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[shaith]

Went to 1.34NA about two weeks ago.  Started with totally clean configuration, no restoring - just rebuilt it (no loading old configs).  Router works well for about 2 days, then starts having performance issues.  Low bandwidth, slow page loads, even DNS timeouts trying to hit sites like Google, CNN, etc.  Speedtest takes two minutes to load the page.  Restart router, try same sites, works great - for about 2 days.  Then we're back to the same stuff.  Slow page loads, movies streamed on Netflix/shows on Hulu dropping quality down the toilet, downloads lousy.

Finally turned off the DNS relay option again and we're now on day 3, performance is rock solid.  I'm guessing this is one feature that's simply best avoided.  I'd seen this behavior before in previous firmware releases on my A2 revision 655, but figured I'd give it a go again with the 1.34NA release. 

Incidentally, tried both the DNS servers assigned by Comcast and the OpenDNS servers, both experienced the same issues at about the same timeframes.  The only thing I can guess at is the DNS queries being cached eventually chew up available memory in the router and then it starts going braindead, as even a warm restart clears it up.  Having to restart the router every other day, however, isn't really desired behavior - I'd much rather simply disable the feature and have the router work flawlessly for 30+ days as it did with the previous firmware version.

So, if you're one of those who starts seeing shoddy performance on your 655 after a couple of days and a restart fixes it every time, you might have a peek under Setup, Network Settings, Enable DNS relay.
 

[EddieZ]

PLease post your other settings for DHCP, DNS etc in the DIR. There could be network conflicts.

[shaith]

DHCP:

DHCP Enabled
Address range 192.168.0.2 - 50
Lease time 1440
Always broadcast: on
Netbios: off

Router IP 192.168.0.1/255/255/255/0
Enable DNS relay is DISABLED (was enabled when problems occurred)

Connection type DHCP
Advanced DNS disabled
Unicasting enabled
primary, secondary DNS servers configured (I prefer opendns)
MTU 1500

Anything else?

[EddieZ]

Client(s) config would be nice, just to check.
Also try resetting the router and enable DNS relay again

[shaith]

clients are all set to lazy mode full dhcp, because, well, I'm lazy .  Connections have been rebuilt on every machine, drivers reloaded, even did the ol' netsh int ip reset for that fresh, clean feeling. 

It's not like this is a new problem - DNS relay has caused issues with instability in the past.  Sadly, in my case at least, it still does.  Doesn't matter if I run opendns servers or let Comcast assign them.  The more traffic generating lookups, the sooner the performance through the router starts getting clunky.  When it does, it's clunky for all of the machines in the house, including an xbox360, 2 iphones, a dell laptop using an intel 3945ABG (if I remember right...cold meds ftw), and a pair of desktops using onboard broadcom gig-e adapters.  The mere fact that I can log into the router and tell it to warm reset and go from a maximum downstream of around 2 mbit back up to 18mbit when the DNS relay is turned on, versus not having to bother with that when it's turned off?  I'm pretty certain we can point the finger that direction once more.

Not a superhuge deal by any stretch - having the machines handle their own DNS queries works just fine, and being able to assign whatever DNS servers I chose that are subsequently pushed down via DHCP is a completely acceptable alternative.  I merely pointed out the problem I saw in case someone else was facepalming every couple of days and cussing at what has otherwise been a pretty darned solid piece of hardware.

Now, if only I could trade SecureSpot for PerformanceMonitoringViaSNMP

[EddieZ]

clients are all set to lazy mode full dhcp, because, well, I'm lazy .  Connections have been rebuilt on every machine, drivers reloaded, even did the ol' netsh int ip reset for that fresh, clean feeling.  

It's not like this is a new problem - DNS relay has caused issues with instability in the past.  Sadly, in my case at least, it still does.  Doesn't matter if I run opendns servers or let Comcast assign them.  The more traffic generating lookups, the sooner the performance through the router starts getting clunky.  When it does, it's clunky for all of the machines in the house, including an xbox360, 2 iphones, a dell laptop using an intel 3945ABG (if I remember right...cold meds ftw), and a pair of desktops using onboard broadcom gig-e adapters.  The mere fact that I can log into the router and tell it to warm reset and go from a maximum downstream of around 2 mbit back up to 18mbit when the DNS relay is turned on, versus not having to bother with that when it's turned off?  I'm pretty certain we can point the finger that direction once more.

