Rating: Summary: Really good Review: I have used the old version (flat box) of this for over two years and it works just fine. The installation of this two-year-old software was straight-forward but I am sure some will find it a challange. It took some knowledge but it worked fine. I upgraded from Win98 to Win2K to WinXP and had to reinstall the software each time so it got easier. Customer service was needed once and it was superb: the rep was competent and patient. I have a Linksys cable router and a switch and I recommend the Linksys products without reservation.
Rating: Summary: Linksys Doesn't have a clue Review: I noticed that XP customers are having tremendous problems with this product. I was able to trouble shoot exactly what was going on with these products and offered this information to Linksys free of charge. I'm a computer security consultant and generally get paid big dollars to help resolve companies problems. Both the EPSX3 and EFSP42 Linksys print servers are similiar design and developed prior to the release of windows XP. Linksys has not bothered updated the bios in years, so it didn't surprise me that their products were incompatible with certain aspects of the XP Operating System. Linksys was purchased by Cisco, so you would expect a higher level of professionalim and knowlege in their technical support area, but what you get is some entry level engineers reading off some help screen with no true knowlege of the products or networking principles. I was able to determine that the Windows XP firewall, which is often enabled by default will block service to these print servers. If you go into you windows XP windows directory and look for a file called "pfirewall.log" you will see that it is blocking access to the linksys print server. This is because Linksys is not "playing by the rules" and changing the inbound port to not match the outbound port. The Source port is 80 and the destination port is 3079. So, the XP firewall is properly doing its job and Linksys should fix it's code or work with Microsoft to have a rule hotfix released. The Linksys response to this situation is to disable all personal firewalls. The only problem is that most linksys products are not a firewalls, but modified routers that perform network address translation, which offers some security to the outside, but none on the local subnet. I truly tried to work with Linksys to help them fix thier product, but they didn't want anything to do with the proper solution and instead recommended disabling any other software from other manufactures that might interfer with their code. Good luck to all used of these products, you will need it.
Rating: Summary: Linksys Doesn't have a clue Review: I noticed that XP customers are having tremendous problems with this product. I was able to trouble shoot exactly what was going on with these products and offered this information to Linksys free of charge. I'm a computer security consultant and generally get paid big dollars to help resolve companies problems. Both the EPSX3 and EFSP42 Linksys print servers are similiar design and developed prior to the release of windows XP. Linksys has not bothered updated the bios in years, so it didn't surprise me that their products were incompatible with certain aspects of the XP Operating System. Linksys was purchased by Cisco, so you would expect a higher level of professionalim and knowlege in their technical support area, but what you get is some entry level engineers reading off some help screen with no true knowlege of the products or networking principles. I was able to determine that the Windows XP firewall, which is often enabled by default will block service to these print servers. If you go into you windows XP windows directory and look for a file called "pfirewall.log" you will see that it is blocking access to the linksys print server. This is because Linksys is not "playing by the rules" and changing the inbound port to not match the outbound port. The Source port is 80 and the destination port is 3079. So, the XP firewall is properly doing its job and Linksys should fix it's code or work with Microsoft to have a rule hotfix released. The Linksys response to this situation is to disable all personal firewalls. The only problem is that most linksys products are not a firewalls, but modified routers that perform network address translation, which offers some security to the outside, but none on the local subnet. I truly tried to work with Linksys to help them fix thier product, but they didn't want anything to do with the proper solution and instead recommended disabling any other software from other manufactures that might interfer with their code. Good luck to all used of these products, you will need it.
Rating: Summary: Solid product, so-so documentation Review: I purchased one and tried it on 4 different printers. A Brother HL1040, an HP Deskjet 990Cxi, a Ricoh AP204 and an HP Deskjet 820C. They all worked except for the 820C... I'm presuming it's the printer's age that caused the problem, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it was pretty easy to set up and use. It took me a while of experimenting to figure out what all the options were, but I had it working with the basic setup in about 10 minutes. Not bad considering it is the first print server I've ever installed. Overall I was very pleased with the product, and given the need I would buy one again.
Rating: Summary: A Networking Nightmare Review: My local lan is completely linksys. I bought the epsx3 because I have three printers I would like to share. This device has been a nightmare. I cannot get XP to even notice it is on the network. I tried linksys technical support and they were completely non sympathic to my problems. The windows 98 pc can print to one printer attached to the device but not to any of the others. I have even removed the device software from all machines and reinstalled the software and device. No luck. I am extremely disappointed as the other lan devices from linksys work fairly well. Do not buy.
