Cisco-Linksys Wireless-G Print Server with Multifunction Printer Support
by Linksys
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Our Price: $119.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $45.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys Wireless-G Print Server with Multifunction Printer Support
Customer Review: Hello, my name is Linksys Printserver, and I'll be your piece of junk for today
Summary: 1 Stars
This product was a bad experience from start to finish (in which 'finish' was my wife saying, "just throw the thing away".) On the plus side: It was actually pretty easy to unwrap the box from its plastic without incident. But things went downhill from there.
First things first: Setup required an advanced degree in following a bizarrely complex procedure TO THE LETTER and then intuitively anticipating where the tech person who wrote it would have made a mistake for you to correct (which, of course, requires restarting the process from the beginning).
But, OK, finally got the network connection working. Finished, right? Ha ha, the device laughs, now I dare you to set up your computer correctly. Which requires running the setup software, which in Vista crashes after running for about 2 seconds. Maybe it's a bad copy of the software? Let's find out. After all, Linksys has a website, yes?
So, go to download the software directly from Linksys. The link to the software download goes to the online manual. The link to the manual also goes to the manual. So, yeah, you can download a lot of copies of the manual. Thanks.
Oh, look: there's also a quick-help link. Answer a few questions. Tell it your operating system. And voila! A detailed answer.
For the Windows 2000 OS.
"Was this helpful to you"? Hmmm. Let's say no.
Aha! A nice hidden link for a live chat. Great! These guys are always awesome. Hi, Roy, here's my problem. No, the wireless is working just fine. It's the software installation on the PC that's not starting up. Yes, I'm getting a wireless signal just fine. It's the software installation on the PC that's the problem. OK, here's my unit serial number etc. etc. But did I mention it's the software installation on the PC that's the problem? Right, the unit's lights are all lit up just fine. But did I mention...
Oh, what's that? Your print server isn't certified to work with HP products? Ahh. OK. You know, they're a pretty big company. I think they sell a lot of printers. But it's actually the software install on the PC that...
Wife: "Just throw the thing away."
Which is what I did.
Customer Review: NEVER BUY THIS PRODUCT, WORST DEVICE FROM LINKSYS EVER! F--------
Summary: 1 Stars
The Linksys Wireless-G PrintServer with Multifunction Printer Support is not up to the normal linksys quality that I expected.
In order to configure the PrintServer properly, you need to connect your PC, and PrintServer to your router via a HARD WIRED ethernet port and have your printer connected to the print server via USB cable. So everything has to be in the same location connected together. This is why I have a wireless network in my home in the first place, so my devices can be moved around without being hard wired.
I should have returned the product then, but I decided to relocate half of my equipment and continue the setup. I followed all the instructions carefully. Then I got to step 6 and my printer did not show up on the list on the setup screen. The manual said to click refresh, but that did not work either. My PrintSever was not discoverable. I decided to try it again on my other PC, but I got the same bad results.
I was frustrated and disappointed, but decided to call the customer support line anyways just in case I was not doing something correctly.
The customer support person did a good job to help me setup the print server, even if it took 1 and 1/2 hours. I ran the setup to install the drivers on the computer upstairs too, and this time the software installed the drivers correctly and my printer showed up on the PrintSever list.
I was happy I was able to print wireless and setup a PC to print on my network as well. But as soon as I tried to scan, it failed. I tried a few things really quickly to resolve the issue like restarting the computers, unplugging the PrintServer for 10 seconds, none of my quick troubleshooting techniques worked.
Needless to say, I'm done. I am not passing go and collecting my 200 dollars, or trying to update the drivers or firmware or anything like that. I'm returning this piece of junk, and you should NEVER BUY THIS PRODUCT. Please save yourself time and aggravation.
PS: The customer support person was supposed to call me back in 1/2 hour to make sure I got my other computer setup. That did not happen.
Customer Review: customer service review
Summary: 2 Stars
I am not sure how this device works. I never got to the point with customer service to determine if it worked with my Canon Pixma MP780 AIO. I am a sophisticated computer user. But when I encountered problems with the software connecting the AIO to the router, I called customer service. The LinkSys technician (from India) attempted to be helpful. He spent two hours on the phone trying to get the print server to work using remote access to my computer. BTW, he told me to disable all firewall protection during the two hour session and at one point had me reset all of my IE settings to default (I later discovered that reseting IE is not a good thing to do unless it is not working - probably disabling the firewall for two hours during a remote session is not a good idea either.)
