Rating: Summary: Gamers go elsewhere, otherwise ok Review: I work in IT and had heard decent remarks about this switch. I purchased the switch about a month ago and had no problems with simple SOHO networking, but then some guys from work came over for a Quake 3 and Rainbow 6 LAN party, huge disappointment. We ended up using a hub instead and everything ran fine. You have to leave a message for Linksys tech support to call you back and i have been waiting now for 3 days. I have the 1 port router from Linksys and its great, but the switch is headed back to best buy.
Rating: Summary: Does what it said it would Review: I got mine as part of a kit (Linksys Switched 10/100 Network in a Box) which included the EZXS55W, 2 ethernet cards, 2 cables, and the manuals and software stuff... It works like a charm on my network under Windows98 - it's actually hard to tell when you're on another computers hard drive - it's that fast! (One thing it's not, however, is a router... It works fine for sharing an internet connection with computers running modems, but you can't share a DSL connection...I recently signed up for a DSL hookup and the phone company guys said I had to replace my Linksys EZXS55W switch with a Linksys BEFSR41 Cable/DSL Router.) If you just want to network some home computers together and share a single internet modem connection though, this unit is well worth the money.
Rating: Summary: great, works fine Review: small, nice, worked the first time, unplugged the hub, in with the switch 10/100 full duplex and it works
Rating: Summary: Great Value Review: Hard to beat the features for the price! I bought one and so far it works fine with my cable modem and 3 computers. I'm looking forward to testing it with 100Mbit; a friend of mine uses the identical model on his 100Mbit LAN and he says it works great. Plus it takes up half the desktop space of my old hub. I'm a bit mystified by the shared "Uplink"/"Port 5" jacks though -- it is 5 port but it has 6 plugs.
Rating: Summary: Best bang for the buck Review: First off, in case anyone out there doesn't know, there are a few advantages to purchasing a switch rather than a hub. The main advantage, for most users anyway, is that a switch provides optimal bandwidth to all ports, whereas a hub splits available bandwidth between all active users. This means that if you are sharing a cable modem for example with others in a house/office building, connection speed will not be reduced when multiple users connected to the switch are online. Now, as for this little baby, as soon as I saw the price I grabbed it instantly. The Linksys name had been mentioned to me favorably before, and the going price was within a few dollars of most 5-port hubs. I have been using it for 5 months now to share the cable modem in my apartment, and I can honestly say I have never had a single difficulty. Setup was quick and easy, I was online in less than 5 minutes. The whole device is smaller than most alarm clocks, so storage is hardly an issue. Overall, this is a best buy hands down, anyone out there who needs inexpensive networking equipment, this is the way to go.
Rating: Summary: Excellent for home networks Review: Using this for my home network of 3 100 Mbps LinkSys in Win98 machines plus a 10 Mbps Linux machine. Works fine. There is no software driver required for this (drivers are required and supplied with the NIC cards that go in your machine). Looks really cute sitting on the shelf with the blinking LEDs! Hope to use it when eventually get DSL or cable internet access out here.
Rating: Summary: Perfect SOHO solution Review: I connected this switch to my current LinkSys Etherfast Cable Router and expanded my network to 8 100mb connections. Total setup time was 5 minutes. Performance and ease of use is awesome. With the current rebates you cannot beat this!
Rating: Summary: EZXS55W Can't Provide A Smooth Performance. Review: I connected this unit to enhance the speed of my gaming Lan Parties but unfortunately - I was wrong. I did not receive the immediate through-put needed for gaming. I received pauses that became so annoying - I refused to host anymore gaming Lan parties. Everything seemed to be delayed, so I tried contacting technical support but failed. I left a message and they took 4 days to get back to me...only to tell me that there wasn't anything for them to repair. How would they know without testing the product first. They must know that this is a proven failed product. I would not wish this product on my worst enemy!!!
Rating: Summary: Excellent Little Switch - Does What it's Designed For! Review: This switch does exactly what it's designed for, sharing an Ethernet connnection. Don't expect to be able to configure VLANs, multilayer switching, VLAN trunks, load balancing, etc. This does not have any routing, NAT, or firewall capabilities. You would use this switch when you already have a router between your internal network and the Internet, and you need additional Ethernet ports. This gives you a full duplex Ethernet connection at wired speed, and it delivers! Perfect for the home office/LAN or for technicians needing extra Etherenet ports for their workbench, as this is what I use mine for. Thanks for reading! Hope this helps!
Rating: Summary: Mac users: Does not work with AppleTalk Review: If you are a Macintosh user, you should know of a very important limitation of all Linksys hubs & switches, including this one: This switch will NOT route AppleTalk information on your network. What that means is that if you are a Macintosh user who is trying to use file sharing via AppleTalk, or if you have an older AppleTalk printer (such as the older line of HP LaserJet printers), you will be out of luck with this switch... or any Linksys hub/switch. Besides the lack of Macintosh AppleTalk support, this switch seems to work just fine.
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