out your encryption details.

There's a ton of other features are well like SRA (Seamless Rate Adaption) which means if your ISP changes the connection rate of your router (which can happen) it will seamlessly adapt to the new speed without disconnecting like most other routers.

And even more in-depth configuration settings for QoS.

Please Note:- The Dlink DSL-2640B is being phased out please buy its successor the DSL-2640R

The Unofficial Guide To Live Rating

8.8/10