| 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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Crashes ALL THE TIME, January 9, 2006
By user (USA)
If you're a gamer, or you use your computer on the net and need a constant connection, this router is not for you. It literally locks on me about five times a day. I have to get up, unplug the router, wait about thirty seconds, then plug it back in. Sometimes that fixes it, sometimes I have to restart my computer as well. My good friend is a network technician, and even he couldn't figure out why it was doing it. The router itself is about nine feet from me, with no obstructions and the antennas straight up and down, and my connection fluctuates from extremely poor to good. I can take my laptop right now, put it three inches away from the antennas, and the signal would not get any better. It's not my computer, because it works great on other wireless networks, just not ones that use this particular router as an access point. STAY AWAY!!
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Stay away, January 4, 2006
By user (Baltimore, MD United States)
This product has cost me far more time and trouble than it's low (available) cost would warrant. I got mine (...), and switched it in place of an older Netgear, to make a nice Linksys "stack" in my closet.
With the latest hardware and firmware, mine locks up approximately every day, sometimes two or three times. The solution, remove power for ten seconds, is simple, but unaccptable with such frequency. Look at www.dslreports.com for (currently) 36 page discussion of problems and partial solutions, or just do yourself a favor and look elsewhere for a low cost WIFI router/gateway.
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Locks up far too often, December 28, 2005
By user (Cincinnati, Ohio)
What's most annoying is that I often wish to log into my server from work/etc and am unable to connect. I've learned that this means my router has frozen up and needs a reset. It seems to happen at least every week.
I've also had lots of trouble with (what seems to be) dropped connections. I'll try to hit Google with a query; the request seems to be en-route, but hitting the browser's "stop" button and trying again yields a quicker result (than waiting for it to finish the first try, becuz it probably never will).
This router might be ok if you're not trying to run a server behind it, but I wouldn't chance it for anything, myself.
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Not bad....if you know what you're doing., December 23, 2005
By user (Georgia, USA)
I've used this router for nearly two years and whilst it is relatively easy to setup, it can give you problems if you're not sure what you're doing.
When I first installed it, it would crash every day. So I upgraded the firmware and it worked fine. No problems.
When I moved home, I had DSL installed and then my problems started. Streaming Video would cause it to crash and my connections would die. I downgraded to the original firmware (factory default) and streaming worked fine. Only problem then was, the router would still crash when I went to certain sites (MySpace.com being one of them).
After weeks of trying various settings, I still have connection issues and decided to change routers and go with NetGear.
For this router to be great value, it all depends on which service provider you use and what type of connection they have. My last was PPoE and that's when my headache started.
When I first bought it, it was money well spent. But I soon out grew it.
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Worse than worthless product, and I used to love Linksys., November 22, 2005
By user (NJ)
Linksys used to be a pretty good company with good products. Have no idea about other items but one thing is for sure, this product is horrible. If it works for some, then it's a manufacturing problem, but I suspect it's more a design problem. 2 Have failed. This router will not stay up for longer than a week, but more often like 2 hours. Random loss of connection either through wireless connection failing to work...(albiet strong connection) and random blocking of websites!But mostly it's just dropped connections. After four calls to tech support I thought I'd ask for an exchange for something that DID work. That seemed fair. "No". "We'll give you another BEFW11S4" I said, "NO THANKS, it's worthless, why would I even want to bother with another headache??". I've owned over the years 5 Linksys routers. The original non wireless 4 port router worked,while not perfect, at least a reset monthly was all you needed to keep it working. Recently..a month ago I replace the still in-warranty BEFW 11s4 with a Netgear wireless G router. It's been up a month and never a problem, even with power outages!!It just came right back on and worked. I have configured it as a wireless switch as the BEFW11S4 was, and as a Broadband router. Either way it s#@ked. I have both Windows XP and Mac OSX computers accessing the network. I probably won't ever trust Linksys again. No wonder they were giving it away! I got it for $19 with rebates. Guess you get what you paid for. As far as I can tell the Linksys era in inexpensive networking products is over. Am I missing something here??
