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(More customer reviews)I read the reviews, and I decided to give it a shot anyway since I've had good luck with connectivity in my house. In all honesty, the connectivity wasn't the issue with me. It was the configuration. Below is a detailed account of my experience trying to set this thing up:
When setting up a router, I always use the web-based interface. I don't like installing a program since there's no guarantee it will work with the operating system that I have. So I use the web-based set-up page as the basis for evaluating a router. So the first thing I do is set the administrative password. The default was blank. The next thing I want to do is change the IP address of the router under the LAN settings so that the network portion of the address (i.e. the first three numbers of the IP address) matches all the statically addressed devices on my network. I try to give the router the same IP address as my old router, which is 192.168.1.1. I immediately receive an error that the IP address is being used by the "Guest Access" (or something to that effect). I have no idea what this is, so I click on that setting. It turns out that the feature is turned off already. So what gives?
I try to eliminate some variables by turning off DHCP. Still can't change the IP address. Then I turn off the router features by turning the device into an access point, and doing this gives me a prompt to set the IP address. Ah ha! This could be it. I set the IP address and commit changes. Uh oh. Big mistake! Once the router resets, my browser navigates to page that reads "Guest Access" with a prompt for a password. What? As I said, the Guest Access feature was turned off to begin with. So I enter the administrative password that I set at the beginning, and I receive a message that the password is incorrect. Great, there's a default password for "Guest Access", which I didn't bother checking since THE D@MN THING IS SUPPOSED TO BE TURNED OFF!!!! Now I have no way to get back into the router setup. My only recourse is to stick a pin into the reset button hole to reset it to factory settings.
At this point, I should have packed this sumb1tch up to return it, but I'm a stubborn fool. I start all over, but this time I first set the "Guest Access" password. I get to the point of turning the device into an access point (mind you, I do want to use the router features, but I'm only trying to diagnose my original problem of not being able to set the LAN IP address). After applying the changes, the router resets as expected, and I get the "Guest Access" page again. I enter the password (that I now know since I set it myself), and the response is something like "You are now connected to the Internet". Again, WTF??? It still doesn't allow me to get into the setup page. So I now know that turning off the router features is a no go. I reset it to factory settings again.
I conclude that there's an issue with using the 192.168.1.* network which apparently is completely reserved by the "Guest Access" feature whether or not it's turned on. I decide to change the router's IP address to 192.168.0.1. Success! I know I still have to reconfigure other devices on the network with static IP addresses, but at least I'm able to set the router's IP address now to something other than the default of 192.168.2.1.
I now move on to setting the wireless security settings. I select WPA2-PSK. I notice the AEP is the only available encryption method (no TKIP). No biggie since that's what I was using anyway. At this point the router isn't connected to my cable modem. I want to check the wireless connection speed first. I connect to the router using the 5 GHz band, and check the connection status. While still clicking around the router settings in my browser (still no Internet connection yet), I see that the connection speed reaches the maximum of 300 Mbps, but it doesn't stay there long. It fluctuates quite a bit. It gets as low as 90 Mbps, but it seems to average around 200 Mbps. In contrast, when connected to my old router which only supports the 2.4 GHz band, my connection is capped by my adapter card at 144 Mbps, but it rarely drops below 130 Mbps. I consider this an acceptable trade-off, however.
OK. Now onto connecting the router to the Internet. I connect my cable modem to the WAN port, and I set the connection type to dynamic. The router resets, but no Internet connection. I power cycle the cable modem as well as the router for good measure. Still no Internet connection. Thinking there might be a modem provisioning issue, I change the MAC address of the router to that of my old router. Amazingly, this does the trick. Now I have an Internet connection! I now go all my statically addressed devices (desktop PC, server, and printer) and change the IP addresses.
Everything is looking good so far. I check if I can access a website that I'm hosting on my server. Oops. I forgot to set the virtual server settings. I go back to the router setup page, and set up the virtual servers like on my old router. It's a little bit more cumbersome since you can add servers using a port range. However, I like the fact that you can set the private port number to something other than the external port number. My old router lets you add servers using an external port range, but it doesn't let you set the private port number. Anyway, I set up all the virtual servers, open up a browser window, and navigate to my website. Take a wild guess what renders. That's right. It's the D@MN router setup page! What's going on? I check the settings for remote router configuration, and it's turned off! So why is this page coming up? I change the URL to one that I know doesn't exist on the router's web-based setup, and I get a 404 error. Essentially, my web server isn't receiving the HTTP requests. I check my web server configuration, and every thing is OK. I even remembered to change the IP address that the web server is listening to. I fiddle around with the router some more, and I eventually give up.
Now, I've had problems setting up routers before. Even setting up Netgear business-class routers using Telnet wasn't as frustrating as this experience. Admittedly, the router works OK if you're just using it to access the Internet. But if you want to use it as the router for your own internal network and want to set up your own web server, stay away from this product. I'm warning you.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Belkin Wireless Play Max Router (F7D4301)
Product Description:
Belkin's PlayMax Wireless Router with the latest Dual-Band N technology, gives you the fastest, most reliable speeds for streaming video, playing music and gaming online.
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