Rating: Summary: A 'marginal' product Review: The first one we got went back to the supplier! It wouldn't set up on the Canon 5000 printer. We got a replacement and after several attempts discovered an amendment to the manual buried deep in the Linksys web site. This didn't help at all. In the end we tried the HP 4Mplus and bingo! It worked. After three days trying to contact Linksys support we were advised it probably would not work with the Canon 5000. I asked why they managed to sneak an important DIP switch set up detail onto their web site and NOT the list of compatible hardware..... of course the guy didn't know for sure either. Now? It works, we get frequent disconnects, print server reboots are frequent (weekly) and sometime we have to re-install the software. But, on a good day, it prints.
Rating: Summary: linksys EPSX3 Review: The hardware installation was easy connected to my network with no problem. Software instalation and server setup could be a little more complicated if you did not have any knowledge of networking and the use of IP address and DHCP servers and what there fubcions are. The instructions need to be read carefully to get all the hidden items. I just installed the driver on all my Windows machines and the Printserver manager on one PC per the instructions. If you use DHCP to give out IP address the print server has to have a permanent address. The networking protocol should be set to TCP/IP. I have a Brother HL1250 laser printer, Panasonic KX-P2123 pin printer and a Canon BJC600e inkjet connected to the printserver. Each printer is set to its own port. I am able to print from the followwing PC operating system with this print server, Novell 5.0, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 98se, and SuSE Linux 6.4. The Linux setup setup was much more complicated as printer definition files had to be reconfigured but any good Linux user should be able to do this with no problem, I am a novice Linux user. This is a solid product. It is the best printserver I have ever had. The documentation could use a little more work.
Rating: Summary: linksys EPSX3 Review: The hardware installation was easy connected to my network with no problem. Software instalation and server setup could be a little more complicated if you did not have any knowledge of networking and the use of IP address and DHCP servers and what there fubcions are. The instructions need to be read carefully to get all the hidden items. I just installed the driver on all my Windows machines and the Printserver manager on one PC per the instructions. If you use DHCP to give out IP address the print server has to have a permanent address. The networking protocol should be set to TCP/IP. I have a Brother HL1250 laser printer, Panasonic KX-P2123 pin printer and a Canon BJC600e inkjet connected to the printserver. Each printer is set to its own port. I am able to print from the followwing PC operating system with this print server, Novell 5.0, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 98se, and SuSE Linux 6.4. The Linux setup setup was much more complicated as printer definition files had to be reconfigured but any good Linux user should be able to do this with no problem, I am a novice Linux user. This is a solid product. It is the best printserver I have ever had. The documentation could use a little more work.
Rating: Summary: Independent Printer Server Review: The Linksys EPSX3 EtherFast 10/100 PrintServer3 is used for making your printer independent on the 10BaseT and 100 Mbps networks. You hook up your printer/printer cable to the Linksys EPSX3 EtherFast 10/100 PrintServer3 and your network cable to the RJ-45 port. It comes with it's owm AC plug-in power supply, Status and Error Lights. Hookup is easy but when it comes to software, you need to install the driver for the printserver on each PC that need to use it. You also need to select SC811326_p1 Printserver port and install your printer driver on each PC. Remember to select "LOCAL" printer port because the instructions tell you to do it. Overall, after the software is install the right way, this Printer Server is the best thing that I bought because it makes the printer independent. Any PC can now print reguardless of other PC's.
Rating: Summary: Can't get much easier than this... Review: This print server took less than 10 minutes to set up, and it works like a charm. There's only 4 steps to the whole process: 1. Connect the print server to your network. 2. Connect the printer to the print server and turn the printer on. 3. Connect the power cord to the print server. 4. Install the software on your computer. It worked right out of the box for me. It detected my Epson Stylus color 600 printer correctly immediately, and setting it up to print on my computer was very straight-forward. I did make some changes to the configuration although that is not necessary. I just like to run a thight ship, so I gave it a static IP address (by default, the DHCP client is enabled), and disabled the protocols that I don't need. The print server supports AppleTalk, so it should work with Macs as well as Windows computers. However, there are no drivers for Linux, but it supports IPP, so it should be possible to print to it from Linux boxes as well. Update: Here's one minor issue I've found: I'm printing out pictures that I've taken with my digital camera. These pictures are fairly large, and when printing out several images at the same time, you'll get a warning saying the print server is busy. The message does go away, and the image will print... As I said, minor nuisance.
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