Customer Reviews

Cisco SLM2008 8-port Gigabit Smart Switch - PD/AC power

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this switch to replace a failing 10/100 switch at home. So far, it's been a great product (in use for just about a month) though I haven't yet had a need to use the QOS or MAC restrictive features. But it's a fantastic gigabit switch!

UPDATE 11-12-2008: My switch failed just over a year later. At first, my computer's network card kept getting disconnected and I'd have to reboot the switch. After a while, it stopped letting my pc connect at all. I rerouted my network cable from the pc to another switch and it hasn't gotten disconnected since. I think the other reviewers may be right that it eventually overheated and failed. Going to contact Linksys for a replacement.

UPDATE 01-18-2009: I did contact Linksys on getting this item replaced. After the usual round of explaining the problem to tech support and having them make me try everything I had already tried again, they authorized an RMA. The RMA process took about 2-2.5 weeks. I did the basic RMA where I shipped the defective product to them, they get it, test it, and send a replacement if broken, instead of cross-shipping or having them charge me for a replacement until they receive the defective unit. When I received the replacement, I put it back in place on my network and so far so good. I think it's a good product, but now I'll have to see if this one fails around the same timeframe or not.

 

I purchased 4 of these for use as "loaner" switches at the company I work for. I have had two of them fail from overheating after 2-4 months of use, they just stop working, and were extremely hot to the touch. Definitely looks like a design problem, and I would highly discourage anyone from purchasing one of these.

We purchased over a dozen of these for use as desktop switches at our company. Both the SLM2005 and SLM2008 models. They all begin to fail at approximately the same time and within a week all are dead. At first Linksys was happy to replace them. However, after about the fourth round of replacements, they are now giving us the run-around and asking for more details about the failures before they can be replaced. My response, "They just don't work!" Seriously. You can no longer reach them on the assigned or default IP address, nothing connects on any of the ports. It matters not whether they are powered by AC or PoE.
Steer clear of these doorstops.

 

My switch failed after 6 months of light usage. I had it installed in a Leviton wiring cabinet, the kind that fits into a wall.

Linksys product support was helpful and readily agreed to replace it without a lot of questioning. Fortunately, it has a 5 year warranty.

Switch 8-PORT Gig Smart with pd
I used this switch for almost 1 year. It carried very light traffic. I noticed it always ran hot. One day I decided to fry an egg on it. Worked great (I thought this was a switch for data!?) I powered on my computers one morning and nothing worked. I checked and the switch was on but none of the LEDs were lit, besides the Sys. Sound familiar? Read the other reviews, they all have the same problem. Tells me something.

I called Linksys (Cisco) today and they require me to pay shipping to return it to them - no way around it. WOW - only in America can you produce crapola like this and make the consumer pay to return it to you for replacement. Maybe I should consider myself lucky that I can get a replacement. Maybe that is why they give it a 5 year warranty. Maybe they made an extra few runs these switches to cover the returns.

I would not recommend this switch. If you don't believe me, see the other reviews - there are many with EXACTLY the same problem.

Buyer BEWARE!

The Linksys SLM2008 has great features for it's price. I like the VLAN feature which I used to put my gamer son on a different subnet..

Alas, the unit died after a little over one year. The power light comes on, but that's it. None of the ports work.

Based upon my experience, I would not buy this switch again.

I purchased two SLM2008's at the end of October 2007 and while they are feature rich and seem to provide good performance they also run fairly hot.

Just recently (after 4.5 months) one of my units failed (overheated) after I ran a lot of traffic through it (many sessions, not high speeds necessarily). The unit was very hot to the touch and was dropping packets until it finally failed. This device is out in the open with great airflow, but I guess too much electronics are packed in these little switches.

Perhaps you need forced air across them to keep them cool while under load?

This product may work great for you, but just be aware of the potential heat issue.

I admit, as a professional network Architect, I use Cisco and Juniper equipment all the time. The desire to have a Inexpensive "Managable 5 port (SLM2005) or 8 port (SLM2008) switch with QOS support is strong for those doing
VOIP or looking to aggregate NAS drives on to a Gige switch. But I have now had 3 SLM2005's fail on me, and 2 SLM2008's fail on me. Not one lasted a full year. They were purchased in a group when I upgraded servers and systems about the house to Gige. Here I am xmas day, I need to get at my Raid 10 Thecus 4100Pro photo gallery to store pictures from this AM, and that NAS is unavailable.. They all are. Another SML2008 death. I checked the P/S,. and it is indeed putting out
+12VDC, center pole positive, and I can load it to 1.0A, so this means it is the switch AGAIN and not the power supply.
I have had multiple units replaced, and have had no problem with timely replacement, but the failure rate on these
units are terrible. Normally I would open them up, and analyze what failed, and report it. It is often a burst capacitor, or a diode goes bad which then takes a few other components with it (this should make sense if you know what a diode does for a living... allows current to flow only one way...). When it can flow in the opposite direction than that intended, it often does damage to other electronic items which they protect.

If you need a cheap manageable switch and you can't find other choices, buy Two, so when one dies in under 12 months
you can swap the switch, and send it back. This way you always have a spare. at this point, if there were another 8 port Gige managed switch with the same features, I would be buying it and replacing my remaining SLM2008's...

 

In general, for IPv4 and IPv6 unicast the switch is ok. But be aware that when it comes to multicast the switch is broken in in a variety of ways:

IPv6 Multicast

1 port in, all other ports out, no snooping, no nothing.

IPv4 IGMPv2:

The "Leave" report is "successfully" suppressed by the switch.

IPV4 IGMPv3:

Any multicast report containing more than one multicast group is mangled by the switch to unreadability. This means that you *must* not subscribe to more than one multicast group on one interface when using IGMPv3.

Well, I can stand the IPv6 multicast behaviour, even when it is not nice, neither correct. But when it comes to IPv4 one would expect from a company lice Cisco, that publishes IGMP white papers on their site, that the behaviour of a Cisco switch is correct with regards to protocol specification.

If there is a bug, one would expect a way to submit a bug report. Not so with Cisco. Until you pay for some kind of a service contract there is no way to report a bug. I do call this a great way to call a product bug free and thus give only two stars to this one.

My house with all gigbit network cable around and use this to split for all my devices (TV, DVD Player, Hi-Fi, 3 desktops and 2 laptop). The connections never drop and I am able to experience high speed of file transfer between computers. Very reliable product.