Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Wireless AP and Router!!!!
Review: I was worried about all the bad reviews I seen on this site about this product, But have had no problems. The installation was very simple and was complete in about 5 min. I did not use the book for the install just the quick installation sheet. I have used Linksys products in the past and I think they are a great bang for the buck. I did upgrade the firmware as I was setting up the router. Maybe this helped I don't know, I upgraded before I tried it. I use this router for 3 hard wired computers and 1 laptop wireless (WPC11) and it works great. I have had no problems with speed, file transfers are very quick even while I listen to the radio on the internet and other people surfing @ the same time. I have found no limit due to traffic across the router. Anyway, this is a great product and the support via the web site is great (for the update).
Rating: 
Summary: Linksys has the right idea but the product is half baked !
Review: First let me say that I have owned and used a LinkSys BEFSR41 for over a year now. This product has worked incredibly well and offered a great deal of flexibility with all of the options available through the web interface. Now along comes the wireless version of this product - the BEFW11S4. Now what should I do ? Should I buy the BEFW11s4 and get the functionality of my trusty BEFSR41 along with wireless or should I simply buy the Linksys WAP11 and plug it into my existing system? Well my fellow geeks, the answer is that I ended up doing both. Not by choice of course.With a huge grin on my face I opened up the BEFW11S4, read the quick install instructions and promptly placed my BEFSR41 to the side. With the same enthusiasm I opened and installed the WPC11 wireless network card again carefully reading the quick install instructions for Windows 2000. Just to make sure the Access Point was working after I configured everything, as was my old BEFSR41, I had my laptop plugged into the network. Things where going well at this point - I had access to the Internet. Now came the hard part. The first stumbling block was that I was getting an error 31 in device manager (Windows 2000) for the Instant Wireless Network Card (WPC11). Noting that the instructions where sorely lacking for troubleshooting info, I ventured to the linksys web site. Fortunately they have a knowledge base that anybody can reference. It turns out that a .sys file was copied into winnt\system32 instead of winnt\system32\devices. Moving the file correct this error 31 issue. Now the next step was to run the "Wireless Lan Configuration Utility." Clicked on the ICON and I got the message "Can't link to network driver. I looked in the knowledge base - nothing at all. Had to call Tec support. At first I got a busy signal and then after three attempts later, I was able to get through. The tech was helpful but a little annoying as he kept on putting me on hold. In any case it turns out that another .sys file was placed in the wrong place. Problem solved. During this same issue I bumped into another issue. Using the web configuration tool for the BEFW11S4 I wasn't able to change the wireless address number. The error message was something like "14-14 out of range." A firmware update later and a reconfigure, things seemed to be back to normal. At this point I just stuck with the default address of 06 and made sure the WPC11 was set to the same. Now after all of this, things still didn't work - it turns out that the WPC11 needs to be set to "Infrastructure" from the default setting of "Adhoc." All of a sudden things started to work. It was about one in the morning at this point and now I was roaming around the house, the yard, the garage with a wireless laptop. The range seemed to be great and Internet content was flowing to my screen. I did hit some areas in the house where the signal was less than optimal, but nonetheless things worked well until - I tried to VPN in the corporate network. This is after all why I bought this thing. This is where things went down hill; VPN does not work either hardwired or wireless with this product. I called tech support, they're completely aware of it and they provided me with one firmware update after another. It appeared that these firmware updates where buddy drops and that they where handed off to tech support so that the customers can do the testing. Well, needless to say, none of them worked. This is where I decided to throw in the towel. I really wanted this to work and entertained the idea of holding onto this thing until they got it right. After all, the wireless Internet access worked great. But the inability to VPN really got in the way. With that, I ended up returning this unit and buying the WAP11. Now I have the WAP11, the WPC11 wireless card and my trusty old BEFSR41 in service. Life is great and VPN works flawlessly.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but still has some way to go
Review: This item is not for the plug and play user. Even with 15 years networking experience it was somewhat difficult to get all the features working though most users will not need them. Utilizing static ip addresses can be a hassle if you do not know how to obtain DNS information from your local provider. Also i believe Linksys over states its range for the RF side an should give realistic ranges. I have lost contact in as short as 60 feet and again that depends on the structure of the facility just dont expect 300.
Rating: 
Summary: works for simple users but not for advanced users!
Review: This device works great if all you're going to do is hook up a few computers to it (both hardwire and wireless) to access the internet. The transfer speed between computers is as expected. But when you want to use some of its advanced features, it has a lot of problems! The biggest problem I'm having is port forwarding. It really should be simple. For example, I forward port 80 tcp to my internal server running solaris 2.8. But when I try to access my website externally, it eithers thinks about it for a long time and then times out, or it downloads half the page and then stall. I called the Linksys tech support line, and they recommended that I enable IPSec pass through and pptp pass through. These should not make any difference at all! Do the tech support people know what they're talking about? Anyway, I tried it, and it made no difference. My server has been running for the past year with no problems with my previous router. I thought it would be nice to have a router with the wireless feature. But I'm going to hook up my old router and return this Linksys.
Rating: 
Summary: Grrr...