The technician told me at the outset that I would be charged $9.99 for his assistance, but that I would owe nothing if he could not fix the problem. At the beginning of the session, he took a credit card number and charged my card. After he concluded two hours later that the problem might be that the LinkSys print server was not compatible with my router (there is nothing on the LinkSys site about incompatible routers that I could find), he suggested that I buy a LinkSys router in addition to the printer server, or return the print server to Amazon. He also said he would credit the $9.99 charge because he could not solve the problem.
Of course, no credit appeared on the charge card. About ten days later I called customer service (in India) again. After some dicussion, a supervisor agreed that I should receive the credit. About a week later - no credit. I ended up calling my bank and having it reverse the charge. Seems like a lot of trouble on my part to get the credit I was promised twice by customer service.
But this is the important point of this review. If your unit does not work for any reason, simply return it. Do not bother with customer service. It will cost you more than your valuable time is worth. I finally returned the print server to Amazon. Amazon was very good, very efficient with the return.
Customer Review: Linksys Finally Got It Right
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm a dedicated user of Linksys products, mostly because they're more readily available in this part of the country. I had simple experiences installing routers, USB adapters, and network cards for myself and others. Linksys accessories, however, always proved to be a headache in installation and setup, and sometimes didn't even function properly (see the Wireless Game Adapter).
However, with this product, they finally did it right. While the included setup instructions were typical of Linksys--under-detailed and a bit incomplete--the basic gist of the setup could be gotten. It was far less taxing to get this up and running than other Linksys accessories I've dealt with, and it worked right out of the box. I did require a little bit of help from the Live Online Technical Support to get it to initially recognize my printer, but that was only because the printed instructions did not give sufficient aid in that task. (By the way, I'd recommend the Online Tech Support over the phone tech support any day.)
Once the product was installed, it worked fine. If it seems like it's performing slowly at first, be sure that you've given it all of the necessary clearance through your firewall, etc. I have Trend Micro PC-Cillin Internet Security, and for about an hour or so, the server printed very slowly. Once the firewall's wireless detection section picked up on the server, however, and I set it to being "trusted," it worked like a charm.
This is absolutely compatible with all the functions of my HP PSC 1400, and works just as quickly and accurately as it would if my laptop were connected to the printer directly. The only thing that keeps me from giving the product five stars is, as usual, Linksys' poor printed instructions. The product itself is great, and isn't nearly as difficult to get up and running as other accessories.
Those of us with wired multi-function printers can rest easy knowing that we finally have a working solution for wireless printing, scanning, and copying.
Customer Review: Bitter then sweet in using this nice tool
Summary: 4 Stars
Let's start right off the bat that this print server is NOT for people who couldn't care less about reading instructions, follow instructions, or unable to do any of that religiously.
Assume you are moving your existing local UDB printer to this device, and if you do exactly what's being told, it takes 5 minutes to set up the whole thing.
However, if you are too smart for your own good, and think this print server is just like another plug-and-play Linksys wireless router, you could get frustrated real quick. I happened to be in this group, and it took me an hour just to convince myself to follow every single step religiously.
And, if your printer driver installer on Windows (XP/Vista/7) happened to be the kind which *require* the printer to be connected while installing the drivers, you must install the printer drivers w/ printer connected first, then do the Linksys print server setup. It's a pain in the neck.
But once it works, it works really well. The range is better than I expected. Minimal delay in printing big documents when in single print stream. Don't expect this thing to work like your office printer, however.
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Quick note on Mac OS/X Users: You could be screwed. The Linksys install CD is incompatible w/ Mac OS/X, so there is no easy way to configure the print server (like, setup IP address, define wireless network to connect to, etc). You could get around it by installing VMWare on your Mac, run Windows VM, then configure using Linksys CD.
Or, have another PC configured the print server initially. Subsequent config could be done via web browser (similar to most wireless routers)
However, installing printer on Mac is much much easier and doesn't need the Linksys CD. Just install the printer drivers (which don't require the printer to be connected to your Mac anyway), then choose IPP (Canon) or HP Print Socket (HP), put in the IP address, and you're all set to go.