| Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless-B Cable/DSL Router |
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Model: BEFW11S4
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 1079
Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4, Windows NT 5, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, Windows
Operating system: None
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Connects to a broadband modem, a 10/100 Ethernet backbone, or wireless network
Long wireless operating range supports 300 feet indoors and 1,500 feet outdoors
Provides roaming, best access-point selection, load balancing, and network traffic filtering
Configurable through your networked PC's Web browser
Can act as a DHCP server for your existing network |
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| Description: |
| The Linksys BEFW11S4 is your all-in-one networking device This wireless router features support for the 802.11b protocol, which lets you wirelessly access your network and the Internet from up to 800 feet (outside), or 300 feet (inside) away |
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| User Reviews (1079 total): |
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Great Product, Great Price, December 8, 2002
By jeffrho (Olathe, KS USA)
This router is super easy to install - it literally took me 10 minutes to set my home network up, and it hasn't been down since (two weeks ago). I'll be getting a notebook soon to go along with my 2 desktops, so I havent used the WAP yet, but it's all ready and waiting!! ... this cant be beat - a must-have for any multiple-computer household.
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Best investment I ever made, December 8, 2002
By New Mac Guy (San Francisco, CA)
I am still trying to get over how cool it is to be completely wireless in my house, surfing the internet at high speeds via DSL. I can surf anywhere in my home. It appears that signal strength does weaken across the house, but although signal is weaker, internet browsing is unchanged.The setup was pretty easy. You just run the setup utility and it configures the router for you. I am not doing anything complex - basically have a laptop (wireless) and a pc (connected). To get the laptop implemented in a wireless mode took all of 5 minutes. It was harder to actually install the drivers for my wireless LAN card (non-Linksys product) Anyway, definitely a great buy for folks who want to the convenience of having no wires cluttering up space and giving you the freedom to browse anywhere in your own home.
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Works well, with a little tweaking, December 7, 2002
By unknown
I had no problems setting this up to work with Avaya/Lucent/Orinoco 802.11b PC cards in two laptops. I deducted a star for not having encryption turned on, by default (as Microsoft's new products do), nor having any administrative authentication (password) enabled. So don't forget to do these things, esp. if you don't trust your geek neighbors or hacker friends!
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Linksys, the way to be wire-free!!, December 7, 2002
By Dale J. Bjorklund (St. Peter, MN USA)
I just know enough about the network capabilities of our Dell P4 WinXP and P3 Win98 desktop PCs to be dangerous, but I knew I loved the big pipe DSL connection on my P4 enough to want to share it with my son on the other machine. I bought this unit along with the USB wireless client adapter. The router hook-up was really easy on the P4, and the adapter pretty much the same on his. He's about 25 feet away as the crow flies on the other side of the house, one floor down. I was skeptical, I mean duct work, walls and floors, household appliances, wireless phones, etc. But it works baby. A solid connection at a full 11 Mbps. Good stuff. One little problem when I changed the name of the router from its default (for security reasons) was fixed with one quick call to one of Linksys customer service's bright young lady techs and we were off and running again. When you do that, just make sure you tell the USB adapter that name. Can I get a "Duh" ?!? Buy it, it works.
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Easy Setup/Install, December 6, 2002
By unknown
I have two computers one with Win XP one With Win 98SE. Both were up and running in less than 1 hour. I already had a cable modem. Adding the wireless router took a little over 15 minutes. The wireless USB-connected Win 98 machine took a little longeer because it is jus plain slow. The instructions are great and the hardware works perfectly. I was able to get file sharing going within the hour and am still working or printer sharing. You can't beat the price/performance ration.
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Works fine if you get past the installation process, December 5, 2002
By Chau L. Pham (Corona, CA)
I bought this router together with the Linksys WUSB11 USB wireless adapter. The software and driver installation for both units went flawlessly but I had trouble connecting to the internet. It seemed that the adapter was having trouble talking to the router. I called Linksys tech support and talked to a tech service rep from Manila, Philippines. Fortunately, he was very knowledgeable and was able to walk me through 30 minutes of resetting the network settings on my PC and get them to work. It is working great now and I have good, fast internet speed. This product is definitely not user-friendly. Do not expect them to work right out of the box unless you are an IT expert and know how to fiddle around with the network settings on your computer. I loathed having to go through the set up process again for any future PCs. Beyond that, it works fine once you passed the installation huddle.
