Router migration and USB Wifi Adapter Upgrade.

It has been 25 hours since I installed the new wireless router for home use. After more than 8 months of agony in experiencing constant network drops, I have finally thrown in the towel to something more commercially proven and endorse by many. Somehow I felt that I have become a staunch Belkin supporter after purchasing 3 different products from them. Two of them are mentioned here but the last one shall remain undisclosed for no reason what so ever.

Here is the old setup.

Focus on the big red X. The detail sub picture is showing my TIME Webbit Navini Modem. Talking about Navini, I wonder if there is a new firmware upgrade?

Opened the package.

Contents in box.

Plug it in and voila! Well, only after minimal security configuration so that the rest of my house mates don’t have to reconfigure. I tell you, doing network support for free is kind of cool because they will have to ask politely for help (coz not paying) plus I can help if I choose to coz it’s free support.

Anyway, setup completed as below.

As expected, I noticed three bad features of Belkin wifi router.

First of all, everytime I make a small ‘fraking’ setting adjustment, I am subjected to a 25 seconds wait for restart and relogin. This router was testing my patience.

Second is probably a disadvantage in usage but may be a good security feature. There seems to be a session for administration that requires logout. Closing your browser abruptly would render you unable to re-login until the session times out. If there is a session, why can’t it save all the setting changes in session and affect all these modification at a click? (referring to the first problem above)

The third and final disadvantage I noticed were, the power supply that connects to the back of the router is small. Small as in like an uncircumcised penis with a little head poking out making the power cable disconnects easily when moving the router.

However, the biggest advantage now I hope Belkin can deliver would be eliminating the frequent wifi network drop out.

I also changed the USB wifi adapter for my PC, an upgrade from 11Mbps to 54Mbps connectivity with the Belkin router. Thus involve the replacing of my current MA111 Netgear USB Wifi adapter, which I bought for RM255.00 in March 2004, to a Belkin product which cost RM180.00. Whereas petrol prices in Malaysia and the rest of the world is rising, some things are getting cheaper.

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