Rating: 
Summary: Verdict is in- it works great!
Review: I wanted to give this little black and blue plastic box a chance to blow up, shoot sparks, melt, and otherwise fizzle and die on me. I bought it used off of someone, have never been any good with Windows networking, and was trying to link my XP machine with my wife's 98 SE machine- AKA my archnemesis. All I had was the box, the AC adapter, and a prayer. This thing had every reason not to work and I would not have been surprised if it never became more than a paperweight to me.But it didn't! The little box fired right up when I first plugged it in and easily brought the cable modem connection to both computers. Actually making the computers see each other on the network was harder than making the Linksys box do its job. I couldn't believe it! Days later this thing is still going strong! We both download large files at the same time, play online games against each other over the network and together on the Internet, and it has yet to skip a beat. For some people things just don't work, but no product works for 100% of the customers all of the time. I'm one of those people who reads reviews and skips to all of the bad ones so I can fret about a purchase. I did that here and was nervous about the whole thing. But take it from me when I say this little beauty is incredibly easy to use and worked great with little effort from me, and unless you have some strange extenuating circumstances it should work great for you as well. Have fun, and don't forget to buy the extra network cable!
Rating: 
Summary: MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT
Review: I purchased the Linksys BEFSR41 Etherfast Cable/DSL Router, the Linksys 10/100 USB Network Adapter... , and the Linksys ProConnect USB 4-Port Hub. All three devices failed miserably. First, I install the 4-Port USB Hub. It appeared to have worked well; however, I was misled. The instruction booklet clearly stated that to preserve the power from your PC, plug in the adapter. That did not work at all. I had to remove the adapter from the hub and attach it to the USB port of my computer. This is what I found out. As long as I don't have more than one device attached to this hub, it runs well. Secondly, I installed and reinstall the Network Adapter over seven times because for some strange reason, my computer would lose this driver. Installation for this device was a headache. On two computers, I spent four straight hours. The installation consistently crashed my computer. After reinstalling and configuring the network, the darn thing actually decided to behave. I learned that before shutting down the computer, you must remove this adapter. Thirdly, I tried to install the router. After attaching the network cable to the modem and the router, the cable modem did not have access to the internet. Of course, I figure this would happen because I had to configure the router. Well, guess what, I could not configure the router because the cable modem no longer had internet access. I detached the cable modem and the router. At first, the cable modem could not gain internet access. After a while, it did. So I tried to work on the router one more time. What a waste of time. It did not work. I detached both devices, and from that point on, the cable modem could not connect to the internet. I call Linksys technical support and waited for over an hour and a half before I got a hold of a representative. I explained to the representative what had happened. At first, I thought he would be helpful, but that was also a waste of time. We could not connect to the internet. I explained to him that the cable modem was not connecting. He advised me to call the cable modem's manufacturer to resolve the problem. I informed the representative about a dozen times that the cable modem was working properly before I attached it to the router. After wasting another hour, I thanked the representative and hung up the phone. What I tried to do was remove the cable modem and reinstall it all over again. I could not do that at all. I went to the registry and removed all files associated with the modem. I used the file search feature to remove all files associated with the modem. I tried to reinstall it, and again, it failed. Now, I have to call the manufacturer and see if they can locate the problem. All I wanted to do was create a network of three computers to gain internet access. I thought it would be wise to invest on Linksys products because their prices were cheap. I wasted over nine hours on a Saturday to achieve this task, but instead ended up frustrated, bitter, and angry. You know what they say, you get what you pay for. I will never purchase another product from Linksys again.
Rating:
Summary: Just bought another one!
Review: I give these little routers a thumbs up! I've had absolutely no problems with mine whatsoever for the last year, and just bought one for my son. They're easy to set up, 15-20 minutes just like everyone says. I use the port forwarding feature to serve my webcam realtime up to my web site. Works well behind the "gateway" that DirecTV DSL provides for static ip. As for long cable runs, my longest is about 125ft. I do use high quality cat6 rated cable, connectors and blocks for all my wiring, you get what you pay for in those respects.. [cheap] patch cables? forget about it! ;)
Rating:
Summary: Very happy with this!