Not a superhuge deal by any stretch - having the machines handle their own DNS queries works just fine, and being able to assign whatever DNS servers I chose that are subsequently pushed down via DHCP is a completely acceptable alternative.  I merely pointed out the problem I saw in case someone else was facepalming every couple of days and cussing at what has otherwise been a pretty darned solid piece of hardware.

Now, if only I could trade SecureSpot for PerformanceMonitoringViaSNMP

You're the only one currently on the board that still has issues with DNS relay in 1.34. In some network configs it is required to turn it off, by the way....

Few people know what a DNS relay actually is....

A normal DNS server maintains it’s own records. When you query it, it attemps to resolve the query locally, if it can not find a matching entry, it will forward the query to the next upstream DNS server (known as forwarders). A DNS forwarding server (or RELAY) takes the request and paases it to the DNS it has configured as a forwarder (without trying to resolve it, because it doesn’t have a local database). It recieves the answer from the upstream DNS server and passes it back to the client. As far as the client is concerned, the DNS RELAY has answered the query.

[shaith]

Do we know for a fact that the DNS relay is _not_ caching the responses from the DNS servers it's configured with?  If it isn't, then this particular glitch doesn't make any more sense than when it was first picked up. 

Nothing unusual with my network configs.  No internal DNS servers, no caching proxies, none of that at all - there are a total of 5 clients connected.  2 over the wire, 5 others periodically over WLAN.  All of them exhibit the exact same performance.  Iphone 3g, iphone 4, both behaving identically - after a couple of days, performance just starts to slide downhill.  I even went through and disconnected everything and brought 1 client at a time online in it during the poor performance period - wanted to make sure we weren't getting any extraneous traffic.  None was found.  And the moment it was reset, presto, all better again. 

If I'm truly the sole person experiencing the issue, and I doubt that seriously, then as I said - I have a viable workaround, happy with this router's performance and its range in particular.  I'm well outside of the warranty on it I'm sure, so in the event that the router DOES die, I'll simply replace it.  It's certainly outlasted its predecessors (a couple of linksys, a couple of dlinks) by a hefty margin, so can't really complain

If you've got any other suggestions I'll certainly listen to them.  If TPTB want to see for themselves that I've got no weird configuration details going on they're welcome to a copy of the config off the router.  It's pretty straight up though.  DHCP is turned on, securespot is turned off, wireless is in mixed mode, I actually have the SSID broadcasting, locked to WPA2 running AES only.  Timezone is set but auto-DST is disabled, time server is set (and confirmed working), and outside of static IP's for the desktops I'm pretty sure everything else was left alone.  Well, of course, DNS relaying is now off, but other than that there's nothing strange about the configs on this router or this network.  No secondary switches, access points, relays, etc.  No domain controller, no internal DNS server, just an average plain-Jane network setup.

And the only time the router's been reset since disabling the dns relay was yesterday when my cats decided to parkour up the side of the desk and managed to catch the power switch on the power strip feeding the router and cable modem.  Furry little cretins. 

[gicamuci]

You're the only one currently on the board that still has issues with DNS relay in 1.34. In some network configs it is required to turn it off, by the way...

Well... he's not anymore... Have the same issue still after applying fw 1.34NA on my hw rev A2. I think I have a worse problem, cause even with dns relay off, still have to restart it after one or two days. I do have though 12 devices on my LAN.

[EddieZ]

So how can you tell DNS Relay actually is the cause, considering that in a normal network setup you do not need it at all?

[marmoduke]

You might try the following:  Can't hurt.

Do an IPConfig /flushdns

Reset Router

Set router to do DNS Relay

On your NIC Properties IP, make first "preferred" DNS server your Router's IP address.

[gicamuci]

To be true, have to mention, with the original fw I bought it was working perfect. BTW, is there a way to go back without bricking it ?

Edit - September 14, 2010, 06:43 PM EST:

Just found the russian version of the fw 1.31RU and applied it (now it says "Hardware Version: A3, Firmware Version: 1.31RU" even though on the back sticker says Hardware Version: A2 and the russian firmware refers to A4). I will report in a while on how it works. BTW, one of my devices on my LAN is an IPTV box, if that matters.

