Microsoft MN-500 vs Linksys BEFW11S4

A friend asked me to help him buy and install a wireless capability for his
house.

I went over to his place on the 28th to 'get the lay of the land' and
understand what he had. He had a cable modem connected to an IBM system in
their upstairs office but they had bought a notebook with .11b for Christmas
and wanted to connect it. They had expected their daughter to want the
notebook but, nope not interested. So we needed a cable splitter (already
had a TV on a direct to box line), some coax, a wireless hub and network
cable. Off we went to Futureshop.

Now, I've had Linksys devices for years and currently have a BEFW11S4 V1 but
Futureshop had the Microsoft MN-500 .11b hub on sale for $39Canadian so I
suggested we get it. The Linksys was $99. Mind you, after mail-in rebate,
they had some other brands for $19!!

Inserted the splitter, ran the new cable run, plugged in the modem, powered
up the hub and all the connections were up and running. Went about
re-configing the MN-500 and then started to play. Pages would not finish
loading? Pings seemed OK but loading a site was impossible. I noticed that
the IPs DNS addresses had not propagated to the clients to entered them
directly, no luck.

So, back to Futureshop, bought the Linksys, plugged it in and everything was
perfect. Pages load well, wireless signal strength was very good, downloads
were about 1.2Meg.

Has anyone else had any experience with the Microsoft Wireless hubs, great
price, horrible performance.

Bill
Toronto

Well, mine has worked fine for me, but on the MS news group for supporting
their broadband equipment are many such messages as you describe. Most of
the MVPs there say that if you apply the firmware update (available via the
MS broadband management utility) that these types of problems are solved.
Since I'm an early adopter of patches and updates, this may be why I've had
no problem.

It sounds like MS has rather rushed a product to market.

Note that they seem to have repeated their mistake; the mn700 has the same
set of problems, again needing a firmware update.

Chip


"Happy Canuck" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:VvGIb.236995$ea%.(E-Mail Removed) ble.rogers.com...
> A friend asked me to help him buy and install a wireless capability for
his
> house.
>
> I went over to his place on the 28th to 'get the lay of the land' and
> understand what he had. He had a cable modem connected to an IBM system in
> their upstairs office but they had bought a notebook with .11b for
Christmas
> and wanted to connect it. They had expected their daughter to want the
> notebook but, nope not interested. So we needed a cable splitter (already
> had a TV on a direct to box line), some coax, a wireless hub and network
> cable. Off we went to Futureshop.
>
> Now, I've had Linksys devices for years and currently have a BEFW11S4 V1
but
> Futureshop had the Microsoft MN-500 .11b hub on sale for $39Canadian so I
> suggested we get it. The Linksys was $99. Mind you, after mail-in rebate,
> they had some other brands for $19!!
>
> Inserted the splitter, ran the new cable run, plugged in the modem,
powered
> up the hub and all the connections were up and running. Went about
> re-configing the MN-500 and then started to play. Pages would not finish
> loading? Pings seemed OK but loading a site was impossible. I noticed that
> the IPs DNS addresses had not propagated to the clients to entered them
> directly, no luck.
>
> So, back to Futureshop, bought the Linksys, plugged it in and everything
was
> perfect. Pages load well, wireless signal strength was very good,
downloads
> were about 1.2Meg.
>
> Has anyone else had any experience with the Microsoft Wireless hubs, great
> price, horrible performance.
>
> Bill
> Toronto
>
>

I've had a MN-500 since summer and it's been working just fine. It was a
pain to get going initially, but I get downloads at my cable provider's peak
speed... about 1.1 Meg. Bought the MN-500 bundled with a Microsoft "b"
wireless card at Sam's Club for about $100.

"Happy Canuck" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:VvGIb.236995$ea%.(E-Mail Removed) ble.rogers.com...

> Has anyone else had any experience with the Microsoft Wireless hubs, great
> price, horrible performance.

If they only built airplanes like Microsoft writes software -- we'd be very
successful.
http://www.micro-mess.com

http://www.va-mustang.com
If you wish to reply to me personally, please remove
the "underline" from (E-Mail Removed). The is done to avoid SPAM!

"Chip Orange" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:qLOdneC0NKVmg2miRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Well, mine has worked fine for me, but on the MS news group for supporting
> their broadband equipment are many such messages as you describe. Most of
> the MVPs there say that if you apply the firmware update (available via
the
> MS broadband management utility) that these types of problems are solved.
> Since I'm an early adopter of patches and updates, this may be why I've
had
> no problem.
>
> It sounds like MS has rather rushed a product to market.
>
> Note that they seem to have repeated their mistake; the mn700 has the same
> set of problems, again needing a firmware update.
>
> Chip
>
>
> "Happy Canuck" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:VvGIb.236995$ea%.(E-Mail Removed) ble.rogers.com...
> > A friend asked me to help him buy and install a wireless capability for
> his
> > house.
> >
> > I went over to his place on the 28th to 'get the lay of the land' and
> > understand what he had. He had a cable modem connected to an IBM system
in
> > their upstairs office but they had bought a notebook with .11b for
> Christmas
> > and wanted to connect it. They had expected their daughter to want the
> > notebook but, nope not interested. So we needed a cable splitter
(already
> > had a TV on a direct to box line), some coax, a wireless hub and network
> > cable. Off we went to Futureshop.
> >
> > Now, I've had Linksys devices for years and currently have a BEFW11S4 V1
> but
> > Futureshop had the Microsoft MN-500 .11b hub on sale for $39Canadian so
I
> > suggested we get it. The Linksys was $99. Mind you, after mail-in
rebate,
> > they had some other brands for $19!!
> >
> > Inserted the splitter, ran the new cable run, plugged in the modem,
> powered
> > up the hub and all the connections were up and running. Went about
> > re-configing the MN-500 and then started to play. Pages would not finish
> > loading? Pings seemed OK but loading a site was impossible. I noticed
that
> > the IPs DNS addresses had not propagated to the clients to entered them
> > directly, no luck.
> >
> > So, back to Futureshop, bought the Linksys, plugged it in and everything
> was
> > perfect. Pages load well, wireless signal strength was very good,
> downloads
> > were about 1.2Meg.
> >
> > Has anyone else had any experience with the Microsoft Wireless hubs,
great
> > price, horrible performance.
> >
> > Bill
> > Toronto
> >
> >
>
>