D-Link Router

A router lets multiple computers share a single Internet connection

The Model DI704-P (revision B) is an Ethernet router with 4 ports, a firewall and a built-in print server.

July 16, 2004. Port forwarding does not work. I tried it with multiple ports and multiple target IP address on multiple computers. Even setting up a computer as being in a DMZ did not result in its receiving any forwarded packets.

June 2003: As part of the setup process, you run a setup wizard from a web page on the router. The user is advised during the initial log on to enter a userid and no password. The next screen of the wizard lets you change the password. This requires the old password, which you just left out. That is, there is no old password. How can you change a password when you don't know the old value? Turns out leaving the old password field blank, works.

This, however is bad news, not good news. You don't want to change the password during the setup wizard because it confuses the wizard. There is no warning about this in the Quick Installation manual. Even worse, the full Manual (Rev. 061302) gives bad advice. It says: "It is recommended that you change the admin password for security purposes". While this is true in general, changing the password during the setup wizard just causes problems, as shown below. I had to exit out of the wizard and start it up again.

If you are using a dynamic IP address, then the setup wizard includes a screen about cloning MAC addresses. This was quite confusing and is not explained in the manual at all. It says "Click the “Clone MAC Address” button to automatically copy the MAC address of the network adapter in your computer. You can also manually type in the MAC address".

In other words, advice on how to do it, but not why. The how part is pretty obvious, the why is not. The User Guide says: "If your ISP requires you to enter a specific host name or specific MAC address, please enter it in." Oh, its optional. The Quick Installation manual does not mention that it is optional. I found the question shown here on the right, confusing after only reading the Quick Installation manual.

It runs somewhat hot.

The appendix of the Quick Installation Guide describes how configure your computer's network adapter to obtain an IP address automatically from the router. The only version of Windows that is explained is XP.

After using the router for a couple days, I tried to change the range of IP addresses, given out by the DHCP server built into the router. Using the web interface, this is on the Home tab, using the LAN button along the left hand column. I tried to change the IP pool ending address from 199 to 299. It didn't like this, resulting in the error shown here on the right. The gripe is that there is no explanation of which addresses are valid and which are not. Or why? I checked the Help page for this, it said nothing.

I realized after a minute that each octect in an IP address can't be larger than 255. I was able to change the upper range to 250.

The log of suspicious activity (blocked inbound connections) is not nearly as detailed as that from ZoneAlarm.

The explanation of the Virtual Server function in the Manual omits the fact that the machines running the virtual servers have to have static IP addresses.

The explanation of Filtering in the Manual made no sense to me.

The Troubleshooting section of the Manual, gives "click here, type this" instructions without saying which version of Windows the instructions apply to. No set of network configuration instructions will work the same in all versions of Windows.

The quality of the screen shots in the Manual is poor.

There is nothing in the Manual about upgrading firmware, in fact, the word firmware never even appears. D-Link does have firmware available for download on the web page for the router, but there are no instructions anywhere about determining the current version of firmware used by the router. It turns out the web based interface shows the firmware version in the STATUS section.
FYI: I found firmware upgrade instructions on the D-Link web site.

My firmware is not the most recent. Do I want to upgrade? Hard to know. The description of the new features in the newer firmware is very sketchy. Also, there are no install instructions for the new firmware, the download is nothing but an EXE file. I'm certainly not running a program with no documentation at all about what it does or what to expect.

FYI: I have not tried the Print Server functionality. However, the instructions say that each computer on the LAN has to have D-Link software installed on it before the shared printer can be accessed. This is not the usual printer driver software that you get from printer vendor. The only other print server that I have used required no software from the print server vendor to be installed on each computer, just the usual printer driver, the same as would be required if the printer was directly attached. Interestingly, the instructions on the D-Link web site say that when installing the shared printer in Windows 98, you should define it as a local printer, not as a network printer. I haven't looked into this in detail, but the print serving feature of this router seems to be somewhat of a fudge. Also, the D-Link web site says: "If your printer does not install using the Add Printer Wizard in Windows, requiring you to use the Printer Manufactures install disk to load the printer, then you may not be able to print to our device." June 2003.

FYI: Once time, when the router was on prior to booting a Windows 2000 computer, the DHCP server address in the just booted computer appeared to be wrong. TCP/IP information is available in Windows 2000 with the IPCONFIG/ALL command. Just after booting, it showed that the router was the DNS server. Normally, it reports that the DNS servers are those from my ISP. This was temporary however, a minute later, my ISPs DNS servers were being used. I guess it takes a bit of time for a newly booted computer and the router to finish all their hand shaking. June 2003.

Page last updated: July 16, 2004