Review: I just today received my order for the 4 port cable/dsl router and 50' of Cat5 cable and am already extremely happy with the performance! The ... site proved to be very helpful, but was lacking one critical piece of information---I have cable modem (charter pipeline) and was networking my home system to my work system on a lower level. All I thought I needed was the router and 50' of Cat5 cable. What I overlooked was the need for a shorter cable to connect the home system and the router (sitting side by side) and had to go to a computer store to buy it before I was up and running. You need one Cat5 cable for each computer you are networking (each will require separate Cat5 cable to connect to the 4 port router.) Hope this info saves someone else from some minor frustration and a small set back in getting up and running. If not for this missing shorter cable, I would have been functional in less than an hour, including the time necessary to drill holes to run the cable from uppper level on house to lower level. The unit comes with an easy to use self help guide that minimized the installation process. The ... exclusive Linksys toll free help line was very helpful as well and a great added value.
Rating:
Summary: If needed I'll buy another one!
Review: Had my doubts after reading reviews about cable lengths, talked to local store techs, and they gave examples of up to 100 ft runs in the store. So had a 65 ft cable made up finished hookup in short order. Did as instructions required and no problems. This is with a BEFSR41.
Rating:
Summary: Easy going.
Review: I just received the BEFSR41 last week. Had it hooked up in 15 minutes. I use Verizon DSL, and my existing network setting were the same as required by the router. Plugged the cables and the box in, checked the router settings (no changes needed), rebooted the 4 PC's (Two on XP, two on Me), and made sure email and internet connections worked. They did. I have not had any of problems another reviewer had with getting to some web sites. Everything works as expected. I bought this to isolate my LAN from the internet (WAN). I was using a simple hub, but that put me at risk with hackers, even with a firewall, since I wanted to share files and a printer between my PCs. Now, my router gives me my own internal IP addresses that the hackers cannot see. They beat on the router, not my network.
Rating:
Summary: Works great
Review: Easy to set up, havent had a problem with it.
Rating:
Summary: Working A-OK
Review: It is really simple to install this router. The installation guide is just one large colorful chart but complete. It took about 15 minutes total to install and connect it to my three home computes. I also have had a Linksys switch for about three years and expect this router to be as reliable.
Rating:
Summary: Keep away from it
Review: It looks OK. It is easy to set up. Everything seems fine.
Then at some point you realize that you cannot access some web sites or some of your friends do not receive the mail you send to them. You can ping them (both mail and web servers,) DNS works fine but the router seems to do some random packet filtering.
You can download a firmware upgrade. Once you install it, you may or may not access the sites you had problems with, the only thing that is certain is that now there will be more/new/different sites that you cannot access. Up to this date I could not find a firmware version that works properly. The most stable is a two-year-old one, but there are sites and mail servers that I cannot reach even with that one. The newer the firmware, the more problems it seems to have. The web site actually warns against downloading the latest firmware "unless you really need a feature in it"
The attitude of technical support is revolting. After incredibly long waits they told me on two occasions that if I don't like it, I should take it back to where I bought it.
Do not take my word for any of this, but call your DSL provider before you buy one and ask them what brand they recommend.
Rating:
Summary: simple
Review: i followed the quickstart guide and had it working within 15 minutes including running the cables. later, i connected a new linux box to it and chose dhcp on the box and it connected without a problem. (the first box is a win2k) but finally i've settled on a static setup so i can use the port forwarding features. now i've got my house wired and we share printers and files between the computers, and i haven't noticed a single decrease in speed on our internet connection since i installed it. even when both computers are downloading large files. and after a year, it's still going strong, and with the port forwarding fearure, i can login to my computer and access all my files from work or school. very handy. occasionally our cable connection gets screwy and before the router was installed, we'd have to flip the cable modem off and on until it would finally connect again (sometimes the process took up to half an hour). now i just hit the DHCP RENEW button on the linksys router setup page, and i'm back online within a minute. again another very handy feature. maybe i just got lucky, since so many other reviewers had troubles with their routers, but the one i got seems to be a pretty tough unit. my one year old has danced on it and knocked it onto the floor several times (those pretty lights on the front are just too tempting) and it's still going strong. overall it's a great product and i can't find one bad thing to say about it.
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