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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: 1 stars
Summary: Could Not Get It To Work
Review: Same problem as May 5th, 2003 reviewer. Could get the router to work with the desktop (Dell Dimension on XP) plugged in w/ ethernet cable, but could not get the wireless adapter (WPC11) to perform. It would access the router but refused to connect to the internet.

Spent about ten hours trying to get it to function, e.g. downloading updated drivers, troubleshooting, searching message boards for answer. Called support 3x. First time waited about 10 minutes and gave up. Second time waited about 15 minutes and gave up. Third time waited about 15 minutes and got through to a very patient and helpful fellow named Jon w/ perfect English (impressive considering Jon was a Filipino in Manila). He worked with me for about an hour and then he gave up.

In desperation I upgraded the desktop's (Inspiron) OS from WinME to WinXP. This did not help. I returned this kit and will try Microsoft's wireless kit.

It appears from my trolling of message boards I am not the only one to experience difficulty with the WPC11.

P.S. There was one solution I did not try. If your notebook has ethernet capabilities (e.g. ethernet card) try to access the router through ethernet first and then try the adapter after an internet connection has been made. However, if you do not have ethernet capability you are out of luck.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Works well once set up
Review: Setting up the access point was a little difficult, but once the right settings were tweaked, this thing hums along with little problems. The signal strength is high even to the backyard: makes working outside on the nice days easy. The security options are nice, since this can screen wireless cards unless you input their hardware address. Some fiddling with ports was necessary to get the virtual private networking (VPN) to go through correctly, but some help can be found on the internet. This access point also plays well with other vendor's PC cards.

However, there are some issues with the PC card. This setup comes with version 4 (v4) of the card. There are SEVERE issues if you need to use a VPN to log into work. This card simply will not do it--but oddly, version 3 (v3) WILL. This is known on Linksys' website, but no fix is available. The v4 also seems to get worse reception than v3.

Overall, it can work well, but be careful with the version of the PC card.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Change out the notebook adaptor card for a version 3
Review: that's what the Linksys tech guy told me over the phone. He was really helpful running throught the product and troubleshooting everything- and this was 10PM Sunday night. A+ on tech support.

The install on my main- wired- XP box was an absolute snap. The install to the win2000 laptop went fine until I tried to connect to the internet- it found the router but no internet.
When the tech guy told me that I needed to swap out the cards I told him that this was a packaged system and I doubt the vendor would just "swap out" a packeaged card. I'll find out later on today.
But- to date- if your running the platforms I mentioned above, you will not get internet access on your laptop with the version 4 card.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Beware - does not work with Windows98
Review: This kit ships with Version 4 of the Adapter Card which requires Windows98SE or later. After 4 calls to Linksys technical support they finally explained that Windows98SE is required. This inspite of the fact that I told Linksys technical support I was using Windows 98 in each call. Earlier versions of the Linksys Adapter cards will work with Windows 98.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Does not work with Linux
Review: This kit ships with Version 4 of the WPC11 PC Card, which will not work with Linux (need Version 3 WPC11). Also will not work with some versions of Windows.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Support Problems
Review: This router and wireless card was up and working in no time. If it would have stayed this way I'd give it 4-5 stars. However, a windows update occurred one week after installation of the wireless card. I wrote 2 emails to support@linksys.com, both of which went completely ignored (at least they have not responded to either in a week). Their online help wasn't very helpful as they only responded once every 10 minutes. I was NOT being rude in either the emails or the online help, I was simply describing my problem and asking for technical support. After a 40 minute wait on the phone I was able to talk to someone. After describing my problem they put me on hold for 5 minutes, when they returned they said their card doesn't work with Windows 2000 service pack 4 and that I should remove it. I indicated that I had unchecked the option to remove it to save disk space. After which they indicated they could not help me. I returned this product and bought NetGear instead which is working fine.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EASY EASY EASY
Review: Was online in 5mins with my wired network and 15 with my wireless network. Highly recommend

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Wireless does not work with CISCO VPN
Review: You would think that since Linksys is owned by CISCO, that the products would be compatible. This is not the case.
I bought this product so that I could hook into my company's VPN over DSL using the wireless card. It works fine without the VPN. As soon as I fire up my CISCO VPN Client, I loose connectivity. Apparently, according to some forum boards, there is a bug in the driver software that is preventing IPSEC tunneling. I will probably return it unless Linksys support can get me a fix quickly.


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