A couple of days ago, I checked out a D-Link DIR 615 for somebody, and within a split second of me setting the wireless connection on it, my Toshiba laptop connected instantly, and for the next 24 hours it never lost its connection.

The new Toshiba laptop works very well, but the wireless adapter was slow to connect to the resident D-Link DI 624 and would lose its connection every time that it went into sleep mode, sometimes after a reboot, and even if it was being used actively to surf. The laptop reported that all was well with itself, so I suspected that the ‘624’ was causing the problem. I tried every possible configuration, but nothing seemed to make it any better.

In view of the DIR 615 test, I quickly realised that the D-Link DI-624 had to go. With older G wireless stuff, it is a truly great performer but it does not like newer stuff notwithstanding backwards compatibility of newer stuff. Anyway, I found a great deal on a 1 year old D-Link DIR 628.in the local free ads, and have now set it up. As I expected, the Toshiba connected instantly. Best of all, it has not lost its connection once. I am crossing my fingers in the hope that I have finally cracked the problem.

I have a new feature courtesy of the DIR 628: a USB port to which one can connect a USB printer or a USB external hard drive and maybe even both at the same time. D-Link have additional software called ‘Shareport utility’ which enables the port and sets up the network connection to the printer, in this case an HP DeskJet 5150. The process was completely painless and took only minutes to complete on all three computers.

To conclude..

If you have a new laptop which drops its wireless connection, you don’t have any other devices which may interfere with the wireless signal, and you are running an aging wireless router, consider changing it for a new model. Although it will cost you too replace it, frustration levels will reduce dramatically. How much is that worth?