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(More customer reviews)Originally, I rated this product with 4 stars. I have downgraded it for the following two reasons:
First, some background. My in-home network has about 5 Linksys products. Their 4 port cable/dsl router which does a good job. In two years, I've upgraded the firmware twice which involves a reboot of the box. Other than those two times, I've only had to recycle power to the box once to clear a problem. I have the Wireless access point and associated PC Card for my laptop. There's also a 5 port hub and the two port print server. So overall, I like Linksys. However, here are the reasons for the downgrades.
1) with the Printserver active, I occasionally get IP address conflict warnings from Windows TCP/IP drivers. I have to cycle power to the PrintServer to clear the problem. This did not happen until the PrintServer was added to the network. My cable modem router is the DHCP server on the network and that functionality is disabled in the printserver and the WAP11, so either Linksys has a problem in their DHCP server in the router or the problem lies with the Printserver. This is not a show stopping issue, it just causes inconveniences until it's cleared.
2) The printserver (two printer model), only has 128kb of RAM. That's not enough. With RAM prices as low as they are, the box should have 32MB or more. I have an Epson 900 color stylus printer and an NEC 1200 laser printer controlled by the print server. The laser printer has no problem printing, but when I send a color job to the Epson, it takes FOREVER. The Epson printed faster when I had it on our server and shared the device. That just slowed the server down when someone else on the network printed to it. Our server is also a work-station (yes, I'm peer-to-peer). Each printer should have 16MB of buffer ram to speed print jobs, especially to an ink-type printer.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Cisco-Linksys EFSP42 EtherFast 10/100 2-Port Switched PrintServer
The EtherFast 10/100 two-port switched print server is an easy way to expand and simplify your small or home office network. With two high-speed printer ports and four standard 10/100 switch ports, the system allows you to connect up to two printers and four PCs (or other network devices) to your network without any additional hardware. Supporting both standard and bidirectional printers, the system is fully compatible with regular laser, Bubble Jet, ink-jet, and dot-matrix printers. And with a 256 KB buffer and automatic collision control, the print server handles multiple print jobs simultaneously and efficiently.
The four internal 10/100 switched ports integrate your 10Base-T and 100Base-TX hardware together in a seamless fashion, running four times faster than a four-port hub, while minimizing cabling and space requirements.
The print server works with all major operating systems, including Windows 95, 98, and NT 4.0, and NetWare, and comes with a three-year limited warranty and free technical support.
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