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Dont waste your time on it!, November 20, 2005
By user
I have had this router for nearly 3 months and I have reinstalled it 10 times! It crashes everytime when streaming video/music because its default setting of Windows Media Player has to be turn off, and yet it is not mentioned in the manul(At least I did not find it!).
Anyway,if you want to buy something reliable and stable, avoid this!
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Not bad at all!, November 19, 2005
By user (Montreal, QC Canada)
I bought this product when it was on sale at bestbuy. It is a good product but goes down once a month and you have to restart it. The signal is good around the apartment. I like the web configuration interface. Overall I recommend it.
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DO NOT FLASH THE FIRMWARE ON THIS ROUTER, November 8, 2005
By user (Wayne, NJ USA)
This router was working great with really good range for over a year until the day I flashed with 1.5 firmware (it had firmware at least a year old right out of box). Now the router needs to be reset every ten to forty hours because of wireless link DHCP loss.
I had installed the newer Linksys WirelessG routers several times since installing this unit, and saw these similar issues and can only conclude that the latest firmware programmers at Linksys really suck.
Avoid these routers until these issues have been fixed.
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AWFUL piece of equipment, November 1, 2005
By user (United States)
I have had this item for more than a year. In that time, I have become very friendly with tech support at my ISP. "The internet's out again!"
No our Linksys router has stopped working and needs to be reset again. Unplug, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in. Sometimes more than once a day.
I did not try new firmware, because people report all sorts of problems flashing the unit. And then no improvement on lost connections. (If the firmware upgrade fails, you can transform an unstable router into a high-tech paperweight.)
In fact, even patching Windows XP (tm) to fix this loss of router connections does not help. (Yes, Microsoft has a hotfix for this.)
Extemely frustrating.
DO NOT BUY THIS AT ANY PRICE. Your sanity is worth more than the savings.
Do a web search on this model: you will see that thousands of people have the same problems with the BEFW11S4.
I am trying the Netgear WRG 614 v.6. It cannot be worse than this Linksys router!
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BEFW11S4 sucks, October 25, 2005
By user
I have to frequently reset the modem which is extremely annoying. I have called Linksys numerous times and have spent at least 10 hours with many of their experts trying to solve the problem without resolution. I hate the modem and they have never offered to exchange it or anything.
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Linksys BEFW11S4 - Good but there are problems!, October 20, 2005
By user (Chicago, IL USA)
Purchased this router a few months ago. It works fine except there were a few major problems encountered. Most of the problems occurred with my laptop connected wirelessly to the router. My desktop connected via cable to the router's port wasn't as problematic.
1. The dropped connection/resetting the router problem. This occurred even after upgrading the router to the latest firmware. Seems like problems kicked in after firmware upgrade v1.52.02. DON'T ADVISE PERFORMING THIS UPGRADE!
The best solution I found for this was to use static ip's for the devices connecting to the router. Since I have implemented this, the router has not dropped the internet connection nearly as much as it used to (every 2 - 3 days). Seems much more stable now.
2. Router crashes when streaming video/music. Through an exhaustive search I found that there are settings in Windows Media Player (WMP) which need to be turned off. Specifically, go to Tools-Options-Network and uncheck the Multicast, UDP boxes. This should resolve the crash/reset routine when streaming video. I tried this at 2 sites where the router consistently crashed and it worked like a charm!
Overall good product except for the bugs described.
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Works well for BOTH Macs and PCs!, October 19, 2005
By user (Davis,CA)
Netgear was not working for my MAC, but the linksys serves both my computer and my roomie's PC.
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mixed bag, not the easiest to set up., October 16, 2005
By user (California)
This router is great when its working. However this router is a lil picky sometimes. I downgraded the firmware and it seems to be running faster. However i still get problems with the wifi dropping. this is a very common problem with this router and it requires a power cycle to clear out the problem. One of the previous commenters said linksys will give him a new one but i doubt that will fix the problem. while some of the problems are related to firmware, others are related to the manual settings. this router needs a lil fine tunning for it to run right.
this router is by far better than my old netgear router which required power cycles more than once a day and it still didnt work correctly. but his router does require some setup since the design is kinda old.
