| Linksys WPS54G Wireless-G 802.11g Print Server |
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Model: WPS54G
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 138
Operating system: Windows
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Share a printer with everyone on your network -- works with most USB 1.1 or 2.0 printers
Connects your printer directly to the network by 10/100 wired Ethernet or 54 Mbps Wireless-G (802.11g)
Prevents congestion on your PC with other users' print jobs
No need to leave a PC on 24/7 |
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| Description: |
| The Linksys Wireless-G PrintServer lets you connect a USB printer directly to your network, eliminating the need to dedicate a PC to print sharing chores. Using a PrintServer frees up your ""print share PC"" so you don't have to leave it on all the time. It also removes the printing bottleneck, and sets your PC free to do more useful work. Connect the PrintServer directly to your network by 10/100 Ethernet cable, or wirelessly over 54Mbps Wireless-G (802.11g). The wireless option lets you put your printer wherever you want to, without having to run cables. Whichever way the PrintServer is attached to your network, both your wireless and wired PCs will have access to it, and the printer it's connected to. And if you don't use wireless for general networking in your office, you can still use the Wireless-G connection in ad-hoc mode to print from visiting Wireless-G and Wireless-B PCs. The USB port is compatible with USB 1.1 printers, as well as printers that support the new high-speed USB 2.0 specification for even faster throughput. Your data is protected by up to 128-bit WEP encryption, or pre-shared-key WPA. A user-friendly Setup Wizard makes installation easy, the compact case fits anywhere, and the three megabyte print buffer size handles even large graphics-intensive print jobs. Let the Linksys Wireless-G PrintServer for USB 2.0 bring efficiency to your printing tasks. |
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| User Reviews (138 total): |
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 of Total 7 Pages
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Does not support multifunction printers, December 8, 2005
By Barry
If you have a multifunction printer, i.e. one that prints, faxes and copies, there are apparently no Linksys drivers that will work for you. My primary complaint, though, is how can anyone be so inconsiderate as to put out a product without making this clear on the packaging? I had to call support in order to find it out.
For those with single function printers, maybe it works fine, maybe not; I'll never know.
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Returning it - doesn't work wireless, November 29, 2005
By J. Inge
I bought this at Fry's and spent about 8 hours trying to get it to work. I tried every workaround i could think of... it will work when wired to the router or when wireless security is turned off. however it does not work once WPA or WEP encryption is enabled on my Linksys wireless router. Firmware is up-to-date on both my router and this device, still doesn't work. I've been working in IT for over 10 years and this product is the worst off the shelve computing device i've ever purchased.
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Horrible, November 28, 2005
By M. Stein (PA)
I have two computer science degrees. I can't get the print server to work reliably. Linksys Tech Support exists in name only.
The Setup program is among the worst I have ever seen. I laughed out loud when I finally (!) finished the wireless config and the on-screen instructions told me to click the "User Setup" button to continue. There is, of course, no such button. It's Driver Setup. And don't get me started on the so-helpful error box that pops up and says "Connect failed."
My Linksys Wireless G router is great -- too bad that Linksys' wireless client software and their support is so bad. Especially their support.
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Buy at your own risk, November 27, 2005
By SSC (Maryland)
After several hours via online chat with technical support, I finally gave up. I have nothing against the technical support people as the product would have been installed if the hardware would work properly.
Print server connectivity is unreliable making installation and print errors common. Never got it to work.
Annoying things include the print server disappearing from the network. Resetting is not reliable either. Had to do a 30 second reset and unplugging and then 30 second reset.
Even if you get it right you there is a 50-50 chance of detecting print server connectivity. Even after the installation, I still couldn't get it to work.
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A Wireless Server that works well wired - at least, November 9, 2005
By D. Henize (Columbus, Ohio)
If you have a very, very plain system and don't want particular security, this might be a system for you. However, as with a lot of Linksys stuff lately, there is an apparent assumption you only need plain vanilla, unprotected network settings. If you need more, there's too much likelyhood it simply won't work.
I purchased one of these devices, and tried to set it up on my network. First, the "wizard" won't deal with WEP that doesn't use a pass phrase to generate keys - useless if you have existing keys generated some other way. If you try to leave it out, as the "wizard" suggests, you get an error message overlaying the suggestion. Sad.
Going to the browser version of the setup, there is every appearance that you are going to be able to set parameters, but you discover that, for WEP-128 at least, only key one can be set. Don't bother setting other keys and choices, they aren't retained. There is also no opportunity to choose a channel, it WILL be "auto".
