Networking Reviews

Mine came quickly but when I opened the package there was no manual even though the package indicated there should be one. I e-mailed E-Link giving them the details and the serial number of my unit. Their initial response was that the whole package would have to be returned because they do not have any drivers or manuals available online or to mail.

I fired off a strong protest and they e-mailed the missing manual the next day in PDF format (which was fine with me). Interesting approach to say the least! Not that there was that much in the manual but I couldn't tell that without seeing it.

I've installed the USB hub portion and it works just fine. It will be a while before I can try out the ethernet portion.

bought this D-Link hub about 18 months ago, works excellent. the ethernet port is always being used for my cable modem (ethernet seems to be the best way to connect a cable modem) and i have all 3 usb ports used. the drivers must be installed for the ethernet feature to work right. Works good under windows 98 (first editon) but i had a tough time getting drivers installed without freezing the machine. Now i use Windows 2000 Pro and it works excellent. drivers are easy to install. D-link tech support staff competant with difficult problems, but the hold time can be long. This product works well and would be good in notebook applications.

Very affordable product, and I found it incredibly reliable under Win 95/98...but alas, not support for NT...or worse yet, no support for Win 2000

These cards have worked well for nearly a year, under Windows 98, 98SE, and ME. The set has wireless 1 Mbps transfer rates and also includes WinNAT software for the computer connected directly to the Internet. The connection works through our entire home as well as on the decks outside. We haven't tried to go any further. It was tricky to set up the software the first time because we didn't follow the exact directions. But the second time, we did everything in order and it worked perfectly. We live in a rural area so we haven't had any issues with interference from neighbors. The cards are plenty fast for home networking, as well as playing games such as Hearts between computers. They allow us to share files, share a printer and to access the Internet at the same time under a single account, with no wiring, jacks or hubs needed. We can locate our computers wherever is convenient for us, with only our "server" being connected to our ISP. We also own a HomeFree Wireless PC Card for the laptop (purchased elsewhere long ago). It works perfectly, as long as the "server" computer is turned on before the laptop. We just ordered an extra set of the regular PCI/ISA cards to add to our growing home network. These cards are very hard to find (we didn't want the phoneline version) and we wanted to get them while Amazon still had them available so we wouldn't be forced to buy cards from other, more expensive, companies. Overall, an excellent product for the price, and just what we needed. Thank you Amazon for continuing to carry them!

The device supports a good range of network and printing protocols: TCP/IP, Appletalk, Netware, Unix LPR, Windows print client, Internet Printing Protocol (which means you can print to a URL from your network or even the Internet). I have XP and Win 98 clients on wireless-G network with Linksys transcievers on the PC's and a Linksys wireless gateway/router. So far, I can't complain about the device, but there are a few reasons I can only give it 3 stars.

The installation booklet omits some critical information most import of which is the fact that you *MUST* have a wired TCP/IP connection to the device to configure it. If you don't have wired TCP/IP, you cannot configure or use this device. The stupidity of requiring a wired network to configure a wireless network device should be apparent. Much better it would have been to run setup through a USB or serial port. I was able to configure the device with a TCP/IP crossover cable from the one PC I have with a TCP/IP interface.

The installation booklet is essentially trash. On the included CD is a fairly large pdf document which, if you care to read through it, gives a more complete (and correct) discription of the installation and requirements. However, it still ASSUMES you have a reasonable amount of familiarity with TCP/IP networking and routing requirements. It also assumes you know a few things about wireless networking AND your particular wireless network. Some things get some explanation; some things don't. If you don't have a pretty good working knowledge of these networking things, this might not be the device for you. I would say success at correctly setting things up will demand a fairly high computer geek factor.

One thing to remember: In order to reset the device back to factory defaults (so you can start over and try again), you must press and HOLD the reset button for about 5 seconds until the power light flashes rapidly. The docs don't tell you this.

