D-Link DWL-G700AP

I bought a D-Link DWL-G700AP Access Point yesterday. Configured it using it's web interface, connected it to my ADSL Modem and started using it.

My laptop connected easily but after 5 minutes the signal was lost and couldn't connect anymore! I tried using my desktop to check the Access Point's web interface but it didn't load! I noticed that the Lan led was blinking but no data was being transfered(tcpdump didn't show anything). I tried to ping it's ip address, 80% packet loss! I tried resetting the device but the Lan led kept blinking. Hopefully it's wireless connection came back after the reset, so:

# iwconfig wlan0 essid default channel 6
# ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.1

Now I could access the web interface using http://192.168.0.50/

My last hope was upgrading it's firmware(v2.30). The latest firmware on D-Links's websites was v2.20!? Searching the web I found a newer firmware(v2.31) on their russian ftp server.

I downloaded the firmware and tried upgrading but I got an “invalid file!” error in firefox, I tried ies4linux(what a shame!) and it worked!(this bug is fixed in v2.31, so you can use firefox 3 to upgrade the firmware if the current firmware is v2.31 or later) The upgrade was done smoothly and after a reboot everything seems to be OK! :)

I thought it would be useful if I share this, maybe someone else will get one of these access points with a buggy firmware.

Update!

The LAN interface stopped working after 2 weeks and this time upgrading the firmware didn't fix it. Don't buy this! it's a broken piece of hardware…