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I'm FREEEEEE!!!, December 5, 2002
By William R. Stockstill (Marietta, GA United States)
Previous to this purchase I was taking the cheap route of dragging a 50 ft Belkin cable around the house with my laptop. Prices are now so low on wireless routers it made sense to replace my old Linksys router. This router is even easier to set up then my old Linksys. Basically its plug and play. It automatically found out my IP address and worked as soon as I plugged it in and turned it on. I did enter the DNS server address manually. I am using this router with a Netgear MA401 802.11b Wireless PC Card because it has better reviews then the Linksys wireless card.
I am in a split level 2000 sq foot house. My router is upstairs in a front bedroom. I have an excellent signal downstairs and in my back yard a fair signal. But, I noticed no degradation in surfing with a "fair" signal. There is a refrigerator in direct line where I get the fair signal and is probably the culprit. So, if you have a small, medium sized home you will most likely have great performance. The "fair" signal in the back yard doesn't seem to make any difference so this setup might even work good in a larger house. Just make sure you set up the WEP encripted security so your neighbors don't use your Internet access. That is easy too to set up!!! The only downside was my laptop battery died and I have to buy a new one. :-]
UPDATE 6/08 I have now gone through 2 or 3 Linksys routers. They seem to die at about 2-3 years old. I am now using a relatively inexpensive Belkin router.
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Not for sissies, December 4, 2002
By unknown
All those who gave this one star are just a bunch of sissies. I'm giving it two. Sure, I have to do a soft reset several times a day. And some days I cannot get both the wired and wireless connections to work at the same time. And still other days the thing hangs up so that I can't even receive a few emails without it getting stuck. And there is alot of powering on and off of PC's and routers. But this is the stuff that tough guys just deal with.Those tech support people told me that my unit was defective too - and that I could pay to send it to them and they would get another one to me in a few weeks or so. But unlike those other sissies, I kept my unit and live with the pain. In fact I'm sitting here now creating this review while connected with a wireless connection and I can tell you without hesitation that this unit
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Easy set up and great range for wireless access, December 3, 2002
By Anuj Goswami (Irving, Tx United States)
The Linksys Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router is working greatly for me ever since I hooked it up to replace my wired cable router. Two laptops are wireless and a desktop is connected with this router. The set up was easy and painless. The wireless card, just required the IP address and I was on my way to the freedom of wireless world.The best thing, I enjoy with this is the range at which this works. I have about half acre of yard and I can sit almost anywhere, but the signal never fades.
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Dissapointing... exchanging it, December 3, 2002
By DiabetesHandsFoundation.org (Palo Alto, CA)
As I began to write this, it had been almost six hours of attempts to set up our wireless network with no luck. The wired portion of the router did work out of the box: no problem whatsoever. It was the wireless part that was a pain to deal with. After following ALL the steps in the User Guide that comes with the router, I got on the phone with a guy from Tech Support, who ran me through most of the same steps in the User Guide (that's fine, that's part of his job), yet after 30 minutes or so with him on the phone, we still couldn't get my laptop and my desktop to be on the wireless network for more than a few seconds at a time... and they were both using Linksys products, for compatibility's sake! In the end, I was able to figure out myself the reason for the problem, or so I thought... for a few days. This past weekend, after I had to unplug the power to physically move the router, it stopped working for good. I am returning it.I don't even know why I give it two stars: I guess wishful thinking that it will eventually work (basically, after a month of having bought it, the best thing I can get is an exchange, although I'd love to get a refund for my money!), and I will be able lay in bed while I surf the web, without a 50 ft wire running through my living room... So far, I've found the router to be annoyingly complex to set up. I would NOT recommended for starters or even for expert people: I have been using computers for almost 20 years myself, and I was not able to get this setup going in a reasonable amount of time!
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simple to install, December 2, 2002
By Kent Murray (USA)
I bought the router, pcmcia card for my laptop, and pci card for my desktop. The hardware was easy to install, however, I was getting a lot of lost packets when it was first installed. A networking friend suggested downloading the latest drivers for the products, and viola, it started running like a champ. The initial problems were probably the cards' fault, not the router.The range is somewhat less than claimed. I think I get a strong signal under 50 ft, then it starts fading. But, after reading some reviews, this was expected. Overall, it was very easy to set up, and I haven't had to do anything since (almost a year now).
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it's a breeze to setup, December 2, 2002
By Hafid Saba (Scottsdale, AZ United States)
This has to be the most amazing home networking product out there for it's reliability and ease of use in setting up. Plug it in
turn off your cable of dsl modem
turn it back on
restart your computer that's it! if you want to do more open up a web browser to 192.168.1.1 (password: admin)
and do your configurations for the wireless part there. It's amazing how consistent this product has been in the times I have set it up for clients and friends. It's a joy to use and highly recommended!
