Networking Reviews

I have had this USB tower for 3 years and still have not been able to get it to work correctly with my computer. Don't by Belkin adapters if you are a Mac user. Belkin's drivers don't work properly with Apple software, they prevent the startup of your computer if you have them plugged in & they conflict with other drivers. Belkin has never updated their drivers for Mac computers so they actually work properly. I have wasted $$$ buying the tower, a serial adapter & a SCSI adapter, none of which work properly. My older Keyspan serial adapter works much better. I have complained numerous times, but Belkin doesn't respond to any customer complaints/feedback.

I bought the Belkin 7-Port USB Busstation Modular Hub because I was in need of a great number of USB ports for a server of mine. While the price was a bit outrageous origionally, I happened to find it on clearence and scooped it up.

It works very well, looks pretty nice, and having the flexability of the different modules Belkin makes could be handy.

A great USB 1.1 Hub for [the money], but not for [more], considering the cost of the additional modules.

How many of you own more than 4 USB devices on one computer? Even if you have 3 USB devices, you are probably about to trash that little 4-port USB hub you just bought. That's where this 7-port USB hub comes in.

It would probably be messy to daisy chain more than one 4-port USB hub. This 4-tier, 7-port USB hub is totally expandable. You can change this modular hub into any combination, ranging from 4-USB ports to 12-USB ports to adding a serial port, etc.

At the high price, it's kinda hard to purchase if you're trying to upgrade from a 4-port USB hub to this ... .

This switch worked very well for a little under a year, then it started making hissing sounds, like bacon frying.. no kidding. It was still working well so I shrugged it off for the time being. About a month later it started acting up really badly, ports would randomly go offline, or only link up in 10mbit, whenn they are normally 100mbit. I tore the thing apart (bye bye warranty), and the main controller chip literally burned my finger upon touching it..! Being a hobbist hardware modder, I pried off the stock heatsink, and thermal epoxied a much bigger heatsink to the main controller chip. problems have not come back yet... Very bad long term build quality. Won't be buying a hawking product again..

This was a very cheap (in price and quality) switch. I also found that this switch got hot. In fact, it would sometimes give off a burning plastic smell. The ports would work intermitently, and my computers would not be able to see the network. It finally just went dead after about a year and a half.

I really like the small size of this router,
and the fact that the cables attach from behind,
letting me view the leds while reducing the clutter.
It has been working well for me.
I also like, internally, that it has 1Mb (128KB per
port) of buffer space, and that any port can be
used as uplink, making it easier to install and
more flexible.
Only two very minor negatives.
First, the "blinking" of the leds when there is activity
is at constant rate, so it does not give you a good
idea of the throughput.
Second, the switch runs a bit hot; will this
impact long-term reliability? It's too early
to tell.

It is a shame that Intel continues the "Wintel" (Windows+Intel) legacy of releasing drivers for their hardware for windows only.

I tried this card on a Thinkpad T40, on which I installed SUSE LINUX PRO v9.0. It turns out that Intel has not developed (nor they seem to be planning to) linux drivers for this card.

Hopefully I was able to return the Intel WLAN card, and I'm currently using a Orinoco dual-wlan (802.11a/802.11b) card on the Thinkpad's Cardbus slot. Unlike the Intel "solution" the Orinoco works beatifully.

Until Intel stops meaning "wintel", avoid this card, unless you use WinXP, which is apparently what Intel wants you to do, along with Microsoft.

That some companies would use their market domination to prevent competition and letting the users run alternative operating systems is a shame. Hopefully other vendors of Wireless lan cards (see above) are fully supporting Linux.

This card is not compatible with IBM T40,40p,41,41p laptops. Even though it is almost exactly the same card that IBM will sell you for twice as much, the bios in these laptops will stop you before windows can even boot. In any other laptop it is probably a nice card. Just a friendly word of warning.

I added this to my laptop and it works very well. Range is much increased over the Linksys PC card I had. The loop antenna system in the Toshiba gives a great signal. Intel makes good stuff. I called Toshiba to see what they reccommended and this was a good number with them.

I purchased the Siemens 2501, 2502 and 2521 Powerline adapters and connected them to the outlets in my home, (which is less than five years old). The setup was easy but the included instruction guide stated little more than "plug it in".

The problems began when I installed the included configuration software on my three computers equipped with WINDOWS ME and discovered that the utility program either froze Windows or took close to 2 minutes to start. The SpeedStream Support staff is aware of the problem and told me that "the programmers at Efficient Networks are working on it".