So how can you tell DNS Relay actually is the cause, considering that in a normal network setup you do not need it at all?

I don't say it is the DNS relay, but there is no other thread that I can find close to this problem. My router is doing it regardeless of the DNS relay on or off.

You might try the following:  Can't hurt.

Do an IPConfig /flushdns

Reset Router

Set router to do DNS Relay

On your NIC Properties IP, make first "preferred" DNS server your Router's IP address.

Nope, no joy, but thanks for trying.


fw 1.31RU - Report 1 - September 15, 2010, 05:14 PM EST:

- After almost 24 hours the router is up and running with no issues (I had to reboot it at least once a day with 1.34NA)

fw 1.31RU - Report 2 - September 22, 2010, 12:20 PM EST:

- Well it is over a week now and everything work perfect.

fw 1.31RU - Last Report - October 07, 2010, 10:55 AM EST:

- Still works perfect.

[gscott]

having the same problem on my DIR632, searching for ideas on here...  Anywhere you can point me for help would be great!

Searching in the Forums as I thought my problem might be common across different products - there does not seem to be a forum particular to the DIR-632.

I just bought the D-Link DIR-632 to replace a combination of old router and not quite as old wireless router I had been using in combination for a while.  Had added a D-Link 323 NAS device and wanted to be able to easily access it from two different wireless computers, two wired computers and two wired DVR, and connect a networked printer.

I installed and got everything up and running easily.  When I first start any computer the internet connection is fast - pages load almost instantly including pages with lots of pictures.  The problem starts after the computer is up and running for a while - all of a sudden the browsers (either Firefox or IE) slow dramatically or even stop responding.  Pages, even simple ones, take 20 or 25 seconds to load or the browser goes "not responding".

Problem same both wired and wireless.

Same in the admin configuration pages for the router.  When I first start up and log in the pages are instant.  After a few minutes the pages are dead slow or the browser goes unresponsive.

Re-booting and or resetting the router solves the problem for just a few minutes then it goes dead slow again.  Restoring to factory default settings only works for a few minutes then same old slowdown.

This problem did not exist with my old wired/wireless router combination.

My thoughts:
bad router?

Firmware??  Is the latest version available according to config Firmware page, nothing avail to upgrade to.

Settings in the router configuration?

Settings in my browsers?  Two different browsers on wired WinXP machine, two different browsers on wireless Win7 machine, problem the same in all of them.

NIC card?  Using the built in one on my motherboard, could maybe try a separate NIC?

anyone with ideas??

[gicamuci]

anyone with ideas??

I don't see any real complains about this router... not yet anyway. What is the MTU in the settings you use ?

[sko58]

You're the only one currently on the board that still has issues with DNS relay in 1.34.

This is far from true.  I've been experiencing issues for some time now and am pleased to find other people posting about it - along with their possible solutions (or temporary bandaids).

The latest firmware - v1.34NA - has been the worst of the bunch (for me).  I'm constantly dealing with (apparent) DNS issues as well as speed drops and other problems requiring router resets.

With that said, thanks "shaith" for your comments regarding DNS Relay (disabling it).  I'll give it a go and see what happens.

Fortunately, after trying several things on my own, I decided to give OpenDNS a try and it's been working well so far - i.e. - no DNS-related issues for a few days now.  My problems may not end up being related to the DNS Relay setting but it's important to recognize there are likely far more people experiencing problems than one might assume.  Not everyone wants to register and comment in online forums...

Thanks again!

[Grizzmeister]

Hello,

I just signed up to mention that I’m having issues since installing 1.34NA, too. Youtube videos now DL painfully slow and often just stop. I had been running and was completely satisfied with firmware version 1.21 which is what my router shipped with but decided to upgrade when I got the Google Redirection virus. I removed the virus updated the firmware and videos now download slowly regardless of whether I’m on a wireless or wired computer.

I tried turning off the DNS Relay option like Shaith suggested but after doing so Youtube videos wouldn’t download at all.

I’m also having other issues so I’m eager to hear what the solution is even if it means another firmware upgrade.