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Linksys W11S4PC11 Wireless-B Network Kit

Linksys W11S4PC11 Wireless-B Network Kit

List Price: $99.99
Your Price: $79.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Nice kit, can't work with PPTP
Review: . . . anyone can. OK. So perhaps, if you are going to put one of my hands on a bible and make me swear to tell you the truth, I'll admit it. It took me 15 minutes (maximum) to set this up and have it running perfectly. Of course, if would have been up and running in something like five minutes if I had only taken seriously the CD ROM Disk package that was clearly labeled (in very big and very red letters) STOP! INSTALL ME FIRST.

Once I got past that small snafu (all my fault), it was simply a matter of swapping a few cords (and Linksys thoughtfully provided a second set instead of having me brave the elements to buy it separately), putting a CD Rom into the drive and having the Wizard find the router. Then I put the card in the slot for my lap top, ran the program (I do learn my lesson, sometimes) and BINGO. My Cable Modem was working fine and dandy on not one but two computers! My cable comapny wanted to charge me a one time fee of something like $60 (after a rebate from J&R this cost only $70)and $4 a month for the same darn thing!

If you set up your e-mail at any point in your computer experience, then it is the same thing here. The web? Click on the icon and there you are. It's amazing, and nothing short than. Yes, it doesn't have that wide a range but it covers enough space so that you pay for one cable modem and now have it doing double duty!

Have a Starbuck's, Borders Books or McDonalds around? Chances are they are (or soon will be) Wi Fi enabled. Get a Pay As You Go account from T Mobile and you can have your latte while you surf the web. Thought it was only possible on those television shows? No friends: you can do it and if I did it effortlessly (if you forget the ignorning the CD incident) anyone can.

I can personally avow that it doesn't have any hang-ups with McAfee firewalls or such. Once you've set it up, it's there and you can use it with little or no bother. It really is that easy!

So, double your pleasure, have a load of fun and save money all at the same time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If I Could Hook This Sucker Up . . .
Review: . . . anyone can. OK. So perhaps, if you are going to put one of my hands on a bible and make me swear to tell you the truth, I'll admit it. It took me 15 minutes (maximum) to set this up and have it running perfectly. Of course, if would have been up and running in something like five minutes if I had only taken seriously the CD ROM Disk package that was clearly labeled (in very big and very red letters) STOP! INSTALL ME FIRST.

Once I got past that small snafu (all my fault), it was simply a matter of swapping a few cords (and Linksys thoughtfully provided a second set instead of having me brave the elements to buy it separately), putting a CD Rom into the drive and having the Wizard find the router. Then I put the card in the slot for my lap top, ran the program (I do learn my lesson, sometimes) and BINGO. My Cable Modem was working fine and dandy on not one but two computers! My cable comapny wanted to charge me a one time fee of something like $60 (after a rebate from J&R this cost only $70)and $4 a month for the same darn thing!

If you set up your e-mail at any point in your computer experience, then it is the same thing here. The web? Click on the icon and there you are. It's amazing, and nothing short than. Yes, it doesn't have that wide a range but it covers enough space so that you pay for one cable modem and now have it doing double duty!

Have a Starbuck's, Borders Books or McDonalds around? Chances are they are (or soon will be) Wi Fi enabled. Get a Pay As You Go account from T Mobile and you can have your latte while you surf the web. Thought it was only possible on those television shows? No friends: you can do it and if I did it effortlessly (if you forget the ignorning the CD incident) anyone can.

I can personally avow that it doesn't have any hang-ups with McAfee firewalls or such. Once you've set it up, it's there and you can use it with little or no bother. It really is that easy!

So, double your pleasure, have a load of fun and save money all at the same time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Choice
Review: After installing 4 different systems; including: Belkin, D-link, Netgear, and Linksys, and being dissatisfied with all 4, i went back to the Linksys system which consistently showed the best signal but also seemed impossible to maintain a cable link. The tech i spoke with told me to download the firmware via a wired connection to flash the router. Once this was done i never had another problem. I have since connected the signal booster and can access the internet with outstanding signal from anywhere on my property.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Horrible range in my home
Review: Basically the router works fine, except it has a RANGE OF ABOUT 10 FEET IN MY HOUSE!