Don't look for effective help from Linksys support. After working with this POS for several hours, I called and talked to an "analyst" who, after having me upgrade the firmware, decided I had bad hardware. So, next day I returned it to the merchant and got a replacement. Of course, it performed the same way, so I contacted Linksys again. THIS analyst admitted there were reports of this problem, and sent (8 hours later) a "beta" firmware release. It made no difference. Apparently the quality control process amounted to little more than hope, as any testing would have shown it didn't work.
Finally I sent an email expaining the issue, again, with references to the open ticket the purported badge numbers of those "analysts" involved. Response was email asking exactly what was already answered in the earlier interchanges and the email.
My reponse to that, including debug test procedures to illustrate the problem, is unanswered 36 hours later.
For many items I still think Linksys is a good vendor. This has all the hallmarks of something developed to keep new engineers out of the hair of real engineers working on real projects. How it could get out in distribution with these flaws points out a total lack of integrety in the Linksys Quality Assurance program (is there one, I wonder?)
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It works great BUT.....setup...., October 23, 2005
By P. Taylor
I've given it 5 stars because it works well now I have it set up and running. The process of getting to this point was nothing short of going to the dentist for "pain free" dental work..
I read the reviews and decided to give it a go. No one seemed to find the setup easy so I went to a local store and bought the WPS54G so I could return it if I failed in my mission.
It took several hours of trial and error to get the darn think setup! In the end the final solution was simple. Here's my advice..
Make a small voodoo doll and call it "Linksys Managment". Then get the setup disc that is packaged in the box, (Setup Wizard ver 2.0 in mine), and smash it with a hammer. Take the shards of the disc and poke as many as you can into the most private places of the voodoo doll! The setup disc packaged is missing a vital step in the process and gives you no place to put in the WEP Encryption key for your network. (If you are using a secure network.)
Next, go to Linksys.com and download the latest FIRMWARE setup wizard. When I did this it was dated 7/25/05 51.1 mb. Unzip it and copy the files to a CD to replace the orginal CD, that is now serving a more useful purpose.
Next access your router setup and set it to STATIC IP addressing. You wont need to retain this setting once you have the WPS setup but without static ip addressing the setup wizard on my system could not find the WPS.
Run the setup wizard from your cd and run the "server setup" first. Plug everything in as they show. The WPS must be cable connected to the router to setup.
The wizard should now pick up the WPS and is a simple follow the steps setup. Now you can set up the WPS to Server Assigned IP adressing and add in the KEY1 WEP Encryption code that you used for your wireless server.
It took me a while to get to this stage, many trys and you have to power up and down the WPS if things go to crap, restart the wizard etc. I altered no other settings on the server setup and when I finished I did not save the Static IP setting so it defaulted back to dynamic.
I then ran the Computer setup option from the setup disc, for each computer in the house and the WPS set up first time on each computer.
It works fine now. Wireless and free like a bird! The printer is no longer a slave to one computer, and it only took 7 hours to work out...
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Started being Skeptical. Works Great!!!, October 18, 2005
By vkunwinder (Pearland, TX United States)
Before buying the WPS54G, I followed the golden rule of buying print servers: "Call tech support first to check compatibility".
2 years back, when I called tech support, they did not have a print server that was compatible with my printer (a multi function Samsung SCX-4216F). In spite of that, I thought of trying one and failed. My fault there.
Last week, I called them and the tech support guy said that the WPS54G and WPS54GU2 would be compatible but as a printer only. Not for any of the other multi-function properties of the printer.
I got the WPS54G and followed the instructions to the dot. Lo and behold, in less than 20 minutes I have a working print server that is even wireless.
My router setup:
No SSID broadcast.
MAC address filtering on.
No security (for better wireless throughput)
Static IP addresses.
Router ip 192.168.55.1
(*Hint: For the average home user like me.
For better speed don't have wireless security on.
For security, the combination of
No SSID broadcast +
MAC address filtering +
Static ip address +
Change the default ip address of router would be enough)
Key factors in setup.
First in router:
Turn off Mac address filter
Change static ip to Dynamic ip.
(*did not change my router's ip address)
Second:
Follow linksys instructions.
(* Do the setup with the network cable and NOT wireless)
Finally:
Through the instructions provided, I got the MAC address
of the print server and added it to my router.
Put in my SSID in the printserver
Changed printserver ip to a static one in my ip range
(* Default gateway would be the router's ip 192.168.55.1)
Re-enabled the MAC address filtering on my router.
Re-enabled static ips on the router.
Now, I can have my MFC-printer anywhere in the house and print.
Thank you Linksys.
Hope this helps.
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satisfied, October 16, 2005
By Micah A. Baldwin
I bought this print server for my brother hl-1240 laser printer. And while i haven't had much luck with the wifi, the cat5 connection works just fine. The setup was easy and the device looks great.
