Cisco-Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless-B Cable/DSL Router
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $16.45 You Save: $53.54 (76%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless-B Cable/DSL Router
Customer Review: Linking My Sys
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this product around 4 years ago. I use it daily to share my cable internet connection between my two computers. This thing is great. I never had any problems whatsoever with it. You can connect up to 4 computers via Ethernet up to this baby. On top of that you can connect as many other computers as you wish via the wireless network. This particular router/access point is using the 802.11b standard. This means that the maximum wireless speed you will achieve is 10megabits which is really not bad. My slave computer (the one without the direct cable connection) can download files at 200k. Installation is very simple and the instructions are well written. The router is designed very well. It's made from a sturdy plastic material which seems to bend a little. I haven't really dropped it but I am sure it can handle a beating. I like that the antennas pivot to a direction of your choosing and actually make the thing look cool as well. I would recommend placing this on top of a table or on any open area so that there is less interference for the wireless network(less interference equals faster connection).
Even though this product is 4 years old, it is still not outdated. I upgraded my main computer and it is now equipped with a gigabit Ethernet. Although this product doesn't support the gigabit it does support the 100mbit, which is very adequate for any home use.
I would definitely recommend this product to anyone thinking of sharing an internet connection, however, I would advise you select one of the 802.11g wireless routers since they offer higher wireless speeds.
Customer Review: BEFW11S4 is a winner! - UPDATE!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was shocked after reading the thumbs-down reviews of this product, despite being a long-time user of Linksys products. I even hesitated to purchase this product, but finally decided that I needed to try it for myself since it contained too many features for the money to pass up! Setup was a breeze!(...) For the novice, this might be a bit intimidating, but I barely wisked through the manual and went on to the online setup and had this unit working in under an hour - and I mean ALL features in under an hour! I've always recommended their products to my friends who respect my unbiased opinion, as I work as a Systems Analyst. The BEFW11S4 has better range than my WAP11 that I purchased a few months ago (or at least in the location that I have it located it has better rage to my Linksys wireless PCMCIA card). With two WAP's now located at opposite ends of the house, I have full wireless coverage.The router was easy to set up as well. I have a static IP from my ISP and had an existing DHCP server on my internal network, but had no problem turning off the Linksys DHCP server and using it with my existing server. I simply entered the route IP as the gateway in my existing DHCP server setup, rebooted, and it worked great! I have never contacted Linksys's tech support, so I cannot tell you one way or the other about the quality of their support, but I have never had a DOA unit. However, if you aren't technically inclined, you may wish to seek out help from one of your friends before you try to install this unit. Overall - highly recommended and the best bang for the buck(...)
Customer Review: A real answer to a real problem
Summary: 5 Stars
...Setting it up I had an issue that was easily fixed by calling tech support,(only 5 min wait and worth it, the technician was very good). My laptop which will be connecting wirelessly was not connecting no matter what I tried. It turns out that you can't run wireless cards and ethernet cards (mine was built in} at the same time because the machine will always default to the ethernet card. Which is exactly what was happening. We removed the driver for the ethernet card and it began to work great right away. Everything else about the setup was fairly simple and went very smooth the directions were easy to understand. I especially liked the quick installation sheet which is what I used to setup with.I highly recommend this product and would buy it again if I had to do it all over. The distance of the wireless machine is really dependent on terrain. But for my two story house it was great. The only weak spot being downstairs in the opposite direction of the linksys base as far as I could go. However it still worked and was quite able to handle downloads even at the weakest point. You just can't go wrong till they come out with a new beakthrough in technology. But even then the prices will be to high in the beginning. For instance the new 802.11a is several hundred dollars more expensive then this machine. And for what you get I just don't need it.
This is a winner. The newest version of the product is BEF11S4 VER 2...
The newest version has fixed most of the bugs of the previous version. Good Luck!!! A very satisfied consumer
Customer Review: couldn't be happier
Summary: 5 Stars
After having an electrician give me a $900 estimate to wire my house with CAT-5, I decided to give the Linksys wireless router a try. I'd read a few mixed reviews, but having worked in the computer industry for several years, I was assuming that I could figure this thing out -- as it turns out, I didn't have to!My roommate had just bought a new computer and was itching to get our shared Internet access working. I was headed to a wedding that evening, but agreed late Saturday afternoon to pull the Linksys out of the box under the condition that my non-technical roommate had to set the thing up while I got ready for the wedding. By the time I got out of the shower, he had installed and configured the router; installed and configured his Linksys USB wireless adapter, and was downstairs at his computer surfing away. I've had the router nearly three months now, and the thing has worked like a champ. The base unit is in my bedroom and his computer is in the basement. Even being three stories apart, he still gets a full signal.
One afternoon, we did have a problem with a few dropped connections. I suspect that the problem was with my cable provider and not with the router, but I upgraded the router bios just to be sure. This took only a few minutes and we haven't had any problems since (I'm still not sure if the problem was the router or my ISP.)
If you are thinking about buying the Linksys router, I say give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can always return it . . . but I'll bet you won't.
Customer Review: Excellent Product -- Quality - Easy set-up - Ease-of-use
Summary: 5 Stars
Worked flawlessly in a few minutes. I have a cable modem and my main computer (a Dell laptop with Windows 2000 Professional) hooks to the router via hardwired ethernet. It was up and running in minutes, just using the defaults. Web-page set-up is very practical.My 2 other computers (both less than 20ft away in 2 bedrooms above the office where the router sits) are desktops with Windows 98 SE and were successfully connected using the USB wireless network adapter. The only problem I encountered there in the set-up was due to the fact that these computer also had a NIC network card in them (unused) and during set-up it defaulted to imposing a static IP address. Linksys tech. support didn't figure the problem out, although I was lucky to be connected to them only within 15 minutes and the trouble-shooter was fairly knowledgeable. I found the problem myself the next day after a good night sleep. Not a typical problem and was readily resolved. If you have the same issue, make sure you check the settings for TCP/IP of your interface card to ensure that it has the settings you want (in my case it had to be "obtain IP automatically"). Even though it's not part of the network I use (since I use the USB adaptor), it seems to cause conflicts if not set-up properly.
I can't complain about the wireless range, but my needs are very modest since all three systems are less than 20ft from one another. I routinely get the 11 Mbps with 100% quality and between 80% and 100% signal strength.