The biggest issue I have is that none of the three Powerline products will stay connected for more than 10 minutes! I have tried changing outlets and even tried hooking up the adapters at my friend's house but these things simply refuse to maintain a connection.

Bottom line: Unless you enjoy loosing your network connection and having to get up and reset adapters every ten minutes, stay away from Siemens Powerline products...at least for now.

Followed setup instructions exactly and still didn't get it to work. Documentation is limited. No mention of entering passcodes in instructions. One of the units would not accept the passcode assigned to it. Found 1 bad USB cable included with unit. Units will only work if everything is on the same 110 volt leg of the house wiring.

We've been using this with our Windows XP system for about a month now. The driver installation was quick and easy, and the physical hookup as simple as could be asked for (short of wireless).

Performance has been quite good between our small home network (1 Windows, 1 Mac, and 1 firewall) and the cable Internet service that I use. I don't have any precise measurements but we've been completely happy.

We don't communicate between our two home systems (yet) so I can't report anything about that.

A previous reviewer mentioned a faulty USB cable coming with the device. I didn't even notice at first that a USB cable was included--it was hidden under a cardboard insert.

Longtime Amazon customer but this is the first time I have ever been driven to write a review.

This product was a huge disappointment after upgrading from my old Netgear RT314.

The problem? It times out my remote connections after about 15 minutes.. So I might be SSH'd into a remote system (work) doing some work.. Step away for a few minutes or get distracted and Bam.. Lost connection. And here I thought I had 'always on' internet. The old Netgear would stay logged in for days.

I contacted 3COM customer support (a very lengthy endeavor) and they told me it was 'designed to do that'. A quick search will show a lot of people who have this problem.

It will be many years before I buy another 3COM product.

This replaced my RMA-ed Linksys EZXS88W v3 8-port which overheated and died after 3 days of use.

Compared to the Linksys:

Good:

Nice mounting bracket (can use to hold non-3com items)
Smarter (Auto MDI/MDX detection)
Brighter, well-spaced diagnostic LEDs
Metal/Plastic construction seems much more solid than Linksys
Lifetime warranty
Doesn't melt

Bad:

Larger footprint
only 60Mbit/s (Linksys did 90MBit/s)
costs $20-$30 more

Overall, it's a nice switch, but I wonder why its bandwidth is so low.

I had an intermittment problem where the print server would lock up. I would need to power cycle the router to fix this. Spoke with tech support last night and they had me download the firmware from the D-Link website and reinstall,even though its the same version as what was shipped. Did not work. I then had D-Link exchange my unit. Major hassle to do the exchange. Still have interimitent problem with print server locking up which requires reboot of router. Wireless connection also freezes up from time to time. Overall,not reliable.

The wireless connection has good range in my home. I bought this for the print server. It works well with either my HP PSC 1350 all in one, or my Hp Deskjet 970Cse. I will use this with a laptop so that I can print without docking the laptop.

The only thing that tripped me up was configuring the Windows XP printer port setting. After installing the DLink print server software, the IP address for the printer server port setting automatically defaulted to the correct value, but would not actually work until I typed the value into the field.

Other than that, very good.

I bought this for use with an HP OfficeJet 6110, a multifunction scanner/printer, because it was the recommended device for putting the printer on the network. However, after installing it, I found it doesn't support scanning or faxing using the multifunction printers - completely useless for the type of printer they recommend it for. Since HP doesn't seem to be able to make peripherals compatible with their own printers, you might as well just buy a cheaper alternative to start with.

This product worked perfectly with my multi-function printer (LJ 3330). I can print and scan from all PCs. Anyone having trouble getting this to work may not have followed the proper instructions. There are separate instructions for multi-function devices. The only reason I don't give it a 5 is because it's a tad pricy.

A very nice device at a reasonable price, but READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY: I couldn't connect to the device with XP and IE6.0SP1, couldn't connect with Mozilla (latest version) or Netscape, either. Only supports IE5.0 to IE6.0, which is poor for an open standard HTML device. (Also, it complained about Java Virtual Machine not being installed, when I finally made it work.) It took me more than a week and various support calls only to connect via browser (BTW: I'm a computer expert and have setup hundreds of routers in my life). When I finally installed the latest firmware (recommended by IOGear support), it let me connect with IE6.0SP1 (wow!). - OK, I started configuring the file system and users and groups (that's what I bought it for). But any types of problems continued coming up: Rename of existing folders failed several times, same with user names and goups. Windows file sharing cannot be used, so I could only specify user/group permissions on each top-level folder (!), which I don't consider enough. Several times I couldn't access different folders from the same machine simultaneously, even when I specified the right user and password. It performed a restart during filecopy, without asking first. 3 out of 10 bigger filecopy orders from an XP machine failed. Etc, etc, etc. - I didn't even try any router functions, so I have no idea if these work right. But I'm sure I won't keep the device. - User manual rating: crap (sorry).