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Find an Alternative, October 10, 2005
By Rob B (Florida)
I have had enough trouble with Linksys reliability in the past that I don't normally buy their products. However, the customer wanted a configuration that could only be satisfied by the WPS54G connected to the LAN through the Linksys WRE54G wireless range expander. The WPS54G needed to serve an HP multifunction USB printer, but could not do the job.
The computers could see the WRE54G device (although that device has less-than-acceptable setup problems of its own), and the WRE54G could see the WRT54G at the other end of their house, but there was just no getting the computers at either end of the house to be able to connect to this WPS54G device. Trying to troubleshoot the problem cost me far more money than this device is worth.
So, what can we learn from this, boys and girls? When it comes to LinkSys, don't just walk away: RUN!
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Worst Company I Have Ever Dealt With, October 10, 2005
By Todd White (New York, NY)
Bought their product to go with my Linksys wireless router. Looked like it was going to work through setup and then on the final step it failed
I called technical support and was sent to an India call center, where an arrogant Indian making 2 dollars per hour led me through his computer generated problem solving process. At the end, in some strange language he said my printer was uncompatible. I asked to speak to a supervisor, after 5 minutes on hold I got one.
I asked it where it was located and if it was an employee of Linsys/Cisco, and he said he was. So I asked him if my printer was not listed on the box I bought as being incompatible then why wasn't his company guilty of fraud. He hung up on me.
I have had so many issues with my linksys router and their support I would want to examine the idiot that buys any of thier product. I intend to have someone call the Cisco ceo every half hour on the half hour until I get a satisfactory answer to how poorly they treat their customers.
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Easy setup when using uncomplicated print devices, October 9, 2005
By Timothy E. Brasington (Gainesville, FL USA)
Pay close attention to the warning on the back of the WPS54G package '* This Linksys PrintServer should not be used to share Multi-Function printers' - they are not kidding.
I am a fairly experienced technical worker who did my homework ahead of time by reading a number of reviews about the WPS54G. I thought I would probably be able to get the unit to work with an HP
K80 multifunction device about five years old. Setup went smoothly and I could tell by the activity on the print server's light panel that the printer ought to be working. I played with this for about three hours on each of two different evenings with no success.
Today I bought an inexpensive HP Deskjet 5440 and had the printer
installed and tested on two wireless laptops and a wireless desktop in less than an hour. The performance is good and we have successfully achieved the wireless printing we initially sought.
I tried writing an e-mail to Linksys support in advance of purchasing the WPS54G, asking about compatibility with the K80. In several hours I received a response which the Linksys representative probably wasted his time writing and which I absolutely wasted my time reading. The net of what he said was -
'It might work, but then it might not'.
I downloaded and flashed version 6049 of the firmware from the Linksys website and I expect that if WPA will work with the new firmware, I'll soon have secure printing.
If I had started with the HP Deskjet 5440 instead of the K80, I would have been printing happily with the WPS54G several days ago.
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WPS54G installed easily for me, October 8, 2005
By T. Wollnik (Illinois)
I purchased the WPS54G, despite the number of bad reviews, many of which I now question the validity of. Here are some facts.
- WPA is supported out of the box on the WPS54G I purchased
- I have a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless G (w/Speedbooster) router
- two computers, 1 desktop wired into the router, and
one laptop wireless to the router
- my printer is a Canon i860.
I followed the advice of the higher rated reviewers.
- I ensured that my i860 driver was installed locally on each
machine first.
- if you plan to use the printer server wireless rather than
wired, then enable SSID broadcast, disable MAC address
filtering. You can leave WPA turned on, you will simply
need the SSID and the shared key during the print server
install
- I installed the print server from the computer that was
wired to the router (I stayed away from an install using
the wireless machine)
- I followed the easy to read linksys instructions.
- I plugged the printer into the print server
- I used the provided ethernet cable and connected the
print server to the router
- I powered up the router
- I insterted the Setup Disk, followed the onscreen
instruction (install the printer server first, then
later choose the setup computer)
Everything went smoothly. I would have been done in about
5 minutes, except that I had forgotten initially to enable
SSID broadcast and disable mac address filtering.
I then choose the setup computer option and ran that twice
one on the desktop, once on the laptop.
LESSON? Don't shy away from this from the numerous posts by
inexperienced folks. Its not rocket science, but if you
follow the suggestions on the reviews by those that were
successfull, you'll have success also. I love this think
and its got a huge print buffer.
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Setup Problems Hamper 5 Star Rating, October 5, 2005
By Joshua Robertson (San Bernardino, CA USA)
I bought this item with full expectations that it would be an easy setup. I physically installed the device according to the instructions and when it was time to power up the device according to the instructions, it could not be detected by the network. After various troubleshooting, it was determined that the USB cable (though rated as a USB 2.0 cable) is too long. If you use a cable longer than 7 feet, then the device will not be detected by your network. After I replaced the cable, everything worked as expected.
