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 enlarge | Brand: ZyXel
Category: CE
List Price: $43.99
Buy New: $33.90
You Save: $10.09 (23%)
New (49) Used (2) from $33.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 7251
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 10.8 x 3
MPN: P330W
Model: P330W
UPC: 760559111670
EAN: 0760559111670
ASIN: B000AAQQBC
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Easy setup... but make sure the reset button is handy January 6, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I was quite happy with how easy it was to setup this router. Got it up and running with my PowerBook and WPA2 quickly with no hitches. One minor annoyance was that many of the settings changes force a reboot of the router. Not a big deal since changes are infrequent after initial setup, but most other routers don't need to do it.
My enthusiasm diminished after a few days of use when the internet connection just went away. The router wasn't locked up - I could still login to its web interface, and all status indications were normal - but I couldn't get to anything beyond the router. Reseting the router fixed the problem - no need to restart the cable modem or the computer. Same thing happened a few days later, so I updated the firmware. That reduced the frequency of the problem, but it stills needs to be reset about once a week. That's not acceptable performance.
Update May 2007:
I would now lower my rating to 1 star. The need for resets has become more frequent, and on several occasions it was necessary to reset the router to defaults and reload the network configuration. A recent firmware update not only failed to correct the lock-up problem, but also caused performance problems where loading web sites would stall out for minutes at a time. Reverting to the previous firmware returned performance to normal. I know it's consumer-grade electronics, but that's no excuse for not working properly. This product is not worth the hassle at any price.
 Good Router December 13, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Zyxel has **OUTSTANDING** customer support and any issues you have with the product is handled by a knowledgeable American. Problems solved in a jiffy (due to my ignorance with networking). I had another router from another company and wasted hours dealing with a script reading incompetent from their outsourced India office.
Zyxel has a great rep for making terric products and this unit is no different. Get the latest firmware (a thing you should do with ANY routing gear) which solves some peoples disconnection issues and you're good to go!
Remember, with any networking equipment, if you're patching different gear (i.e. access points, routers) with B, G or N from different companies and you have either cable or DSL, you're goimng to have to do different things in the setup. And that's where customer support comes in to the rescue for perfect customization.
Zyxel is thumbs up all the way!
Excellent unit, Easy Set up, Great Price!!!! December 11, 2006
I purchased this unit because my linksys cable modem/wireless router combined unit was not working (despite being brand new) with my system. I hooked back up my motarola surfboard and this unit, and within 20 minutes I had internet on my wireless notebook and on my desktop. Very easy set up, easy to follow book and instructions, and CD support software is excellent also. Customer service was also direct, to the point, and quickly answered my one question I had. Highly recommended, nice product.
Many bugs that are not considered bugs by customer support September 25, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
UPDATED 2Oct06: I finally sorted out my issues with these routers. They do not document that BRIDGE mode can only actually wirelessly bridge a single MAC address. You must use WDS to connect one LAN with many devices to another LAN. It works great now, very solid. Their own tech support had no idea, but a very helpful forum gave me that info. It's not a flaw with their product, but with the way wireless bridging protocol was designed. WDS fixes those issues, though it's not completely standard, so make sure you buy the same device for both endpoints (or check compatibility online by testimonials).
I have a few gripes about this product, because I purchased two of them based largely on the strength of its features (good chipset and WPA2), and the fact that most of the online reviews were positive. I am a computer professional with many years of networking and programming experience, so I have some familiarity with this kind of technology.
My specific situation was that I had a long cable run that I thought was dropping out on occasion, so I thought, "Hey, let's try a wireless router and a wireless bridge instead!" What a can of worms that turned out to be. I bought one to be my main router, and another to be used in bridge mode exclusively. I thought that they'd have the best chance of interoperating correctly if they were from the same manufacturer, and in fact the same product.
I flashed the bios to the newest revision as soon as I got them plugged in--that was really easy. This review pertains to Firmware Version: P-330W_V1.7 (10 Aug 2006) Great job on that much, ZyXEL.
The P-330W does not handle a lot of trivial things correctly. The box I connected to my cable modem does not know how to respond to your external IP address if you ping it from inside your LAN. This means you cannot easily use DDNS or run a domain name from home, because you cannot use that name to access your own server. This is completely asinine. Product support says that is a feature they don't support, and will not plan to do so. Even the cheapest wired routers I've had could do this.
The P-330W, when set up in bridge mode, does not properly transmit DHCP signals. I have two Windows XP machines over the bridge and they cannot under any circumstances retrieve IP addresses from it over the bridge. If I plug them into the long hardwired cable which goes into the back of the router itself, I get IP addresses fine. One of the XP machines was a fresh install that day, so I know it's not funky in any way.
The P-330W does not allow my machines connected through the hardwire to 'see' my machines on the other side of the wireless bridge. The machines on this side of the bridge can see the hardwired computers. WTF? I have linux machines and XP machines over the bridge and both show the same symptoms. When I switch back to using the long hardwired cable, everything sees each other fine. Again, the bridge feature is letting me down.
My final three quick gripes: 1) in router mode, it loses connection daily almost, so I am forced to reboot it... rebooting the cable modem is not necessary, but I tried to isolate which box was causing the problem, and it's the P-330W for sure. 2) This is exacerbated by a lack of a REBOOT button on the configuration web page (which would make the issue a tiny bit less annoying as I could at least then set up a script to reboot it daily) 3) There is no way to see what the DNS servers are going to be if they are gathered from your ISP automatically. You can override whatever it is, but you actually have to go to a machine using DHCP to figure out what your ISP says to use as DNS servers. This is a serious issue if you are forced to use static IPs over a bridge due to broken DHCP. Or you call your ISP and pester them for the DNS server IPs. Very annoying.
Finally, the steps involved in setting up any kind of bridge is a little convoluted. The product support reps send you a PowerPoint that gives you the instructions you need to do it step-by-step, which is great. I followed it exactly. Still has the same problems. I had a very pleasant conversation back and forth that never seemed to resolve anything, but at least it was pleasant. Again, good for ZyXEL for having customer support that didn't suck. They're just trying to support a broken product the best they can.
For these many reasons, and the many hours over weeks I have put my unpaid time into these broken devices, I give the product a 2. Unfortunately, most consumer networking products are probably a 3, this is worse than average.
Got it cheap... and serves me right. September 12, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Got it for $15 after rebate from CompUSA. If it wasn't for that rebate I will think twice about buying this. I used to have a Belkin router that never failed my connection for the two years I've had it. This ZyXel router is a pain. It drops my connection at least twice a week and I have to restart it and restart my modem everytime it drops. Worse thing is, my Vonage phone line is also connected with it, so when it drops, my phone is dead too.
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