Review on Echogear 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch: Expand Your Network with Auto-Negotiation, Full Duplex Control, and Auto MDI/MDI-X by Adam Clemons

I bought two of these 8 port switches. I have built a much more complex and working network than my home network. But my network has grown beyond 5 computers, 4 3TB external NAS hard drives, a black and white laser printer, a color laser printer, a wireless access point – to name just the main components, all of which require a network connection and connectivity, if necessary, to each other. Everything worked fine with the network, there were no problems, and at least the last two years there were no problems with it. However, all components were connected either wirelessly or via four Linksys 5-port Gigabit switches. All 5 switches worked perfectly, none had any problems. My desire was to downsize the stack from four switches to two 8 port gigabit switches hoping to achieve the same network connectivity that has been available for the last 2 years. This reconnection job should have been easy: unplug the ethernet cables from the 5 port Linksys switches and plug the cables into the 8 port Echogear switches, of course connect to the printers and internet modem and to that Zyxcel router (which works great by the way and has been for more than two years) --- no connection problems at all. But no! However, these Echogear switches are faulty - and there are two of them that didn't work and both failed the same way - would not recognize a device connected via Ethernet cable and would not recognize a connection from a Zyxcel router. The LEDs will light up, which should indicate a successful connection, and the LEDs will flash when the link indicator on older Linksys switches is on, but there is actually no signal or connection. I've spent over 4 hours of my time trying to get these horrible switches to work - unsuccessfully switched to all the new cables. The printers received no signals and did not print. The wireless access point did not meet the requirements of laptops (there are 2 of them) connected for more than 2 years. Removing Echogear switches from the network and reconnecting everything to old Linksys switches --- yes, everything is working as it should again. Find out. The only, and most logical, conclusion is that these Echogear switches are simply FAIL. Based on my horrible experience with these horrible Echogear switches, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE, MY RECOMMENDATION --- DO NOT BUY. If you buy it, you will most likely regret it. Thanks to Revain, I'm returning two Echogear switches. Everything is fine with the devices connected to my network. The proof of this is that in extreme frustration and confusion I finally threw up my hands and brought in a stack of four 5-port Linksys switches.