Cisco-Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port 10/100 Switch
by Linksys
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Our Price: $78.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $9.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port 10/100 Switch
Customer Review: Fantastic!....(once configured properly!!)
Summary: 5 Stars
This router is absolutely fantastic! At first I was having all kinds of trouble because my DSL connection uses PPPoE with dynamic IP addressing. What was happening was after a varying amount of time, my DSL provider (Earthlink) would change the IP address during my session and the router is not able to recognize the change and therefore, it hangs. You then have to unplug it and reboot your computer. I have read about other people using PPPoE with dynamic IP addressing having the same problems. It was getting frustrating. After messing around with this router for several days, I have finally discovered settings that alleviate this problem. I'm sure many people will find this helpful, and it will save you a lot of aggravation if you are using PPPoE with dynamic IP addressing. First off, you need to flash the latest firmware to the router. You can download the firmware at the Linksys website Make sure you have at least Firmware version 1.36 or higher. In the web configuration utility, enable Connect on demand, and check the Keep Alive box. Now, here is the most important part! Set the idle time to: 9999 minutes. It lets you login to your DSL provider and keep the same IP address for over a week. Try it out! Maybe this tip will work as well for you as it did for me! This router is fantastic and the speed is incredible! It is the best router you can get for the price in my opinion. Even if you don't know the first thing of networking, you can figure it out, it really isn't as hard as you imagine it before you purchase it. Once you have it, it seems to explain itself, and is extremely easy to configure. A great device to add to your office or home network. Definately 5 stars!!Customer Review: USCLAWYER
Summary: 5 Stars
I appreciate the reviews that raved about this product. The bottom line is I am now able to use a single DSL account I have with SBC for both my computer and my wife's computer (I don't have a problem with paying SBC more money so I am not violating the subscription agreement, yet they don't currently have multi IP accounts for residental use--stupid for them). It bothers me that my law firm's "tech guy" steered me the wrong way and told me I only needed a hub, when it was a router I needed. Thanks to those whose reviews identified the hardware I needed. The only beef I have with the reviews is it took more than three minutes to hook up my router, and definitely longer than it took to open the box. I may not be a techie, but I am reasonably knowledgeable about computers considering my day job is as a lawyer (hey, I replaced my hard drive all by myself). The problem I had with installing the router is that you have to know how your ISP sets up your account. Basically, the only thing I had to insert when I configureed my router was to indicate I have a DSL line (actually "ADSL"), to "enable" something, and to include both my user name and password. I wished somebody told me I didn't have to worry about "MAC Addresses," "Default Addresses," "DNS" and all of the other alphabets. PLus, I apparently had the darn thing installed, but I was trying to connect directly to my ISP, rather than simply opening up my browser. What a relief. Therefore, for mere mortals, it may take you more than three minutes to set up your router if you don't remember all of the technical stuff about your DSL or cable modem account.
Customer Review: News from the Newbie
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're scanning through these reviews to see how reliable this product is as well as how easy it is to install and configure, well than I hope my experience will add value to your search. When I purchased a DSL router through Amazon, I read many of the same reviews you have. Some of them mentioned how easy this product was to install. Indeed it was.The router comes with excellent directions. In fact, there are a few one page setup guides that pretty much tell you everything you need to know. There's really not much to configure. What's really neat is the fact that you configure the DSL router through your browser. The router has an internal web page. There are only about 5 tabs of which I entered information into two of them. Once I did, I had four computers surfing the net simultaneously.
When I configured this router, I realized that everything the DSL supplier configured on my PC was no longer needed. All of the setup is determined by the DSL router web page and your PC's TCP/IP settings.
There is one issue with my DSL connection. There are times when the connection goes down and I have to re-establish it. I simply go into the main page of the configuration and select the "apply" button. Then I move to the status page, select the disconnect button, and then select connect. This re-establishes the connection 99% of the time. I've found that for the other 1%, I'd have to turn off the DSL router and DSL modem, turn on units, and then repeat the aformentioned steps. It's all very worth it to me, based on the previous nightmares that have occurred with DSL vendor solutions.
The product is worth its weight in gold!
Customer Review: Very Impressive
Summary: 5 Stars
I must say, that I don't normally dole out 5's, but this product is excellent. I bought it a bit skeptical, but have been very impressed. I was able to network my laptop and home PC fairly easily. The trouble I did have had to do with Windows 95/98 networking bugs rather than problems with the device. What I love about it are all the things it does. 1) I used to have firewall software on my PC, I no longer need it, as this device protects/hides your system from the Internet through the use of NAT'ing (Network Address Translation). 2) I also saved memory by removing my PPPoE software from my PC as the Linksys device itself does PPPoE authentication for you. 3) And of course, I can now share a DSL connection between my PC's, which is a real boon to a home office worker. As my family all have laptops, when they come over for the holidays, they can now hook up to the Internet via an Ethernet connection. Sure beats tying up the phone line or trying to install drivers on their laptops! 4) Last but not least, I was able to hook up my VPN connection to work without any trouble at all! A few comments on their support: 1) While I did use their help desk, and found it to be above average, they did lead me a bit astray having me turn off features I didn't truly really need to disable (e.g. Disable DNS), so expect to do a little bit of research and experimentation on your own to get things just the way you want them. 2) Their startup documentation does a great job of getting you going quickly, but their documentation for more advanced features isn't very good. Overall a great product for the money.Customer Review: Powerful, simple and easy to manage - Excellent Buy
Summary: 5 Stars
The Linksys BEFSR41 Etherfast 4-Port Cable/DSL Router is one of the best broadband routers out there. This router/hub allows you to share your single internet connection provided by cable modem or DSL to multiple computers. Using the uplink port, you can stick in a hub and theoretically support up to 253 computers.This box contains 4 auto-sensing 10/100 ports. Installation is a snap and no software is needed. You plug in Internet provider's network cable (RJ45) into the WAN port and power it up. The box acts as a DHCP client and gets an IP address. Once that's done, you can plug in your other computers into the Linksys box and share the same connection. The router supports DHCP and acts as a DHCP server to your computer. It also uses NAT (Network Address Translation) that essentially makes up IP addresses internally and hides all of your computers behind the router. All your computers going out to the Internet appear as they are using the same IP address. This box also acts as a firewall blocking out all of your ports.
The box even has a DMZ host option that allows one PC on your network to be exposed to the Internet, providing unrestricted two-way communication between a machine and an Internet service. You probably don't want to do that, but it's there if you need to.
In a nutshell, the Etherfast Cable/DSL router is very simple to operate yet powerful and easy to manage using the web based admin app. A must buy if you need to share your Internet connection. I like the 4 port version so much, I just upgraded to the 8 port version. Great job Linksys.