Belkin N1 Wireless Router

I had this router for a while now (longer than I could return it for a refund). Very often I cannot connect to web sites that I frequently use. Eventually I did some research and found that this router has a fatal defect - its DNS cache will get corrupted over time. The latest firmware from Belkin does not fix it.

When I initially had problem accessing web sites, I naturally assumed that the web sites could be down or my ISP could have problems. One day when I tried to VPN into my office the VPN could not be connected. I tried to ping my office VPN server and the IP address returned was different from the actual IP. My VPN server was on xx.xx.xx.84 but the PING request indicated xx.xx.xx.4. I then used NSLOOKUP to check various DNS servers, and pin-pionted the error to the Belkin router's DNS cache.

The DHCP server in the Belkin router automatically sets the DNS server address to be those provided by my ISP plus the Belkin's own IP address 192.168.2.1...Read more

Update 6-17-07: I have now owned this unit for a year and I still love it. I experienced intermittment drops for a short time when I switched from DSL to a cable ISP. But Belkin issued a firmware update in mid May '07 that totally resolved that problem. No issues since.

After trying the Linksys SRX400 and WRT300N routers and being totally discouraged by poor performance, I decided to give another brand a try. The Belkin N1 worked right out of the box as advertised. All I did was hook up the router to the DSL modem and then to my workstation, restarted, and then ran the CD and that was it. The WiFi range and consistency of the signal is superb. I bought this router primarily to stream video to Media Center Extenders that are littered throughout the house in various rooms. I had no problem getting an "excellent signal" in several areas - both inside my home and outside on my patio. The signal was constantly strong and did not bounce around a lot like it did with the...Read more

Outstanding Router were it not for some wireless glitches. I now share my wireless network with my inlaws 3 houses away (though clear line of sight). Took a long time to sort out why I couldn't maintain a wireless connection even within my house though...and I note some people think the wireless does not even work.

A review of the product at "Tom's Hardware" website finally pointed me to the problem. Apparently, the router has some hardware issues related to their Security feature. If you enable WPA-2 the signal can drop by more than 85% leading you to believe it doesn't work...I'd suggest you read that review.

Based on that, I removed the Security settings and all my problems with dropped connections etc. ceased. I provide some security by using the MAC Filtering and not transmitting the SSID. I suspect that is sufficient for a home router but not for an enterprise. But I could not engage the WPA-2 (either TKIP or AES) and get any reliable range or...Read more