Networking Reviews

The installation for this product was a breeze, configuring itself in a matter of seconds without even needing the Win98SE cd. The LEDs are an interesting touch; not really useful but neat just the same. The design feature I like the most about this is its capability to stack if you have more than one of them. There are clips on the sides that make this a much cheaper and expandable alternative than the modular Belkin hub. My devices all work fine on this one... with one exception: my Epson printer, for some reason or another, simply will not work when attached to this hub. Since there are plenty of other hubs in this price range that do the same things, I would recommend buying a different one so you don't have to worry about whether or not all your attachments will work correctly.

I have used this product for some time now with no trouble. Installation is automatic. This hub is self-powered which means it comes with its own power supply; this is good because it does not make your computer supply the power via the usb cable. Product is small and sturdy. Hub can also be stacked on top of others of the same brand.

This little unit works just fine for what I need. I have a couple of cameras, a joystick and a USB Modem installed. I recently installed a printer and it works fine also. Seems fine for the price

I used this card for over an year with my powerbook and it worked great with Mac OS X. Cisco did a great job with its client software drivers for most platforms.

The best feature which I miss now with my airport extreme internal card is the ability to change the power rating. With the Aironet 350 you can switch between 1mW, 5mW, 10mW, 15mW, 30mW, 50mW, and 100mW. The ability to control transmit and receive antennas is a great feature for the kind of work I did.

Overall great support on OS X with client software from Cisco. The one star on this review was lost due to the client driver using more than 13M of memory. This is not an issue anymore with over Gigs of memory in todays systems. Also for the fact that the networks I used although broadcast SSID's, it didn't switch my saved setting automatically - rather I had to do this manually with one click. This didn't bother me but the capability for the client was very viable.

Today Cisco has newer and much better products for the wireless realm. Go with some 802.11g and newer protocols (depending on your implementation).

I have been using Cisco Aironet 350 series for a while, with a netgear wireless router. The range and the quality are pretty decent and I never had a problem with it. Interestingly the product I got was a used one. So, I guess it should work well, for a long time for you.

The software has some good diagnostic tools to test the link status and performance and proves that this is a standard Cisco product. The automatic network detection and switching makes it even better to seamlessly move from the office to home and to Starbucks if you like, without much hassle (I haven't tried it in starbucks personally though).

One small issue. The Aironet Client Monitoring software disables the fast switching capability in the Windows XP and gives the typical Windows 2000 login screen. Though not a big problem for me, it might be a serious issue for some.

Except for the price, the product is very likable. If you are more conscious about price, you might want to try the linksys alternative (from Cisco/Linksys group afterall)

I have 4 Linksys 54G cards ( 2 desktop and 2 laptop ) and 2 Cisco 11B 350s and I think the 350s are much easier to work with. Especially on the road with a laptop - they always work. Set up a new profile and your are connected.

We use the 350s at work and they are just great, solid, predictable cards. For the price difference, unless you have a homogeneous 54G environment, the 350s are winner.

My choice for ease of use and consistent performance.

Plus, I like the Cisco monitoring software, profiles, etc. When I go out of town, I set up a new profile and almost always can get associated right away with whatever wireless provider ( maybe except for the Spokane airport but that's a different rant ).

I picked up a pair of these to run a simple network to another floor in our house. I already have a multi-tiered fast ethernet network, and this was just to put one computer in one room on the uppermost floor. I installed one in the computer to go upstairs and it worked like a charm with ethernet-like speeds (actually HPNA 10M cards can push 15-20 Mbps in good conditions, so I'm not suprised). The one I put in the ICS (internet connection sharing) computer to allow the upstairs computer to use the file server and print server downstairs would blue screen the ICS machine within five minuite of bootup, every time. Removing the card resolved the issue, even though the drivers were still installed.

Trying to isolate the issue, realizing that placing the card in a different machine would do the same thing, it was resolved by placing it in a different computer wired to the ethernet infrastructure, but it would bluescreen after every day or two (running Windows 2000). Rats, no dice, so I had to return the card.

Before returning it, however, I did call up Linksys technical support and after explaining that I am qualified on NT and 2000 Server operating systems, they sent me to the right person right away. As it turns out, there is an issue with this card running on i8xx series of chipsets with Windows NT, 2000 or XP. Since these are 80% of the computers with Celeron or Pentium III processors, it would get one star. For working as well as it did when it was working, however, it gets two.

To sum it up, be careful and check the return policy when you purchase these. While I would purchase them again if I needed them and I was pretty sure they would work with no issue, currently there are too buggy. Go purchase someone else's HPNA 10M cards, they all use the same Broadcom chipset and so the performance is exactly the same. Now excuse me while I purchase a 3com.

This card is really great...if you know what it can and can't do.

I used to be pretty (...)at these, but then fiddled with the phone wires and (for reasons that continue to elude my comprehension) all of a sudden they're basically 100% reliable.

