Page 8 - Setup

Setup
As with most soho routers nowadays, it is a big selling point and money maker if the product works straight out of the box. The normal consumer really doesnt want to worry about what ip pool the DHCP server is operating in, nor about static routing and MAC address access rights. However with the normal home having more than one PC, and in the most cases, one of those PC's is going to be playing online at some point, it now becomes more apparent to have a router that is easy to understand and change.

Having said the above, the router installed onto the network straight out of the box. As soon as windows has finished fart arsing about with its new IP address you can delve straight into the routers setup/information screen by opening up your prefered web browser and typing in 192.168.1.254
(For anyone that has never used a router before.. the setup screen is usually always the same as the first 9 numbers of your assigned IP address then either a 1 or a 254)

I have some screen shots for you of the actual setup screens. But before you start getting bogged down with the details, i wanted to point out one very important and handy thing that Gigabyte have made. This is a first for me and hopefully not the only time i'll see it.
Gigabyte have what appears to be a very easy to use setup script in the form of a link in the setup screen. Why is this so cool? Refer back a couple of paragraphs ago.. most people dont care about the smaller details if they have to spend time on it.

Clicking the setup button:

Other than the setup button, you also have some other easy to use links to show the status of your router.

Underneath the simple screens we can get our hands on the nitty gritty parts of the router. I'll point out the important ones and name a few that I feel might be missing.

WLAN options. I cant find anywhere to actually turn it off. I know it sounds silly to have a wireless router and not use the wireless part, but prices now are so low now that i would probably consider a router with wireless, just in case i get a laptop, or a pci wireless card. It just saves on the wiring.

WLAN MAC address checking. This is a security option that can be worked around, but is a good line of defence from the common person. But on the router I received to look at, the setting appears to be on by default which means that the table was blank and no-one could gain access from the WLAN. Since its not part of the auto setup buttons at the top, I think it could be made a bit more prominent by being linked to in the easy setup sections. Its a minor point for sure, and its more cosmetic than anything.