Review: Love the BEFSR41 router. Despise this one. Struggled with it until it occured to me to swap the old one in with the same settings -- worked instantly. This unit is obviously in beta, they released it too soon -- and I have the May 30 release of the firmware (they released, then retracted a newer version that had more problems). I understand these things are not easy to design, but this is a terrible betrayal of the Linksys loyal. That it works for some and not others reveals the limitations of the unit -- it just doesn't work in a full range of applications. For those of you stuck with one, hover at the Linksys site for new firmware, which I imagine will eventually works the kinks out. Try macintouch also. Myself -- well, thanks Amazon for a 30-day return policy!
Rating:
Summary: Very pleased with this unit....
Review: I too previously owned the Linksys BEFSR41 4 port router. It was the best router. easy to setup and I especially liked the speed sharing of my Comcast cable modem and the built in firewall protection that linksys provides. For my video conferencing I could open the Linksys firewall (advanced setting then dmz setting) which would allow me to turn on or off the firewall. With my print server hooked in to the 4th RJ45 port all 2 desktops and 1 laptop worked perfectly for the entire family. Then I got the urge to go wireless. I purchased the Linksys wireless AP with 4 port router. WOW! The Linksys BEFW11S4 works exactly as the BEFSR41 router SUPER and then comes the fun part. I ordered the linksys PC card for my laptop and using the quick install directions I had it up and working in 10 minutes. The only change I had to make was: "Select wireless pc card, go to advanced tab and change network to infrastruction." That's it! Everything is preset on the router and the card. Wireless is great! I'm still testing it... I have the router setup in my basement, center of the house. I have a center hall colonial. All the rooms in the house work wirelessly to the router, even the upstairs bedrooms. the connection is as good as if it were wired. but as other reviewers have said I was a little disappointed in the distance. When I go out on my outside deck I loose the signal. Some viewers have said this thing works to the neighbors house. Hard to believe. I'm still testing this unit , Linksys makes it so the antennas can be disconnected and you can connect a coax on the connector and locate the antennas at a different location. Since my router is in a finished basement, I can't tell yet how it would work it it were above ground level. In closing, I do enjoy wireless and this unit is fine for me I'm very pleased with the speed and I'm sure if I install the router above ground level I'll be able to reach my outside deck for the summer.
Rating:
Summary: Could be better...
Review: I recently purchased this product and at first, everything appeared to work. The setup was a breeze. It took about 5 minutes to enter in all my info and the thing was online. I was able to surf the web, download files, etc. However, the next day, when I'm at work and I want to access my home network, it was a big pain. I tried to ssh into my home server but it would hang. I tried to access my webpage but it came up only 25% of the time (and of the times it came up, it was very slow). This was definitely not the way it was before I had this set up. I had an old 486 computer running IPRoute routing software. I have to admit...that program ran circles around this Linksys router. So I called Linksys tech support. The person I spoke with listened to what I had to say, but the only suggestion he gave me was for me to put my server on the dmz. That really defeats the point of having a firewall! I asked him if there was anything else I can do. He said that maybe the router I got was defective, and I should get it replaced. So I did. I just received the new one... I entered all my info in and got it online. But I'm disappointed that it behaves the same. So here's my conclusion: Good: easy setup, works great for connecting multiple computers to the internet. Bad: port forwarding just doesn't work correctly.
Rating:
Summary: No problem....
Review: I've had good luck with this product. Sure there's some serious gaps in the documentation, but once you figure it out (as any tech person will) it works well.
Rating:
Summary: Works after you figure out setup (except VPN)
Review: I bought the BEFW11S4 to replace my non-wireless LinkSys BEFSR41 which I liked a lot. Set up was fairly straight forward but you must remember to set your wireless clients to use the "Infrastructure" otherwise you'll get no connection to the access point. Tested with the Linksys WPC11 card on both a Compaq Presario 14XL (WinME/Win2000) notebook and a Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop (Win2000). In my 1500 sq. ft. house the reception was good or excellent throughout. I was relieved to see the firewall/routing features were identical to that of the BEFSR41 with an additional feature of allowing you to change the WAN adaptor's MAC address (so I did not have to call up my cable modem service to register the new address). The only thing that does not work (even after getting latest firmware upgrade) is VPN. I would rate 4 stars if vpn worked. The on-line help files provided are very poor (some of the wireless card's online help say "Insert detailed description of this tab here."!!!!). One more thing. I have found that with both this product and the BEFSR41, if you are using port forwarding, the device will occasionally crash if you try to access the external port through the external address from within your home network. From internal machines, you must use the internal address of the machine (avoiding the router completely). From external machines using the external address works fine.
Rating:
Summary: Wish I could give it zero
Review: Linksys should never have released this router! I bought it right off the bat, and it has never worked. First the wireless would shut off after a few minutes. I tried to contact linksys tech support 3 times, I received a callback once, long after I had gone home, with no direct number. I updated the firmware to beta version 1.3.7.5 this reduced the problems, but they were still large enough to make it unusable. It lacks the ability to route UDP packets reliably through the wireless, (No VPN or internet gaming), it stops routing wireless packets to the internet intermittently, requiring a reset. Again I tried to contact linksys tech support, this time via e-mail, again they were slow to respond, only after threatening to contact the attorney general did they respond to me (3 e-mail in 10 working days). The response told me nothing that I did not know, That the router wasn't ready for prime time, and it needs a new firmware. I wish I could get my money back for it, as it has been nothing more than a paper weight.
| 
