Linksys by Cisco EZXS88W EtherFast 10/100 8-Port Workgroup Switch

I use one of these of my office wired network. Easy to setup, has worked without problems since installation. A wired network is 3 times (almost) faster then wireless!

I needed to connect more computers than my router had ports. This did the job nicely, good price and delivered on time.

Thank you so much for the router and for the prompt delivery. It was in a sealed package and everything was in there, it is perfect and exactly what I needed, thank you! Great seller who delivered very fast!!!

The Linksys 8 port switch is an excelent product to expand ypur netrwork. Simple, out of the box use. No set-up, plug it in to the wall, plug in the cat 5 cables to switch and it takes care of it

This workgroup switch works GREAT! Although I only have one computer hooked up at this point, I have had no problems with it over the past month or so. I would buy this product again.

Linksys 8 Port Switch EZXS88W ver 3.4 arrived fast in new shrink wrapped box from Beach Camera through Amazon. The Power Adapter was dead on arrival. The Switch OK. I had an old Adapter for my 5 Port to check it. 30 minutes on the phone and Linksys is sending a new Adapter RMA in 3-5 business days. Hope it works! I'll be back if it doesn't.
I'm back. Got the RMA replacement Power Adapter from Linksys in 5 days. No joy! Same problem! I've requested by email a return for exchange or refund to Beach Camera and hope they cover the return postage in either case. So far I can't blame Beach at all, but Linksys support was less than cooperative the second time I called about the replacement adapter not solving the problem. The switch itself still will function with my old 5 port power adapter but neither of the new power adapters from Linksys. I hooked my laptops to it and was up and running on the Internet through the switch with the 5 port power adapter both times.

I've noticed quite a few comments related to the size difference between Cisco's compact and standard series; finally, a problem with a simple and CHEAP solution! Linksys sells a pack of very versatile plastic mounting plates that not only allows you to mount components vertically on the wall or you can stack them. When stacking the compact to the standard, you will notice the form has places for the feet of either series on each side so you can mix and match as you see fit. The box comes with a load of these, more than I can't imagine anyone including your "netties", finding a use for ALL of them, but the small expense offsets any concern about leftovers!

The Linksys description and part number for a box of these are "Wall Mount and Stacking Bracket" mo. no. SM01, the color could be described as deep grey or charcoal: Very handy, very cheap, either tough polymer or plastic, and very simple.

As for the Linksys switch above I have two and both installed easily and operate trouble free. This switch compares favorably with slightly less expensive D-Link's Desktop Switch. I'm no expert but I don't see much difference between the two with the execption of D-Link's missing "uplink" port tied into the eigth port. Both are plug and play.

Now back to my own network madness,
(Q^(Q^(Q$Q!!* AX~

Awesome product - I ordered this because my 4 port router was more than full. Plugged the switch into the router then into the wall and it was done. Very easy, no setups, no firmwares, simple. One thing you should be aware of (I'm not going to rate the products itself less because of this) is that the next generation models are out. It's the same thing but they are considerably smaller than the previous version. Amazon should really update there picture. I have this stacked on top of my Linksys wireless router and it does fit but it does not lay in the four corners and previous linksys products. Not a big deal and still looks fine but just a heads up. 5 Stars

Linksys EZXS88W EtherFast 10/100 8-Port Workgroup Switch
Item works great, does everything the ad says. Will look to Linksys for my next router/hub need.

This is a great 8-port switch, excelent performance, have uplink and 8-ports for users, commendable.

This product was well packaged to avoid shock during shipment and shipped as prommised. Very pleased with the service.

Works great and easy to setup, reliable . . . This is the second one we purchased for our business.

Does the job I wanted it for, works great so far with 4 laptops and 1 desktop connected.

I have been using this Linksys Switch for over 3 years and have never ran into a issue. All my transfers complete without fail. Up until this year though I have only have 1 or two items pluged into it at a time, but now I am using all 8 ports all the time, no collisions or failed transfers.
Might be that because I got one of the first generation of this model that mine is a higher quality than the people that have had failed ones. Or im just lucky.

I got the Linksys EZXS88W to replace an old, well used Netgear 4 port switch. The Netgear switch had worked flawlessly for years but I now needed more ports. I just swapped the switches, plugged in the additional ethernet devices and, Walla!, no problems. The EZXS88W switch hasn't missed a beat and my traffic is now much heavier. Good product, good price. Well done Linksys.

Amazon does not give it's 30 day price guarantee on this item because it is sold by a company other than Amazon... watch out when you buy from Amazon.

simple to install, Linksys EZXS88W EtherFast 10/100 8-Port Workgroup Switchsimple to use. My 4th pice of equipment from Linksys.