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Good not great, October 14, 2005
By user (Quakertown, PA)
Works very well. Nice strong signal in a 2400 sq. Ft. townhouse. Setup is a little confusing and there is no power switch necessitating unplugging to recycle the signal (which has been needed a couple of times).
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1 star is still much!, October 12, 2005
By user (Austin, TX)
I'd give this a 1 star only because it can't go any lower.
Bought this router about 6 months ago. First month or so worked great, then I started to get dropped signals every few days or so and have had to unplug/replug the power cord just to get a signal again. Then it gets worse and worse... now I lose the signal daily and have to power cycle it at least once a day, sometimes 3 or more! Worse, the signal comes in and out when it says "connected" on my computer.
Been talking to tech support and customer service for the last 2 months. Finally, tech support told me that they'd replace my router for me at no cost to me, and would even have someone pick up my old, defective router so that I do not have to pay for the shipping of the old router back to them. In order to do so, I had to call customer service for arrangements. To my surprise (and my waste of time) customer service coldly said that it's company policy that I pay the shipping for the routers.
I agreed to settle the issue through replacement because I don't have to pay for the shipping and that since I will supposedly receive the new router first, I will not have any down time not having a connection at home. This was agreed upon with tech support, and customer service decides to change that? Isn't there some sort of credibility with company promises and first-decisions?
I know it's their company policy that I pay shipping to send my defective router back to them, but since their techician told me otherwise, should they not also honor the exception?
Sigh, I don't think I can take this any more. I'm going crazy. Do not buy from Linksys. They suck, they really do.
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Works great! No problem, October 2, 2005
By user (USA)
I am not sure what all the others had problems with but my Linksys worked great out of the box. In fact I gained some speed compared to my 5 years old SMC wired router. I used to get 2600-2660kbit download speed and now I get 2700-2750kbit download speed with my new router(my computer is wired to the router). However, the wireless speed seems slower compared to wired connection. With wireless connection I get about 2300kbit download speed. I have Verizon 3M DSL.
I use this router to wire connect my computer and wireless connect to a computer in the basement. Works fine and never dropped the wireless connection yet. [...]
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complete piece of crap, September 30, 2005
By user
this router cannot hold a connection at all. we have two wireless computers on the network and we are constantly being kicked off about 10 times a day each. [in fact i was kicked off in the middle of writing this.] i have spent hours upon hours upon hours with linksys tech support; each of the technicians has me reconfigure the router over and over and over, none of which as solved this problem. the only solution 80% of the time is to unplug the wireless adaptors and replug it. the other 20% of the time we have to unplug the router and wait anywhere from 1 minute to several hours before it decides that it'll function again. this router is the biggest piece of crap ever.
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Great Item, September 30, 2005
By user (Bessemer, MI)
Linksys has always been a leading name in the home networking department. It goes to show why with this product. The setup instructions were simple to follow and within a few minutes I was wireless! I live in an apartment complex, so my favorite feature is the ability to encrypt the router to work only with the computers I choose my using their MAC address. No need for anyone to be mooching off my connection.
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How to fix your constant dropping prolems, September 21, 2005
By user (San Francisco, CA USA)
I had to talk to a technical supervisor to fix my problems. I used to lose my connection every few days. Last week I was talking to tech support because my roommate & I wanted to play WoW at the same time. They had me update my VERY old firmware. Then I started losing my connection when trying to watch anything streaming. Not just to the internet but to the router itself.
After a lot of work they had me change my firmware to an older version, 1.50 from Oct 23, 2003. But that wasn't the only change. The process of upgrading the firmware went like this:
1) Upgrade firmware throught the IE interface.
2) Push in & hold the reset button for 30 seconds
3) Unplug & replug the router
4) Re-enter my settings (because of the reset)
The first time I upgraded the firmware, they skipped step 2!!!
So I don't know if it's the firmware version or if it's reseting the router, but my main constant dropped problem is solved. After trying this for a couple of weeks I'll upgrade to the current firmware to see which of these 2 is the cause of the problem, as well as seeing if it fixed my OLD problem of having to restart the router a couple of times a week.
I hope this helps some of you.
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Did not work!, September 15, 2005
By user
This product arrived and it never worked. The customer support for the is product is very good, but if the product is broken when you get it they can only do so much.
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