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Setup and go in no time!, December 1, 2002
By lms5574 (Plano, TX)
Update -- After having used this router more a longer time I can truly say it's a great product. Buy G technology instead if you're looking this year, they'll give you more speed for your buck.
Connect your highspeed modem connect your laptop/desktop, power it all up, point your browser to 192.168.1.1 login to the configuration page, setup your broadband account, setup WAP, change SSID, disable SSID broadcast and change your router password. That's it! It took about 3 minutes. Ok 4 minutes. Allow an extra minute or 2 for the new firmware. About the 1.43.3 firmware version. It did disconnect for me as well this firmware version, but make sure you're using non wireless connection when you update your firmware. Set your IP to a static one and the update will work fine. If this sounds confusing, skip the update of firmware till next version. Make sure you DO the other steps so you're protected from anybody scanning in on your router. If you're not using wireless yet, DISABLE IT !Have fun!
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It works and relatively simple, December 1, 2002
By James McCarty (Hilliard, Ohio USA)
Fact: Wireless networking can be very complex. There are many standards and the terminology can be confusing. This router works very well and is relatively simple. I had the router, 2 PCs (one hardwired and one wireless) installed and operational within 30 minutes.When using any residential router, be sure you install the latest firmware. Be sure you enable WEP for security. It is turned off by default. For most users, 64 bit encryption is sufficient.
I like the way Linksys uses a "key phase" approach to generating the key. I suggest you randomly open a favorite book and use the first sentence from a random paragraph. This avoids using something easily quessed.
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It works with apple airport card!, November 28, 2002
By unknown
Yes, It is totally compatible with apple airport card, so you don't have to buy the much more expensive airport base station.
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Easy and Powerful Enough..., November 26, 2002
By wlmoseley (Bakersfield, CA United States)
I bought this router to conect my home network to a Cable modem connection. It's easy enough to use that a complete novice could figure it out, but also has some fairly powerful security features, including encryption and MAC address filtering, in addition to the standard Linksys routing features.
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Wow was that Easy!, November 24, 2002
By usarj (Tewksbury, MA USA)
I've been using PCs since the mid 80's, but I'm not real technical. After the new router and the wireless card came I was really apprehensive about installing it, so I let it sit for a week until I felt brave enough to tackle it. In less than a half hour we are up and running. My daughter is now upstairs with full internet access. I now have my PC all to myself. The installation software did all the work for me. At one point I wasn't even sure it was installed because it went to quickly. If you have any doubt about buying this. Forget it. Order it now!
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More than meets the eye, November 24, 2002
By Go Eagles (PA)
You get more than you think. Since I have had the Linksys, my Norton Firewall program hasn't gone off once. It has great firewall protection and is upgrade flashable. I have NEVER once regretted buying the unit.
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Great for SOHO use, but don't forget to use WEP, November 23, 2002
By scojam (Sarasota, Florida USA)
I use this unit in my small home office, with a couple PCs, network printer and wireless link to the laptop.There is NO encription or security for wireless, so don't forget to turn on WEP (either 64 bit or 128) to avoid having neighbors using your Internet connection or accessing your local LAN. It's important to note that there is no firewall protection from the wireless link to the local LAN, so any PC that connects via wireless is able to access all system on your LAN. This can make you prone to security issues if you don't enable the WEP security. We enjoy this unit, and find it very easy to download the latest firmware updates from linksys.com and perform the update using any web browser. We also use Linux servers behind the firewall, and the "linksysmon" SNMP package which logs all traffic through the firewall by enabling the log broadcast option on the linksys. Also keep in mind this is a NAT firewall, and not a true router. Although you can do port forwarding, there is no routing ability from/to different IP addresses. This is not a problem for most applications, but something to be aware of. I recommend this product, and have worked with several installations for my company and several of my clients.
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Easy to set up and runs reliably, November 23, 2002
By schmundtthomas (Singapore)
When I recently got a new computer, I got into networking. After doing some research I settled on Linksys this system, since it seemed to come out on or near top in the usual tech magazines and got high marks for user friendliness. I've not been disappointed, even as a network novice. The system ran out of the box, I set up my network going straight to wireless (two desktops, using the USB receiver, and one laptop using the PCMCIA slot, one shared printer patched in via the Linksys print server so any station can print without the need for another station acting as print server) and I haven't had any issues. The manuals had some kinks but I got through the setup fine. Very satisfied customer.
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