I agree with Oliver.
Very buggy firmware out of the box. You must have IE5.0-6.0, IE6.0SP1 will not work. The IOGear support did respond within a day with a link to the firmware update and instructions how to remove the service pack from the IE. Removal of the service pack did not work, I had to install a new copy of Windows on a spare hard drive. The updated firmware now works fine with the IE6.0SP1.

The basic design of the box is beautiful, but there are a lot of things that need to be improved. The hard disk (Maxtor) has fluid-dynamic bearings and is very quiet. Instead the noise is created by the cheap chokes in the switched power supply. The network switch works with 100MBd, but the internal interface apparently runs only with 10MBd, which means that the transfer to the internal HD is limited to only 1MB/s. It also has a file-size limit of 2GB, so you can't use the Windows backup program for a backup of your entire system. I'm sure there are more problems that I haven't discovered yet. We have to see how dedicated IOGear is to improving the firmware, it might become a really good device in a year or so. For now, you get what you pay for and you have to decide if the low price is worth the hassle. For me it is.

The box claims the EA201C works with anything from an 8-bit XT and up. Many drivers are supplied, so theoretically the card is very adaptable. However, the card I received was fixed permanently in 16-bit mode and refused to work in an 8-bit ISA slot. Netgear tech support (in India, apparently) didn't know the first thing about their card or their setup software. They insisted this was a plug-and-play 16-bit card only, and they would provide support only for Windows. If that's not your setup, good luck.

I consider myself a fairly knowledgeable person when it comes to PC's and networking. I have a Win 98 SE PC with only an ISA slot free. I tried and could not install this card successfully even after several attempts. Windows does not like the supplied Driver when installed in PNP (Plug and Play) mode. Tech support was unwilling to spend even 5 minutes on the phone and blamed it on Windows. Apparently this product has a problem with Windows! So what other OS is there, really!! They e-mailed me a set of long-winded instructions to install in non-PNP mode but I could not even get past a few steps (example, find and write down free IRQ's) and no, they won't guide you through this workaround on the phone. Windows crashed with the dreaded blue screen and I was unable to boot, even after uninstalling the card. Netgear's tech support bailed out saying that I would have to 'find a Windows expert' to fix the problem. Luckily I was able to fix the problem myself after several hours. Netgear's ad touts this product as 'This easy-to-install Netgear ISA network card will have you network compatible in no time. Its plug-and-play technology automatically configures the adapter'. How I wish there was some truth in that. It would be best to avoid Netgear if you can. Unfortunately, if you need an ISA card there aren't too many choices. My ...Netgear EA-201C 10Mbps ISA card is sitting there collecting dust...

After much effort, I did finally get this card to work reliably with Linux. It is an ne2000 clone. I had to tweak a few settings (turn off Plug N Pray in the bios, specify interrupt and address space), but Slackware now has no problem with it - I just wish it was capable of 100BT.

I have an Entrega mac4U hub that is still in warranty and has been a source of lots of trouble...freezes, etc. When I first got it I wrote Entrega about the problems and they advised me to write ...apparently Entrega wanted this address to reply. I wrote them several times...they never answered my mail.I have no idea who they are and what their connection with Entrega is. This hub is completely unreliable when used with an I MAc and Entrega never made an attempt to make it right. I paid 129.95 for it but will never buy their product again. If anyone knows how to contact entrega (if in business) please let me know. Totally dissatisfird with their product.

A classic example of rushing a product to market before it's ready. It freezes my G4 if I try to start it with the dock plugged in, and gives me an erroneous power warning otherwise. And my 8-series HP printer will only work with an out-dated 6-series driver. I explained all this to tech support, and the reply was, "Oh yeah, that doesn't work." They're supposedly working on a fix that was supposed to be ready a month ago. When will computer companies learn to fix products before they sell them?

Entegra makes it possible to purchase a USB-type computer and avoid the purchase of MANY adapters. No problem booting up like the other guy had, and the hub keeps the ports within easy reach all the time, making hot-pluggable exchanges quick. Very convenient and a good value.