My beef with these things is no longer reliability (which was horrible until the fiddling mentioned above), but compatability. I haven't done any definitive research on this particular subject, but these use the same technology as DSL, so it could either not work or have to share bandwidth with the connection. That's one thing (I'm sure they've got some sort of compromise), but my real issue is with lack of OS support. I'm screwed with Linux, and that's something I hope to get more involved in the house-hold. (it's really great, search for Red Hat Linux 9, (...))

In summary, for a Windows-only network without DSL (do your research if you've got it, I guess) it's ok, but check out PowerLine networking instead. Linksys has got some PowerLine stuff, and, other than the issues with this particular product, I think Linksys is a really good company.

Easy install, very reliable. Most of the wireless networks I've encountered are absolutely insecure. They don't have to be, but the users stop short of implementing encryption and MAC address filtering. For those people, this is a safer alternative. Almost as convenient as wireless but without the risk. Phoneline networking doesn't suffer from interference of walls, ceilings, wiring, etc. either. I've used both wireless and phoneline. If I can't have Cat-5 cabling, give me a phoneline network. You can use these cards with the Linksys HPNA router, which serves the HPNA network as well as conventional 10/100 Ethernet concurrently.

Be careful when you setup this router! Out of the box, it has remote administration enabled *by default* on its port 1900 on the WAN side of it meaning ANY arbitrary person can login and do what they want with your router, including making any internal machines that you think are "protected" by the router vulnerable! An oversight like this indicates lack of quality assurance/control by SMC. SMC of course denies this, but anyone with this SMC router who never touched their advanced settings to enable the firewall or forward port 1900 to a non-existent internal IP address can visit http://1.2.3.4:1900/ where "1.2.3.4" would be your external (internet side) IP address and simply hitting "login" lets you login without a password (since setting one is an "advanced" option)

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Although SMC deceptively states that this product is "platform independent" you will not find any Macintosh software to configure the print server.

BOTTOM LINE ... Unless you play on a PC the integrated print server will be useless - a real waste of your hard earned money.

This is simply a great product for the price. As a network engineer I am particular about what devices I use to protect my home network and I like the Barricade for several reasons:

1. Ease of setup. Setup on this router is a no-brainer.
2. Reliability. I have not had to reboot it or had it lock up in the 3 months it has been protecting my home network.
3. Features. The Barricade has features that you would expect in a much more expensive solution.

I would recommend this device to anyone.

Switch is fine, but power supply is the least efficient I've ever seen, producing 6 watts out with 23 watts in. There's no excuse for 26% power supply efficiency, when an 80% efficient design costs nearly the same. This power supply will add about $3/month to your electric bill.

Contrary to their claims, their products have no warranty at all (unless you pay for it). I have a 2 year old gateway router that had a 5 year warranty that stopped working one day so I called their tech support. The tech support person told me that since the product is over 90 days old and they do not manufacture it anymore, then I would have to contact their pay tech support line to get an RMA. If they are able to fix the problem over the phone line, then they will charge me, otherwise they will offer me an RMA number for a return. So basically you have to pay to use their warranty. A friend who is a lawyer is currently handling this situation.

This is a great switch, I use it to share my ADSL, it was just plug an play, no fuss, in three minutes I was running three computers, its also very compact and nice looking, the silver finish is better looking than Lynksys and Dlink. Well worth the price.

This product is fairly easy to setup in WinXP (basically plug and play) because the operating system can automatically recognize the card and install the driver.

The card comes with a DC power for use whenever necessary. However, it wouldn't be good if extra power is ALWAYS needed. I have a USB2.0 flash drive (really really tiny and supposed would consume much power), which is recognizable on other computers. This flash drive is ONLY recognized by Addonics Cardbus when it has the DC power plugged in. I see it a big drawback: who would want to take another DC power with a laptop all the time?

I inserted the card into one of the Cardbus slots of my "Toshiba Satellite PRO 4300 Series" and Windows 2000 recongnized the card and installed the drivers without asking for anything.
Copying a 150 MB file to a "256MB USB 2.0 Sandisk" takes 3-4 minutes on my old USB 1.1 port and with this card it takes 35-45 seconds... So far so Good!
I'll write another review when I try it with an external CDRW I've got....

I have a Dell Latitude c400, which only has 1 USB port. I have a lot of USB "stuff" and I guess it must have been all that wear and tear of un/plugging things everyday. The port started to wiggle, and then one day, it just stopped working. I called Dell, which helped me run all these diagnostics and they said the port was "working." Um, no, it wasn't. So, I decided to go AROUND the problem. I also had the PCcard slot which I wasn't using, so I bought this "Addonics Cardbus To USB 2.0 Controllerwith 2 USB 2.0 ports." I literally put the card in, and once my laptop said "found new hardware," within seconds I could use my USB printer again. I don't need the power adaptor for most things like my printer which is separately powered, or the USB mouse, which requires very little power. But it's good to have anyways. Great product.