The installation docs contain no help or trouble shooting info. None. Zip. Nada. Also note that the Hawking web site is completely barren of any of this info too. A morning email to the Hawking tech support received a very brief reply of limited usefulness that afternoon.

In summary: The device is certainly a capable printer server. The docs and technical support need to be much better. I am at a loss to explain why a wired network must be present to configure a device for a wireless network.

This isn't really a review, but a response to the previous reviewer. While it doesn't make sense to you to need a wired LAN connection to configure a wireless device, it does to me. It's using the same approach that WAPs use. You have to configure the device before you can use it, and it's probably cheaper to implement a wired LAN (since it is, after all, a LAN device) than to incorporate either a USB or parallel interface.

Thanks for the information regarding the lack of decent documentation. I'm still considering this device, primarily because it supports 3 printers, but will be more cautious and (hopefully) prepared if I do get it.

I like this router - it's very flexible for the administrator that wants a little extra power beyond the general consumer Linksys routers. It also looks and feels more professional than the standard blue and black Linksys plastic boxes. The downside - Linksys continues to ship buggy software. In this case it's not too bad (they reversed incoming and outgoing IP addresses in the internal log and syslog feeds). However, that said, I haven't dug too deeply .. we'll see! Hopefully they pay attention and send out fixes in the firmware soon!

Nice router, but does have a few bugs as other reviewer mentioned. Also, I wish they'd allow the filtering of port 113 (IDENT) - even the consumer firewall, the BEFSX41 does that! Once they iron out the initial bugs and put the feature set on par with the consumer routers - it'll be a great product!

I bought this hub without doing enough research and paid the price. This hub doesn't have an external power source so you're very limited in the devices it will support. It won't support my scanner, camera or force feedback joysticks.

I ended up buying another hub (Belkin) that has an external power source to replace this one.

Also, it doesn't seem to work under Win 2000 either. Maybe that's my fault, but I can't find any support information on it either. In fact, I can't find any information on it even on Saitek's site. Maybe that's a clue.

There are 2 kinds of hubs:
1. simple ones that take power from the PC and pass it on to the USB clients, and
2. expensive ones that use an external adapter to boost that output power for the clients. If you have power-hungry clients, that's the way to go.
Saitek's is the first kind. It's simple, stable, elegant and unobtrusive.

I purchased this for my Casio E-200. I assumed it would work since it was using a CF Slot I type. I tried everything possible but nothing worked. I went to the socketcom.com webpage and there was nothing listed saying it would not. The worst thing is this was the only 10/100 card I found and really wanted it for testing LAN's. Now I either wait for the drivers or purchase a 10mb card instead. One last item is the technical support did reply very quickly in regards to my question on compatibility.

OK what do you expect from a 10/100 card in 2003? It better work... well this one had no hickups on my Toshiba e740. Good
package (ubiquitos tamper-broof plastic) and extremely sparse
manual. All you have to do is drop in the CD, install the driver, and reset. Then drop in the card. The Toshiba has built in WiFi, but sometimes I need a traditional hardwire connection. This card is definitely the one to get.
I ran various sniffing, ping, telnet, and other advanced netorking programs - all functioned flawlessly. There is an
update of the driver on the socketcom.com web site, but installing the update had no perceptible change.
Recommended.

The product itself is good, if you know what your getting into. THe problem is that their sales team is poorly trained and misinforms you of what your getting into, and you will find many "hidden" costs in the future. First, I was told the 25 user limit was only for DHCP clients. This was incorrect after I purchased, and needed to upgrade to 50 node. Second, the VPN does not support Windows XP and Windows 2000 microsoft-based clients (which is just about every PC out there). Instead, they force you to "purchase" their VPN Client software for each user you wish to connect via VPN. Why even have two different products, one as 25 user without VPN and one with VPN, if it doesnt allow connectivity without licensing?!