I kid you not, no matter where I place the router in my bedroom (the only place where cable is installed) my laptop gets "Low" reception in the hallway four feet away, "Very Low" reception in my living room 10 feet away, and practically NO RECEPTION in my office 50 feet away. You can actually stand at the router and see the laptop 10 feet outside the door and still the reception is horrible.

This router is useless for me. Maybe it's my house or something, but that's just sad.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Combines two mediocre products
Review: Both the adapter and the router were not functioning in the package I was trying to install. The router died midway through installing the security features (and don't believe the other reviewer who said he/she installed it in 15 minutes -- to do it with halfway decent security takes much longer, especially if you upgrade the firmware as you probably ought to do).

The adapter was unable to connect to another Linksys router I had set up, using WEP encryption or without WEP, even.

Quality control is apparently pretty low at Linksys, if this experience is at all typical. One product broken -- but both?

The adapter only allows 128-bit WEP encryption, but the router (once you upgrade the firmware) allows WPA encryption and makes other additions/improvements to the configuration utility. So even if both items had been working, Linksys is selling you a mismatched pair. They ought to do 2 things:

1. Install the firmware upgrade themselves. It's like selling you a car and saying, "This car has a lock on it, but if you want a lock that might actually stop thieves, here is a unit you can put on your doors. If power goes out during installation, your car will be useless. Good luck."

2. Put two products that both allow for the somewhat stronger WPA encryption, rather than WEP/WPA and WEP-only.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works well for me
Review: Easy to hook up. I have had it for two months. No problems at all. My computers are on different floors in the house. Great connection and signal strength.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: There are better choices
Review: Easy to install, and it does work, however, I had some serious problems:
1. Despite what they say in the detailed user manual on the CD-ROM, the SSID broadcast could not be turned off (my network was out there for all to see, if I did turn off the SSID broadcast the network failed immediately, and their tech support could not fix the problem).
2. A lot of people will not even realize the above problem: Linksys leaves out the whole SSID issue from the quick install manual, so I guess most people just leave the SSID broadcast on.
3. The range was small and the connection too unreliable for serious work, with major problems exactly where you would need wireless the most: a floor up from the modem and out on the deck.
4. Tech support is really poor (expect looong wait on the phone and rather limited expertise when you do get through), and a lot of vital information is missing from their website.
5. What you pay is what you get: I returned this product, but the Orinoco products I got instead cost me quite a bit extra...
6. My Orinoco Gold Wireless Card "sees" two of my neighbours' networks, while the Linksys had trouble finding my own.
7. Product seemed sensistive even to our electric lawnmower - the Orinoco is much more robust as far as interference is concerned.
8. My impression is that a lot of people like this product because they have not tried anything better and assume all wireless networks are as unreliable as Linksys - well, they are not, but quality does not come cheap.
A final comment: I suspect that the WPC11B card may have been responsible for most of my problems rather than the router. (The cards gets much lower rating than the router from people who did not buy the whole kit.) Since Orinoco products tend to be pricey, it may be a good idea to buy a cheap D-Link, Netgear or even Linksys router and then combine it with a robust Orinoco Gold wireless card.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Works good
Review: Everything works well on this router. I was able to install it and get everything up and running in just a few minutes.

The only complaint that I have is that my old Linksys router had a DMZ port on the back that could be configured to be permanently outside the firewall. This made it great for hosting internet games like Ghost Recon. I could switch between DMZ and firewall by just moving the cat5 cable. This router doesn't have that port. Instead, you have to configure a static IP address to be outside the firewall. This one is not as easy to switch between Firewall and DMZ.

The wireless range is good. I put the router in my basement and I can connect with my laptop in every room in the house. Including the second floor (3 floors above the basement). The signal strength is excellent and the signal quality is excellent.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy setup and works great.
Review: Good price nice performance. It was very easy to install, a very low price and it works great. Now i can move unwired through my home.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Rough beginning...then joy!
Review: Having worked with many wireless units I got this Linksys for home for its ease of setup and administration by the rest of my family. Good ease of setup, speed and range can all be found here. What can't is that it doesn't update local DNS with the names registered via DHCP so even though I can see machine names in the Linksys status display, I can't ping or connect by machine name from the machines on my network. Also missing is any way to add DHCP attributes like NTP server.


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