I wanted to replace my old 8-port switch, where I had my motorola cable modem, my server and my Linksys Wireless Router. Worked great as soon as I hooked up.
Smaller than the switch I had, and design and color match my WRT54G.
Wanted this model, and Amazon got the best price. Can't complain.

The Linksys 8 port workgroup switch was just what I was looking for.I used this product to wire our small library to 6 computers and wireless access. It works great.

Plug-and-play with my existing network, which is comprised of 2-wire router, Netgear switch and this Linksys switch. They all play well together. I'm happy with this purchase.

Take it out of the box, don't confuse yourself with the user guide provided, it's useless, and no quick setup guide (use the EZXS55W quick set up avail on Linksys site) if you have to. Or just power it up (plug it in), install patch cable to link it to your network, in my case the router, plug in those extra cables you have been swapping around on the 4 ports on the router, and you're ready to go.

The order was filled and shipped very quickly.
It was a new item, in pristine condition.
The product worked as described, very good network response times for the planned XBox 360 Halo fest. This unit did not assign IP addesses -- nor was it supposed to. It wasn't supposed to be a router that would offer DNS or DHCP services. Network/Game performance to the users was noticably faster than with a 4 port router we used previously.

The Linksys EZXS88W EtherFast 10/100 8-Port Workgroup Switch does the job great, I did not have any problem with any linksys product. I use this switch with a WRT54G router because I needed extra wired ports. I gave 4 stars because I want a 100-200 volts transformer, this version use a 120 volts one

I got good service from this device for about a year. The power supply (9V-DC, 800ma, with an uncommon connector) went out. It is too unusual to find a replacement locally. LinkSys will not simply replace the transformer, but wants to replace the whole unit. Customer pays the shipping to return it - the shipping costs more than it's worth. I'm going to throw it away and get a Netgear.

Update, April 20, 2007: It turns out that the tech support person I spoke with at the time I wrote the earlier post was all wet. I spoke with customer support and they had me fill out an RMA form for only a transformer. There are two options: full product replacement or power supply only. I did not need to send in the defective power supply. A new power supply arrived in a few days - apparently no muss or fuss. However, the wrong power supply was sent (it was 9VAC instead of 9VDC) and when I plugged it in it burned out the switch and filled my office with a horrible smell that it took days to clear.

A second call to Linksys was less gracefully handled. They seemed to have a hard time understanding that they now needed to replace the entire product, including the proper power supply. When they finally agreed to the replacement, I was told that there were not any available. So I submitted the RMA and returned the defective product, and now I get to wait until they send the replacement, whenever that may be.

My feeling was that I should not have to pay the postage to return the burned out switch, since it was their mistake, but at this point I didn't want to get into that discussion. In the meantime, I bought an SMC switch from Provantage for less than $25 (including shipping) and it is working great. All the reviews on it were flattering, and the price was right.

I don't understand how Linksys can consider their support acceptable. (Their background message while you wait on hold keeps praising their highly rated support.) One cannot just wait for days, weeks, or months for a replacement network switch. I don't expect to buy any more Linksys products.

This purchase was to replace the same model switch. The prior one lost one port at a time and then burned out completely. I replaced it with the same model since it was most likely just a problem with that particular switch. I like Linksys products for the most part. I've had my share of problems, but I think you get that with any network equipment priced for home office consumers. My replacement switch has worked flawlessly for the better part of 4 months and I would recommend it to the average user for their home networks.

While I miss the excuse to upgrade all my computers, it wouldn't have done any good anyway since the network bottleneck was my old ethernet hub and all computers connected to it had much faster NIC cards by now. Seriously, it has taken me from struggling to transfer big files to effortlessly watching movies from a different room.

While I'm not officially a business installation, I think my wife and sons probably rack up more bandwidth than many. The cost was great, install no more than plug-and-play in our mixed mac/linux/windoze family workgroup. I enthusiastically recommend the product to anyone who might need more than four boxes sharing files or an Internet portal. Really, we often have four heavy simultaneous users as well as VOIP phone service sharing one skinny cable connection.

I now have had 3 linksys routers that work transiently and then quit. There is effectively no honest tech support, only a group of foreigners who do nothing but stall and give you the run around. The warrentee is useless. I spent 8 hours with tech and got no result. They refuse to authorize a return and warrantee replacement. The products all died within 6 months. Do not buy a linksys product under any circumstances. Flush the money down the toilet. It will be more satisfying. MD, PH.D.