Overall i'm returning the product, as the sales manager told me "sorry, nothing we can do, go ahead and return the product". I'd stay away from SonicWall products unless your ok with your 500$ purchases turning into 900$ purchases to do what they were advertised in the first place.

This is a great firewall for home and small business. It is easy to set up and has blocking for the evil sites that your kids and employees should not visit. The VPN is a plus although I have not used it yet, it is nice to know it is there.

If you can setup a Linksys DSL/Cable router then this will be a snap for you.

If you purchase this drive, be prepared to go buy other burner software to get it to work at it's potential. The included software is awful. At this point, the drive is not supported by Roxio's Easy CD Creator Platinum's latest version (5.1). It does work with Nero, which I'm still learning now.

When buying software, I expect there may be problems getting it to work with my hardware. But when the mfg of the hardware includes the software and it is less than adequate with only a limited trial period & built-in self destruct, that makes me want to avoid that particular mfg.

Sony makes great products, but their included overall package and technical support historically is poor. This one is consistent with their tactics.

Hot tip: do not buy stock in B's CD burner software.

i got myself this baby not because of a test but due to the flashy red box it was offered in :)
installation and setup under win2k didn't produce any problems and since i have it i have killed only one out of 200 CD-r's (which it burns in less than 5 minutes!)
pretty impressive for an IDE-toaster for that price.
highly recommended!!!

Bought this router 2 weeks ago to replace wired network. I have 2 wired connections from desktop computers and one wireless from laptop.
Here are some observations:
1) 2-3 sec delay when openning the page with browser
2) Setup was not that easy (my configuration was not described in the manual)- had to call tech support 2 times
3) Even though download speeds measure OK, overall impression is that this thing is sooooooo S-L-O-W (possibly due to 2-3 sec lag).
4) Can not disable the farewall

5) Wouldn't work with PPPoE (DSL) at all without firmware upgrade - would randomly drop connection
6) When open the browser after turning computer on, have to reload the page few times just to get DHCP working
7) Loses wireless connection from 2.4 GHz phones
8) Some pictures are not displayed in the browser - was told to clear the cache (???). Hm, never had that issue with wired router before

Overall, I am very dissatisfied with the product, considering the fact that at least I am able to surf the net and download files. Look first on microsoft's website to find disscusion groups on this router and see for yourself what to expect before buying it.
I would give it a 1 star but at least I was able to get it "working".
I noticed some positive reviews here too. Did you try to connect directly to the net to see if there is a difference in speed?

This router (bought bundled with the wireless laptop card) was purchased to replace a D-Link with which we weren't satisfied because we were never able to network our two home computers.

The documentation that came packaged in the Microsoft box was outstanding. Detailed and easy-to-follow steps were laid out in a straight-forward manner. Anyone who is only minimally familiar with computers and computer hardware/software can navigate through the instructions with realative confidence.

The device came with its own setup wizard which, of course, was perfectly compatible with Windows XP! The wizard, in conjunction with the instruction manual, explained exactly what to do and when to do it. It was never ambiguous. The wizard detected and used our original ISP settings/information by itself. It instructed us when to disconnect our previous router and connect our new router. Microsoft even included a blank floppy to be used for saving our connection settings and then transferrring these same settings to our other computer to be networked. The instructions stepped us through setting up the home network on all home computers.

As said before, installation was quick and easy. The instructions were clear and detailed. Our two computers were wirelessly networked without a hitch. It also seems that the wireless adapter card maintains MUCH better connection with the base (I haven't noticed any interruptions in the connection).

Microsoft is big because they've earned it! I'm more than happy to give them my money when they give me products like this in exchange!

I purchased the Microsoft MN-700 wireless router and a Microsoft 802.11g WiFi card for my laptop back in April. I've had it running since then, and I have absolutely no complaints. The installation and setup were incredibly simple. I had never set up a wireless network before, but it took me only about 5 minutes (seriously) to set up a wireless network with this product. And both the router and the WiFi card have worked flawlessly since installation. I have never had one single dropped connection. And in my two bedroom apartment, I always get full 54mbps throughput. Both the Microsoft router and the Microsoft WiFi card are very solid, reasonably priced items. I highly recommend them.