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Won't install on Windows 98SE - driver install requires dll function not in '98, September 25, 2005
By Charlie
Despite what the package says, this server can not be used from a pc running win98. It installed fine and works great from my laptop and desktop running xp pro. The driver install calls a function in Kernel32.dll that doesn't exist in Win98, so the install fails and the printer driver can't be set up for the print server on a Win98 computer.
This stuff isn't that complicated, I have bought many Linksys products in the past but the quality of their software, support, and hardware has declined steadily over the past few years.
I recommend avoiding all Linksys products like the plague.
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Problems accessing the WPS54G Print server from LinkSys Setup and Admin Utilities, September 17, 2005
By Mr Simon L Harpham
An interface that does not connect to its target hardware, responding with an unhelpful comment telling you to plug the cables in is not very impressive!
- resultantly it does not even get past step 1.
In the spirit of trying to sort it out yourself, it would be helpful to know the Server's factory set IP address to allow it to be "pinged"! (- it is not in the documentation provided with the hardware and the documentation printed by the server when reset gives an address that does not connect)
- resultantly the "Quick Install" guide is useless!
For any one thinking of buying this Server - don't.
- buy a Belkin Print server (I did and it costs about 60% of the LinkSys one) at least they provide useful support on their website and an interface that actually works and has clearly been well tested, allowing you to access the hardware to configure it.
Come on LynkSys, sort yourselves out!
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Very Slow Printing Using Wireless. Will not work with a MAC, September 5, 2005
By M. Biddick
I have a multi-PC and MAC environment. After working with the device for hours, and hours - the MAC will not print to it. The user interface and configuration is all very poor, and not designed for non-experts. Even experts will find this little box quite frustrating.
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It's great once you get it set up (and that's not easy)., September 4, 2005
By novice techie (Woodside, CA)
I purchased this print server a few days ago and decided to wait until Saturday to set it up, anticipating it would take a few hours. I was right. Actually, it took over 3 hours and a lot of frustration. Linksys' documentation isn't great. They show you screenshots, diagrams of the configuration, and say "Click Next" without a word about whether you're supposed to do the thing they're showing you. Then, they made a major mistake by not telling me that after you configure the print server, you also have to configure the PC. I figured that out after 2.5 hours of no printing and no help. Be sure to run both sections of the CD set up, not just the "configure print server" part, but the "configure PC" as well. I've got everything working now but I'm not really sure that it's the way it should be set up, if I just kludged it together, or if I got it right by accident.
It would be nice if I felt confident and assured about Linksys' products and their ease of use.
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Won't work in a mixed environment, September 2, 2005
By Keith
I am encredibly savvy when it comes to all types of computers, operating systems and networks.
i just don't understand how linksys tech support can just stonewall every question i ask them.
they say the product isn't supported in a Mac environment and in my apartment i have a mixed node setup with both mac, windows and unix. this device will only work with windows and for only one reason.
linksys won't tell me what it names the usb port, so i can't create network printer ports in mac and unix. i've tried everything from l1, lpt1, usb1, u1, one, 1 i've tried it all. i can get the machines to send a print job to the device wireless (no easy feat there) and i see the print server queue up with a print job but it just sends it off to neverland causes i dont have the proper port trailer on the ip address. and linksys won't tell what it is.
i friggin hate you linksys, i'm never buying one of your products again.
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Installing the WPS54G, August 25, 2005
By Ray D. Hoffman (Butler, PA USA)
Like most buyers, I ran into trouble installing the printserver. After several hours decyphering the installation instructions (which seemed contradictory in its fashion) and familiarizing myself with the required entries, I called into the Linksys technical support. They helped me get the device up and working in about an hour. Unlike some of the other reviewers, my problem resided in an incorrect IP address. The printserver is now up and running with three computers able to wirelessly connect into my HP deskjet 960c.
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Must first be a local printer before you can make it a wireless one, August 22, 2005
By T. Bahls
Here's another tip for successful installation of the WPS54G wireless print server: when the instructions say to locate your existing printer, unplug it from your PC, and plug it into the print server; what they really mean is your existing printer *must* be a fully configured, operating local printer before you can turn it into a wireless-accessible version.
Since we have a few PCs scattered around the house, in my case this meant lugging the printer around and installing it as a local device on each of these PCs, then setting the printer up with the WPS54G, and then going back to those PCs and using the Linksys setup wizard CD to turn all those local printers into wireless ones.
Once I did that everything went smoothly and I'm happily using the printer from multiple PCs.
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