Cisco-Linksys EPSX3 EtherFast 10/100 3-port PrintServer

decent router

I noticed that XP customers are having tremendous problems with this product. I was able to trouble shoot exactly what was going on with these products and offered this information to Linksys free of charge. I'm a computer security consultant and generally get paid big dollars to help resolve companies problems. Both the EPSX3 and EFSP42 Linksys print servers are similiar design and developed prior to the release of windows XP. Linksys has not bothered updated the bios in years, so it didn't surprise me that their products were incompatible with certain aspects of the XP Operating System.Linksys was purchased by Cisco, so you would expect a higher level of professionalim and knowlege in their technical support area, but what you get is some entry level engineers reading off some help screen with no true knowlege of the products or networking principles.I was able to determine that the Windows XP firewall, which is often enabled by default will block service to these print servers. If you go into you windows XP windows directory and look for a file called "pfirewall.log" you will see that it is blocking access to the linksys print server. This is because Linksys is not "playing by the rules" and changing the inbound port to not match the outbound port. The Source port is 80 and the destination port is 3079. So, the XP firewall is properly doing its job and Linksys should fix it's code or work with Microsoft to have a rule hotfix released.The Linksys response to this situation is to disable all personal firewalls. The only problem is that most linksys products are not a firewalls, but modified routers that perform network address translation, which offers some security to the outside, but none on the local subnet.I truly tried to work with Linksys to help them fix thier product, but they didn't want anything to do with the proper solution and instead recommended disabling any other software from other manufactures that might interfer with their code.Good luck to all used of these products, you will need it.

This print server took less than 10 minutes to set up, and it works like a charm. There's only 4 steps to the whole process:1. Connect the print server to your network.2. Connect the printer to the print server and turn the printer on.3. Connect the power cord to the print server.4. Install the software on your computer.It worked right out of the box for me. It detected my Epson Stylus color 600 printer correctly immediately, and setting it up to print on my computer was very straight-forward. I did make some changes to the configuration although that is not necessary. I just like to run a thight ship, so I gave it a static IP address (by default, the DHCP client is enabled), and disabled the protocols that I don't need.The print server supports AppleTalk, so it should work with Macs as well as Windows computers. However, there are no drivers for Linux, but it supports IPP, so it should be possible to print to it from Linux boxes as well.Update: Here's one minor issue I've found: I'm printing out pictures that I've taken with my digital camera. These pictures are fairly large, and when printing out several images at the same time, you'll get a warning saying the print server is busy. The message does go away, and the image will print... As I said, minor nuisance.

The first one we got went back to the supplier! It wouldn't set up on the Canon 5000 printer. We got a replacement and after several attempts discovered an amendment to the manual buried deep in the Linksys web site. This didn't help at all. In the end we tried the HP 4Mplus and bingo! It worked.After three days trying to contact Linksys support we were advised it probably would not work with the Canon 5000. I asked why they managed to sneak an important DIP switch set up detail onto their web site and NOT the list of compatible hardware..... of course the guy didn't know for sure either.Now? It works, we get frequent disconnects, print server reboots are frequent (weekly) and sometime we have to re-install the software. But, on a good day, it prints.

The Linksys EPSX3 EtherFast 10/100 PrintServer3 is used for making your printer independent on the 10BaseT and 100 Mbps networks. You hook up your printer/printer cable to the Linksys EPSX3 EtherFast 10/100 PrintServer3 and your network cable to the RJ-45 port.It comes with it's owm AC plug-in power supply, Status and Error Lights.Hookup is easy but when it comes to software, you need to install the driver for the printserver on each PC that need to use it. You also need to select SC811326_p1 Printserver port and install your printer driver on each PC. Remember to select "LOCAL" printer port because the instructions tell you to do it.Overall, after the software is install the right way, this Printer Server is the best thing that I bought because it makes the printer independent. Any PC can now print reguardless of other PC's.

Was able to get it to work sometimes. Was able to set the IP address the first time, but after that I couldn't change it or get it to work reliable with DHCP. Got absolutely no response from email to support site, unable to get through for phone support, unable to use it with Unix systems. I'm getting rid of it and going with an HP.

I purchased one and tried it on 4 different printers. A Brother HL1040, an HP Deskjet 990Cxi, a Ricoh AP204 and an HP Deskjet 820C. They all worked except for the 820C... I'm presuming it's the printer's age that caused the problem, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it was pretty easy to set up and use. It took me a while of experimenting to figure out what all the options were, but I had it working with the basic setup in about 10 minutes. Not bad considering it is the first print server I've ever installed.Overall I was very pleased with the product, and given the need I would buy one again.