Rating: 
Summary: Partially functional while awaiting the patch
Review: I am a cable modem user in a four bedroom house.The wired/wireless functions have been working fine except for the following items: Client/server multiplayer gaming does not function. Games life Half-life, Counterstrike, etc that use UDP packets will freeze the device requiring a poweroff or reset. I'm sure a patch will come out eventually but this is a showstopper for me. I can work around it by using the Linksys just as a hub and putting another router in front, but I wanted to get rid of the other devices. Range was a little disappointing. Long file transfers from the living room are iffy. Makes playing MPEG4 files onto the digital TV problematic. I have since gotten rid of the Linksys and bought a SMC 7004AWBR. The gaming works and I get slightly better range. Have not tried the VPN passthrough options for either device. Final recommendation. If you are set on a Linksys, wait until they patch it completely. If you can't wait, get an SMC. (note: there is an older SMC model. The newer one has the ports on the back and looks more stylish (rounded), but the lights are less useful/harder to see). If you could use the convenience of a print server, get the SMC. If you have an external modem, you can plug that into the SMC for your connectivity. And the SMC is usually cheaper.
Rating: 
Summary: Works great for me with my @Home cable service !!
Review: I placed my order *before* I read the reviews below. Boy was I worried I made the wrong decision. I almost cancelled my order in fact, but since the price was right and the merchandise was on it's way, I figured I would give it a single chance and if that didn't work, then I'd return it. Afterall, 80% of the reviews below bash the product, the "customer service" and the fact that it just doesn't work. I've had success with the Linksys BEFSR41 cable/dsl router so I figured I'd take the chance with this product. The BEFW11S4 would replace the BEFSR41 in my network, so it was just a matter of powering everything down and then plugging all wires back into my new WAP toy. So far so good. After starting everything back up, I accessed 192.168.1.1 and put in all my info --IP address, sub address, DNS servers, subdomain, gateway info, etc. saved it, and started cruising the net immediately. My Win2K machine was working, so I had to check my Macintosh's internet connectivity --fired that up, and that too was still working. Cool, at least the "wired" part still works. So I am using my work's Lucent/Orinoco Silver wireless card for the time being, plugged it into my VAIO laptop, made sure it knew I was using DHCP for network settings in Win2K, started my browser and *presto* all was working there too. But I figured I'd wait an hour --all the concerns in other reviews say it works for an hour, then dies. Well, so far (knock on wood), it's still working except for a problem I was having with tunneling into corp network. I mentioned this to my friend and he immediately mentioned that I probably forgot to enable PPTP (tunneling) in the "advanced" tab at the configure window. Well, after making the changes my friend suggest, just like that, I can now tunnel into the corp network without any problems (knock on wood).. I am still having problems getting tunneling to work on a PowerBook G3 running OS 9, but the card does see the WAP (I get signal). I'll spend the weekend fiddling with it some more.. Over all, this product does what it says on the box. I would give it 5 stars if the tunneling would work for my Macintosh PowerBook. If you are listening Linksys, please get this working ok?!? I'll be waiting for your firmware upgrade.. :)
Rating: 
Summary: Great Router/Switch and WAP
Review: Before I bought this product, I read the customer reviews..There are definitely a lot of bad feedback on this product. I decided to purchase it because I heard a lot of great things about Linksys products and because it was one of the very few cheap items out there that offered a router, switch and wireless access point all in one. I was however very skeptical because of all the bad feedback. Well after I received this product I followed all the directions. I connected my desktop to the ethernet ports on the back and I also connected my laptop using the Linksys 802.11b pcmcia card. Well everything worked great, I was routing through my ISP using both my desktop connected by wire and my laptop connected wirelessly. I was very pleased however I refrained from putting feedback here because I wanted to make sure that this thing worked for some time. Well its been 1 month now and the thing still works great. I stressed this thing with as much traffic as I could, I connected two computers wired directly to the ethernet ports on the back and they transferred data between eachother at an amazing 90Mbps, WOW! At the same time I had my laptop downloading data wirelessly from one of the wired computers, I'm only able to download at a rate of 6Mbps through the wireless card on the laptop but it maintained this data rate across the street from my house into a friends house, and the AP was indoors, again WOW! During this process, the box never froze or locked up. In conclusion, through the switch ports I was able to transfer data at 90 Mbps and wirelessly at 6Mbps. This is a great product and I would highly recommend it. I believe that all the customer complaints prior to this had to be due to a bad batch of these boxes. I love mine, and they already dropped the price from the time that I bought it a month ago. This thing is so good that my next door neighbor is going to buy one because of what he saw with mine. There is one flaw, or one feature that I haven't been able to get working and that is the port forwarding feature. I wanted to be able to FTP from my work computer to my home computer so I set up the router to forward the FTP port. I was able to ftp to my home computer however the session ended abruptly and I was no longer able to FTP back. I waited a while and the same thing happened again. My conclusion is that the router is not able maintain a port forwarding state. If I try to transfer data, it forwards great but then it abruptly stops. Thats my only negative comment. But other than this the product works great. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: THIS DEVICE IS GREAT!!! DO NOT LISTEN TO OTHER REVIEWS!!!