All ports began running slow after just 6 months of use. Followed LinkSys RMA process and they sent me a hub in return by mistake. I followed yet another LinkSys RMA process and had to wait TWO MONTHS for the replacement switch covering their mistake. The replacement switch died after 1 week of use. The latest RMA unit ran excessively Hot until the smell of burning plastic left the air and then it would not power up. This is what I have learned about Linksys: #1) This should be a simple network pass-through device and it should not fail unless manufactured poorly - Linksys apparently cannot make a good one. #2) Do not even think about turning a broken unit into Linksys under their RMA process, they will simply send you a refurbished unit and it cannot be trusted. If these cheap switches fail they cannot be fixed and the original manufacture was flawed in the first place. #3) Choose a competitors product - I have had other brand switches running for years with no issues.

I've found it to be handy and at a good price, but like other reviewers I had some problems. Ports tend to go bad and sometimes the unit dies. I was able to get warranty replacements and the new ones havent had problems yet.

I've had two Linksys products die on me shortly after a year (a 4-port router/switch, and now this 8-port switch). It works fine until it dies (but that's like saying a stapler staples correctly: it's supposed to).

Just to note: I run them in a very friendly environment -- no dust or heat or voltage spikes or any of that to blame for the problem. (Also, you can count me as an "expert user".)

I myself will never buy another Linksys product again -- I'll try out Netgear & DLink and other brands, but goodbye Cisco/Linksys. If you chooose to try their products, caveat emptor.

Cisco bought Linksys a while back -- smart move! Can't get any easier -- works great, while it is smaller than the Linksys router, it still sits nicely on top, although feet pattern does not match.

I bought this switch because I trust the brand and also because I thought it would stack well with my Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router (which I've run out of ports on). However, when I received the EZXS88W, it was smaller than in the technical description given by Amazon (which is actually the size of the box, not the switch itself). Because it is about an inch and a quarter narrower than my Linksys router, it does not sit nicely on top or underneath. I know that it's only a small complaint (otherwise the switch is terrific), but I just wanted to let potential buyers know about the possible size difference, especially if one is buying it specifically because it will interface nicely with a previous Linksys purchase.

I have two of these switches in my network, never turned off connected to Compaq servers.

Not one issue. I see why Cisco purchased this company.

I've been buying Linksys equipment for a few years now and it's all good stuff, at very affordable prices. I've had no complaints with any of their equipment so far, except for one.

I have found (and so have a few of my tech buddies and Network Admins I know) that Linksys hubs and switches tend to have problems with ports going dead or becoming unusable after only about a year of use. That is, one or more of the ports will die within a year's time (or shortly following the warranty period -- this is especially true of the 5-port switches).

This premature port failure is not limited to just the hubs and switches. I've also had 2 DSL/Cable modem routers with 4 port switches exhibit the same problem (in one case, ALL the ports died except for the cable/DSL port).

My suggestion is to buy more ports than you need so that you can still use the hub/switch after some ports go bad. That's why I am buying an 8-port switch even though it's replacing a 5-port switch where 2 of the ports are now dead.

Why 4 stars? Because if you know about the port death syndrome and buy more ports than you need, it's STILL a great deal for the money...

It is as easy as others say - I added it to my DSL system in less time than it took to read the (sparse) instruction manual.
Plug in, turn on. Done
The manual devotes a whole page to CAT5 cable construction but does not say which type (straight or crossover) to use between the EZXS88 and the DSL modem. (Its straight, as are the cables between the EZXS88 and the computers).

A perfect switch for my home network. I've been using it for months. It is cascaded off my 4 port router when my network expanded. Works flawlessly. You just plug into your network and your up and running. My network consists of a Netgear router feeding this switch which in turn feeds a wireless access point. My only complaint is that I should have bought the 16 port unit as this one is full.

Network novices should remember that an 8 port switch is really only a 7 port switch as the 8th port is shared with the WAN uplink. At least this switch has the separate uplink port.

If you're considering buying this switch, you most likely have more than a few computers to network. And if you're the casual home user, this switch will give you appreciable performance at a great price. As a geek with 4 constantly-on computers with a mixed OS network, I can say that this switch (which was an upgrade from a 5-port 10/100 hub) really improved my network connections.

First off, you should know the difference between "hubs" and "switches". Hubs are your typical central connecting device that will allow you to hook up more than one computer on to the network at a time. They are usually quite cheaper than switches, at the price of loss of performance. Switches have separate bandwidths for each port, unlike hubs; thus, allowing more traffic to go through between each computer on your network. Of course, if you're going to be doing nothing but sending e-mails and occasional web surfing, a cheap hub will do all of this for you. But for the heavy gamers or those that want to use network intensive tools will appreciate the individual bandwidth that each port gets.

