D-link Ethernet Router

    I was at the D-Link website earlier today trying to dig up the exact specifications for this model router, but they're no longer making it. I couldn't even find any reference to it. I entered "DI-604" in the D-Link website's search box and it returned zero results. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I bought it nearly three years ago and I understand full well how quickly old technology gets overtaken and replaced by new technology. I can understand D-Link discontinuing production of their DI-604 model router. What I don't understand is why they don't at least have some sort of archived material by way of support. Just because they've stopped building it doesn't mean people have stopped using it. They not only quit making it, they've apparently disowned it as well.

    Anyway, from there I spent about thirty minutes doing searches for "D-Link DI-604 router." All I came up with were people either selling a DI-604 router, or trying to get it to work. That and the occasional review. Mostly they seemed to be trying to get it to work. I seem to recall spending a good two hours on the phone with D-Link support myself when I first brought this router home. I had to call them three times that day before I finally got it installed correctly. I bought the router around 10:00 in the morning and it was 6:00 that evening before I could safely say I was finished. D-Link has outstanding support, by the way. Friendly, patient, knowledgeable... Five stars in my book.

    After the all day installation marathon, the D-Link router performed flawlessly for the next two years. I didn't have any problem with it whatsoever. I set up a LAN (Local Area Network) by connecting my main work computer with a second computer I have set up in the kitchen. This was the whole purpose of buying the router to begin with, so I could network my work computer with another computer that would be used for file storage and backing up important files. The idea was to enable me to move files from one computer to another, and vice versa, without leaving the first computer. Send files and retrieve files, all without getting up out of my chair. That was the idea and that's what I did. The only problem was that the transfer speed was terrible, that and the fact that during file transfer both sending as well as receiving computers were essentially tied up until the transfer was complete. I got the functionality I wanted, but not the performance.

    My overall opinion of this router is fair. Set-up and installation is a pain in the ass but once you get past that it's clear sailing. Transfer speed, as I already mentioned, was pretty slow but this router did what it was designed to do. It connected two computers and allowed them to share files, as well as an internet connection. It did it's job, just not as well as I would have liked it to.

    On a related note: My Linksys Wireless-G Broadband router.

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