I've owned one of these for months now, and I have to reset it at least twice a day, every day. All you have to do is reset it and it comes back up and works great, but we have computers in different rooms, and my wife always knows that the first time she wants to use her computer she has to stop in my office and reset the router first, so it has become a habit. It was easy to install, but what a pain! I'm on this site looking for another one because I just can't take it anymore.

I've owned this router for about 6 or 7 months now and I cannot say that I am impressed with it. While the installation was very easy, and it works, it constantly needs to be reset. As a result of constantly resetting it, I've had to call tech support to get help on how to fix it (security settings, resetting the router thoroughtly, etc). They've been helpful both times I've called, but it's irritating that I have to call at all. If I can get the thing up and running (for months, mind you), why can't it STAY up and running??? Oh, and I've never gotten the print server to work. I had very little interest in it doing so, so I didn't try too hard.

I'll admit it toke about an hour the first time I tryed to hook this router up but it was the first time I had ever hooked up a router. But a quick call to custom support and I was set. I've had this router for around a year now with no problems. I have had it hook up to a static IP and a dymanic one too with no problems. And it wooks great with xbox live. I would recommend this router to anyone.

I bought this card to go in a gateway 2000 running windows 98 1st edtion.My main use was to use it to connect my puter to a cable modem.Seems simple enough right?..Well plug and play didn't work out so well in my case.In fact it took me forever to get windows to reconize the drivers off the cd it came with,and even when everything seem to be operating as planed it let me down once again.When i plug in my cable modem and setup the network settings i got nothing but a good old fashion question mark in my device manager.I ended up haveing to hook up my modem via usb after all that.NOw it may have been windows 98 more than the card to blame but i'll never know now..In any case that's my reveiw take is as you will :)

I installed two of these cards into one PC. One of them became inoperable after only about 9 months' use. Something curious that accompanied its demise was that its MAC address, as reported by ipconfig, had become (odd).

I have all SMC products on my network, and highly recommend this card.This is my second card added to my network. Easy installation, driver update was a breeze, and had worked flawlessly since I got it six months ago.If you havent gotten the rest of your home network yet. I would also recommend purchasing all SMC products. They work seamlessy together, no calling several helpdesks to troubleshoot your system, and very dependable.

The unit seems to work as advertised, except for the audio. I bought one and couldn't get anything but very underpowered and very tinny audio to come out of my speakers. The speakers worked fine plugged directly into a computer. I spoke with tech support and they said it must be a defective unit. I returned to the store and exchanged it for a new one and have the same exact results. Based on other reviews here I'm of the opinion that this thing cannot pass thru a quality audio signal. I sent another note to tech support asking for the audio specs. If I get them I'll update this review.

I'm a Mac user who just bought a Windows PC for gaming, and wanted to keep my existing monitor/keyboard/mouse/audio setup. The Miniview looked perfect. Well, it's almost perfect. Hooking it up was no problem, and the switching works fine for everything but audio. Using their audio pass-through, I only got the left channel and the sound was really underpowered -- tinny and quiet. This confirms another review here at Amazon criticizing the Iogear Miniview's poor audio. Still, I couldn't find another unit that would do what this one does for the price, so unless you want to move up to a switching hub, this guy is probably your bet. In my case, I have an external amplifier for the computer speakers (the excellent Cambridge Soundworks Model Twelve), so I can just run a separate audio cable from the PC into the amp and then switch audio that way when needed -- not a great solution, but good enough.

One reviewer said that extra keyboard and mouse buttons don't work with IO Gear Micro KVM's. Well, with the GCS632U the extra buttons on my Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer and the extra buttons on my keyboard - which they're aren't alot on a Grandtec Virtually Indestructible Keyboard: power, sleep, and suspend - do work. I'm skeptical that the unhappy reviewer has actually tried the GCS632U model.

The mouse and keyboard input to each computer comes in via a single USB connection, which frees up an extra USB port if you need that.

I haven't tried the audio switching part because I'm not really interested in that feature.

I have purchased the Linksys USB2HUB4 a while back, but just discovered that it does not work powered by the host only even for devices requiring <500 ma. It will not work unless the external power source is used. I thought it was faulty and had it exhchanged but, the replacement behaves the same way. I am a bit disappointed.

I have some other hubs that I'd bought back in the day in computer time (3 or so years ago) so I was expecting this one to be the same size. This hub is so small that if nothing is connected to it, I can close my hand around it and hide the whole thing. So far it's worked flawlessly for me with both USB 1.0 and 2.0 devices - I'd reccomend it in a heartbeat.

So you have to plug it into the wall. So what? If you need more USB ports on your home machine, get this hub. It's slightly larger than a deck of playing cards. All you do is plug it in. Everything you need is in the box. No additional cords, software or drivers required. Perfect.