Review: I recently installed this device with my network and it's been working great. One of the reviews said that the ORINOCO wireless pc card does not work, but I'm using one right now and it works perfectly fine with great range. I'm not an expert on networking but I have a working network with 2 desktops and 1 laptop with a Lucent wireless card. And the Linksys tech support was also great. I was having a little trouble and I called them up, didn't have to wait long and they answered my question right away. I don't understand how someone can have major problems with this device. It was real easy to set up. I'm not really sure what else I can say about this device. If you are thinking about getting a wireless access point, this is the way to go. You get a cable/dsl router and a wireless access point at the same time, which is also cheaper than other comparable wireless access points.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could give it 3.8 stars
Review: I have read nothing but negative reviews about this product. Has anyone ever seen so much negativity on one product??? It's insane. Despite all this, I decided to put Amazon.com's 30-day return policy to the test and order this anyway. I also ordered the Linksys WPC11 Instant Wireless Network PC Card. I have two computers I networked, a Compaq Presario 600Mhz Intel Celeron Laptop and a Compaq Presario PIII 700Mhz desktop. Only one wireless card was purchased for the laptop; the desktop was plugged in directly to the hub using a CAT5 cable. That's it. So, I spent exactly $350.00 and the price has even seemed to go down more (I may complain about this and try to get a rebate, but that's not the point I want to make here). So, I open it up expecting any of the numerous terrible things so many of the so-called "I've been networking computers for years and this is the worst piece of hardware ever prodcued, folks" experts have to say about it. I was pleasently surprised. It works. The router works very well, which so many people said was a terrible, worthless piece of junk and even the card which was supposed to be fatally flawed works well. It does not drop off after walking 10 feet away, it does not die after the first 5 minutes, it has not crashed either of my computers. Not even once. I've got a cable connection, not DSL. The laptop uses Windows ME and the desktop uses Windows 98. The internet connection was relatively easy. Work slowly. Read the instructions very carefully. I spent about 45 minutes making absolutely certain I had every piece of information ready for the installation. It's all spelled out in the instruction manual so I won't bother going into too much detail here. Just hit START, hit RUN and type "winipcfg". This shows you all of the information you will need to know. Hit "More Information" to make sure you see everything. Also, make sure you install the card first. The biggest problem I had with that is that the drivers aren't in the folder they're supposed to be in on the CD for the card. Just search through the directories of the disk. They're easy to find. The internet connection was easy. Getting the computers to network was more difficult. Luckily, after hours of trying, I realized Windows Millenium has a homenetworking Wizard built in. Once you get the hardware setup and installed correctly, the Home Networking Wizard does the rest. It guides you through the process, then insert a floppy disk to install the networking wizard on your Windows 95 and 98 platform computers. I spent about 4 hours doing all this, but it's only because I am a very careful and meticulous worker. I want to make sure I understand everything thoroughly before I do anything. I recommend this philosophy when installing any kind of network. The Most important thing I can tell you I save for last: the range. This is why I haven't given the product 5 stars. It really is false advertising! It won't go as far as they say it does. The claims are outrageous. However, the range is still acceptable for my needs. I am 75 feet away from the access point as I type this. There are 3 walls and a ceiling in the way. The internet works very well at this distance. I get downloads as fast as I do on my desktop (up to about 100KB/sec which is very fast for the internet). Remember, 1MB/sec is as low as it is supposed to get. Don't let the number 1 fool you! This is still VERY fast. The cable internet cannot handle this speed. We have a T1 at work that doesn't even go that fast. If you are copying a LOT of big files between the two computers then you may run into some problems. A gigabyte will take 16 minutes. Is anyone really trying to copy that much??? Most people aren't, but I can see how some people might. Don't let the fact that the card registers "No Connection" fool you. At great distances the card will register no connection but that's not true. It says no connection right now at 75 feet. I probably can't go more than 75 feet. I went outside with one wall between myself and the access point. I got up to an impressive 250 feet! but, the advertised 400ft? Forget it. No way! In conclusion, the internet works great. It's fast and works all over this house and all over the yard (2 acres). It will suit most peoples' needs as long as you don't live in a house with metal walls (this is a 100% wood structure). The networking works, but not if you want to copy gigantic files on a regular basis at great distances (close distances will work, however, very fast). video games will probably be a little choppy as the distance increases. I can share my desktop's printer. That works great, but the desktop has to be on. Get a print server for 90 bucks to avoid this problem. I am keeping an eye on this thing and plan to use it excessively while the return policy is still valid. I will update my progress with the unit with a followup review, as I have only had it now for 3 days.