I have now tried two SMC wireless Barricades (this unit and it's newer version, and both have "crapped out" after a few months.
Unfortunately, I also had problems with their older, wired router. Although I have ensured that there is adequate air circulation, and the ambient temperature never exceeds 70 degrees, it appears that these units are prone to overheating. (...)I found that my internet access was getting slower and slower, and my FTPs were aborting more and more frequently.

Also, be aware that if you upgrade the firmware, you WILL lose all your settings (you [cannot] read the old .bin file back in!)
[Be sure] to write down ALL your current settings [before] doing an upgrade!

It's too bad, since I have been a proponent of SMC ever since they marketed one of the first high speed UARTs many years ago!

I've been putting off the purchase of a router for a while now, but after my ISP was irked at the fact that I was logging in with two simultaneous PPPoE connections using an old hub, I really had no choice.

My college offers wireless access on campus, and I had already purchased an 802.11b card, but I didn't think I'd really have a need for wireless access at home. In fact, I was looking for a wired router at first, until I found the SMC7004VWBR on another site (before Amazon began offering it).

I had read many of the reviews about Linksys, D-Link, and Netgear products, and SMC was the one that had fewer complaints. I was skeptical at first considering I had purchased it for $98 including a $10 rebate, and figured that perhaps I would end up getting what I paid for. After about 3 weeks, I haven't had anyting to complain about yet.

The router's features include Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) and Denial of Service (DoS) protection, email alerts, parental control, integrated Virtual Private Network (VPN) pass-through support, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and hacker logging options. Turn on the email alerts and you'll see several alerts in your inbox everyday.

Setup was a breeze. I merely plugged in my desktop into one of the 4 wired ports, plugged in my DSL modem into the WAN port, and accessed the IP address specified in the manual. (The manual is provided on the included CD as well as online).

Even though the quick-start guide asks you to use the CD to set up your connection, you can go ahead and access the setup page via your web browser, as what type of operating system you're using is irrelevant and you don't need any kind of software loaded on your computer.

The setup includes both a quick EZ version (as in 3 clicks and you're done), and a more advanced version. I first used the quick setup just to make sure everything worked, but I then went into the advanced setup to set up my wireless encryption, firewall and NAT settings, etc. The setup page also includes a nice help file that will explain any terms you're not familiar with.

Performance has been exceptionally good. The signal doesn't fade too much as I travel from room to room in my house with my laptop.

Perhaps my only complaint is that there is no easy way to mount it on the wall (although aspiring engineers like myself will find a way).

Overall I think this is one of the best purchases I've made so far, and recommend this to budget-minded (read: college students) individual looking for a feature-rich router with wireless capabilities.

I've had this for almost 2 years running. Used with a Win95 PC and now with a W2K. Shared access to a 56k connection via the serial port on back of router, no problems. Now share a high broadband signal 24/7, no problems at all. Haven't reset router in months. Share signal with two PCs. Dell W2K is hardwired to back of router. PC upstairs, thru 2 walls and 1 floor, using an external Linksys USB wireless network adaptor running WinME, no problems. Both get great speeds. Have noticed that friends who have WinXP and router get better speeds. Operating system makes the difference. Print server on back works well, print server may burp sometimes and the print server just needs to be refreshed in router tools. If you are in an apt building, you may want to name your wireless network and register the machines that are allowed access, or someone could tap into your network and steal bandwidth. I have the 802.11b router about 15" from a 2.4Ghz wireless Siemens phone, no problems. Also running a 900mhz a/v wireless transmitter near unit, no problems. 802.11b, 2.4Ghz and 900mhz all play nice. For the price it's a steal. I bought when it was over [money]!