Tag Archives: belkin

Belkin N+ modem router

Posted by on April 8, 2009 2 comments

A little while back I had problems with my old Belkin N1 wireless router and was still amazed that despite a general lack of customer service in South Africa, Incredible Connection (of all places) managed to impress me.

Netgear provides in my opinion the only reasonable consumer networking products and I will stick with my Netgear DG834 (running DGTeam firmware) as it has never disappointed. A few months back I tried Linksys (being Cisco now), but their Soho routers are not even capable of providing a custom netmask. But there is one benefit no company currently can match with Belkin – a life-time replacement warranty on their products.

As a follow up on my pitching session about MTN, perhaps companies should look at Incredible Connection and Belkin for a number of reasons. As a first Belkin provides a life-time warranty on their products. Belkin’s products don’t perform exceptionally well (in comparison to Netgear or Cisco), but to prove the point:

I bought the Belkin N1 router some 14 months ago at R 2,500.00. This was a brilliant price, considering that it was the first N-draft, gigabit router on the market. The router died and the local Belkin representation (Gobic) was very quick in providing a credit note for a replacement. It takes guts for a company to provide life-time warranty, but it will certainly create brand-loyalty.

Incredible Connection comes into the picture as they handled the return (regardless of where you purchased the Belkin product, you can hand it into any Incredible-store, provided you have the till-slip). Once Gobic established that the router can not be repaired and was not damaged by lightning, I was able to pick up a replacement at the store.

There was no fuss, as the current N1 price was R 2,700.00 and the assistant even offered to give me the N1′s replacement the newer N+ modem router which goes for almost R 3,000.00. Although this was my first positive experience at Incredible Connection, it paints a clear picture, that some companies are becoming more customer centric than others.

The N+ is okay, and does everything the N1 did. I tried the ADSL mode, but it’s firmware can not compete with a well tuned open-source firmware running on the Netgear. The N+’s storage feature (plug in any USB device and it will mount it as a network share via Samba) is about the only advantage (but then again, I have 2Tb of storage on my NAS).



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Belkin – life-time warranty

Posted by on February 28, 2009 1 comment

My trusty gigabit Belkin N1 Vision router decided to croak two days ago.

At the time of purchase (Aug’ 08) this was one of the first N-draft gigabit routers on the market and accordingly came in at a hefty price of R 2,700. I am not sure if the sudden death was related to the firmware I installed in November, or if the router didn’t want to shuffle gigabytes around anymore.

Lightning was certainly not the cause, since any electrical surge has to travel past an APC surge arrestor and then through an APC Back-UPS C350. Somehow it appears that the router’s firmware got corrupted as it kept rebooting itself and even a hard-reset did not convince the Belkin to reset to factory defaults.

The one thing you might not know is, that every Belkin router has a life-time warranty and as long as lightning does not blow up your equipment, Belkin will repair it or replace it.

Even more surprising was, that when I went to Incredible Connection today to send the router in, they went and gave me a brand new one over the counter. I didn’t even have to provide the packaging and I walked out with a brand new and shrink-wrapped model.

So don’t be tempted as I was and chuck the router in the dustbin, go to the place where you bought it and ask for a replacement, as it has a lifetime warranty. (If you struggle, let me know, I have a few contacts to get you sorted)

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Belkin N1 Vision – new firmware

Posted by on November 18, 2008 1 comment

My Belkin N1 Vision (F5D8232uk4) gigabit router has served me well in the past, and although I would next time rather go with a Netgear or Linksys, the choice was made due to it’s gigabit ports (at the time of purchase there was no wireless router available with those features).

Over the weekend I updated my F5D8232uk4-version 1 router to the latest pre-release firmware (v1.00.16) which resolves the following issues:
- General improvements in performance and stability
- Fix for a problem where the router would drop some connections on 2-hour intervals
- Updated driver for the Wireless Network card

Unlike other users, I must have been lucky, since I have not experienced any issues and would not be able to tell a difference after applying the latest firmware.

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How to hack your Belkin router

Posted by on July 31, 2008 6 comments

It innocently (like many cool things) started off with the replacement of my current modem router with a Belkin N1 Vision gigabit router:

I would have gone with a Airport Extreme base-station instead, but the local Apple stores have been out of stock for weeks. During my upgrades I stumbled across a mysterious page on the router (http://routerip/wukongjiuwo.html) which opens up a console window straight onto the Belkin’s operating system:

Once there you can control the router remotely (not sure why you want to do this) but you will also be able to run any Linux command (repeat after me: rm -rf / ….. DONT!). Very quickly you will spot that /www directory and within a number of pages such as http://routerip/wifi.html – which provides you great opportunity to tweak TX-settings:

Where does the above lead? Just a matter of time until you will be able to flash your router with a custom-firmware.

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Belkin N1 wireless router

Posted by on March 8, 2008 2 comments

In anticipation of finally getting broadband I bought myself the Belkin N1 wireless router:

I managed to get a R 500,00 discount from Incredible Corruption since the box was opened and the manual was missing. Nonetheless everything else was still in factory condition. The N1 router has a slick design and much easier setup process. A removable sticker on the N1 shows you exactly which steps to perform, and the completely redesigned setup program—now with an Apple look and feel—is easier than ever to use. I had the N1 running a few minutes after unpacking it. Both the Linksys and Buffalo N routers offer one-click options for security, which makes the overall setup process faster and smoother, but the Belkin N1 accomplishes the same goal through its software.

Despite the many announcements for Draft N networking equipment last year, actual hardware has been slow to surface. The Belkin N1 router differs from either Linksys’s or Netgear’s competing Draft N products by not offering a single-mode operation. Instead, the only option is a mixed n/g/b mode.

Generally, single-mode operation offers better performance, because in mixed-mode, the older-generation products (such as 802.11b clients, which can sustain a slower throughput than 11g or pre-11n clients) become a network bottleneck. If you do have to buy now and want something that will likely be upgradable through firmware to conform with the final 11n spec, the N1 router should be your choice.

Like just about every 802.11n router, the main feature enhancement on the Belkin N1 is the speed. Where Belkin truly innovated beyond that specification is in the new router design and setup. The router includes WPA encryption, SPI firewall, MAC address blocking, 4 10/100MBit Ethernet ports and more. The firewall includes features such as port forwarding and a DMZ. The later allowed me to place the PS3 in the DMZ and made it now possible to have NAT2 support.

The Belkin N1 matches the speed of both the Netgear and Linksys 802.11n routers, and provides just a bit more coverage in your home—extending its signal to about 300 meters.

Note: Before you configure the router, ensure that you update the latest firmware from here (be careful about your hardware version – I have the hardware version F5D8231-4 v2 and downloaded BETA_2.01.27 which made the router N draft 2.0 compliant)

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