Rating:
Summary: Runs great, if you read the manual
Review: After I thought I got a dud, I had to re-read the manuals and discovered why the connections did not work. After that, it was smooth sailing! Every laptop in my house got a connection, all three floors came through with no interference, and my wired PCs saw the other laptops. I am impressed. I bought all Linksys parts for this wireless endevour, the four port switch wireless and the PC card they offered. so now as I am writing to you on one of the laptops, I would recommend this product and the wireless adapters if you do not have the time to drill or break walls down. I have only four stars here, but that is because of the manuals I had to read in order to get the right answer. All in all a great product.
Rating: 
Summary: Very flaky, not worth the aggravation
Review: This is a major piece of junk. I am in the process of trying to return mine. It crashes very often and typically ends up with a new ip address. One guaranteed way to crash it is to turn on port forwarding, for something simple, like ftp. Did these people even test this thing? The range leaves something to be desired. Upstairs/downstairs? You can forget it. About the only good thing is that when I first set it up, they were very helpful (the DHCP stuff didn't work as advertised)....
Rating:
Summary: I' ve changed my mind!
Review: Here is a follow-up to my earlier post. I ended up returing my 2nd Linksys. Though it worked a bit better it still kept crashing when doing port forwarding! I got an SMC Barricade instead - works flawlessly and it even has a print server!! I can heartily recommend the SMC, this is what the Linksys should have been. Clearly it was shipped too early.
Rating: 
Summary: 1.375 Beta BIOS fixes defects but NOT VPN
Review: I would give this a higher rating if VPN use was not the main reason i bought it. VPN does not yet work with this product. After firmware upgrade it works well for normal router and WAP functions. Got mine three weeks ago. Like many others I have used the wired BEFSR41 for just over a year with no problems on both DSL and Cable. I use wireless 802.11b at work and wanted to add the flexibility at home. I bought the Linksys because of previous good experience with their wired product and because this router has one more RJ45 port than most competitors. I have 4 PCs I run wired and 1 laptop I want to run wireless. Also I know people who have successfully run the BEFSR41 and WAP11 combination using VPN. I thought this product would be an out of the box two-in-one. At first I got dropped connections every 30 seconds and flashing lights. No luck at all with VPN. Linksys tech support sent me the 1.375Beta Firmware flash which fixed the intermittent drops and weirdness, but VPN is still no go. Highly recommend anyone experiencing generic problems to try this. Everything works now except for getting an IP address from my VPN. I get through and authenticate but it times out after that. Regular non VPN service is fine. Linksys tech support is aware of the VPN issue and I gather it is a major focus. I have not tested range yet, but in my experience that is much more dependent on location of access point, walls and obstructions, and yes the NIC card. I am using a CISCO 340 PCMCIA card which I have found has shorter range than the 350. Wired PCs are running Acer and DLink PCI 100Mbit cards over CAT5e. I bought 5 of the very first Linksys BEFSR41s in early 2000. 2 of them died within a month (heat issues). I have used 20 since then with absolutely no problems as have many others so this may be a similar early adopter issue.
Rating:
Summary: VPN not supported through wireless, worthless then
Review: The first one I received is a bad one, doesn't work at all, not even the DSL Router part. The second one I got worked, sort of. The configuration program is flaky, crashed often. VPN is not supported over wireless. Very bad, it's worthless then. Get SMC's, it even has a print server. Supports VPN!!
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