Some people complain that by switching to this switch, their network performance has decreased. This was the case with one of my computers, where transfer rates sharply fell from 42% capacity to 1.2% in a matter of seconds, rendering a 1GB file transfer practically impossible. After a bit of analysis, I found 2 causes for this: 1) faulty cabling, and 2) cheap unreliable network adapter. If you have cheap old network cables that have been crushed by chairs, doors, etc., they could be affecting the reliability of your network, and the full duplex operations of the 100Mbit network could be adversly affected by line conditions to where it has to resend packets to correct transmission errors. The other common culprits are cheaply constructed network adapters (NIC's) with especially poorly written drivers. I replaced all wiring with 350MHz Cat 5e cabling and replaced all cheap cards (e.g., CNet Pro 200) with higher grade ones, and the reliability and transfer rates have soared to a little under theoretical maximum throughputs. According to a network expert, some recommended lower-cost cards are D-Link DFE-530TX (uses the RTL 8139 chipset) or 3Com EtherLink or 905TX series.

Too many people blame the switch when it is really their setup's fault, and it should be pointed out that the switch is very well-made and easy to setup. It should be pointed out that the switch does make an electric "fuzz" noise that many switches/hubs will generate. If you are using quiet computers or laptops or are planning on putting the switch anywhere quiet, you might find the noise distracting. However, it's a subtle "quiet" sound, so the level may vary depending on your perception of loudness. Also, if you have more than 8 computers, it should be noted that these switches are not stackable so you it won't be as neat. Wall mounting is possible and probably recommended, as a small, light-weight device such as this tends to not stay on the ground very well if the angles at which you plug in the network cables lifts or pulls on it.

There aren't any true flaws in the product, works and performs well, and I readily recommend it to anyone seeking to setup or improve a home network on a budget.

I already have the BEFSR8 Switch/Router and the EZXS88W Switch is a great complement to my existing home network. I literally just plug n play. There was no additional setup involved. I highly recommend this product.

i absolutely love this switches. they are great and reliable. i have never had a problem and preformance/price cannot be challenged. if you are wanting something bigger you might want to go with a different name but for this level linksys can't be beat.

As others who have written before me, I purchased this device to replace an old 10-base HUB (D-Link, another low-cost, low-quality vendor). It worked fine for the first few days, then I started experiencing network outages from within the LAN. I tried troubleshooting everything; NIC's, cables, the computers themselves. It came down to two test systems who, when connected via a cross-over cable worked just fine. The moment I placed the Linksys EZXS88W between them, the network became flakey, not just slowing to less than 10mbps, many times disconnecting all together while the indicator lights flickered indicating it was at least trying. Replacing the Linksys switch with the old D-Link 10mbps hub the network was magically all better. ALL equipment was thoroughly checked, and the weak component was without question the Linksys switch. This is not the first Linksys item I have had the displeasure of working with, however it is both the first and last Linksys product I have personally purchased. Do yourself a favor, friend; spend the extra $50-$100 and buy a decent switch from a more reputable vendor. The money you "save" isn't worth the hassles.

I got the unit and it was nicely packed. I unwraped it and immediately heard a piece of metal moving around inside the unit. You can carefully press the blue-top of the unit to reveal the inside and I moved the unit around until the metal fell out. It was a small piece that looked "unnecessary."

I added this switch to my existing 4 port router and it is working great. I have the router in the basement attached to my cable modem and the switch in my attic attached via a 50-60 ft cable (I don't know the exact length since I manufacture my own cables). I have had the 4 port router for about 1 year now and it is flawless. This switch has allowed me to add Internet access into just about every room in my house.

Other great feature about this switch is that it was truly plug-and-play. I attached one end of my cable into an available port of the router, the other end into the switch and _presto_ Internet access via the switch. Manual was unnecessary :-)

I purchased this switch about 2 months ago. I have not had one problem with it. The transfer speeds are fast and network utilization is low. I fell these reviews are unfair because of the many variables involved in networks (i.e. Network Cards, PC configuration, Internet provider bandwidth). Great product in my book.

I have to admit that I experienced the same thing as some of the other reviewers... at two different locations... Bought the switch, it worked great. Later, it brought the network to it's knees. Transfer rates were the equivilent of a 33.6 modem, ACROSS THE LAN. I would not recommend this product, ESPECIALLY since other people have experienced the same things. The good reviews? Perhaps they haven't had it for very long. Maybe mine was from the same bad batch.