A roaring, short-lived beast; big disappointment.

Let me begin this review by saying that I am loyal Linksys customer. I've been using their products for years now, and all my networking equipment has always been Linksys...until I bought this lousy gigabit switch.

The version number is crucial
The EG008W has been revised a few times over the past three years. I am writing about EG008W ver. 2, which is the one presently depicted on the epinions profile. How do you tell the version number? If you've got your hands on one, look on the label on the underside of the switch, near the serial number, or on the side of the box in small print. When shopping online, however, be very careful which version you are buying. Since websites often don't provide the version number, you must rely on its appearance.

Version 2 has a case that is two-thirds silver, with a dark blue front panel where three rows of status LEDs are located in the middle of the blue faceplate. (The three rows are Link/Act, Speed, and Full Duplex for each port.) Photos of version 2 usually show it in the horizontal position. Linksys now sells an updated version 3 of the EG008W, which is mostly silver, with dark grey trim -- the only blue on it being the Linksys label. Version 3 has one row of status LEDs, located on the edge of the switch. Version 3 is usually shown in the vertical position. This version is presently depicted on the Linksys website if you search for it.

My network configuration and needs
I bought this switch as overkill. I could have made due with a 5 port switch. Our home has five computers in several different rooms. Most are connected wirelessly to the cable modem via a Linksys wireless router. The segment in my home office, however, has two machines on it. Due to the high volume of data that passes between these two, I wanted a gigabit wired connection between them, so I bought the EG008W for that purpose. The two machines connect via the switch. A Linksys wireless bridge also connects to the switch, so that these two machines can connect to the web (thus the bridge connects to the wireless router). Occasionally, I jack a laptop into the switch, but rarely. So I'm typically using three ports out of eight, never more than four.

So for internet traffic, this switch is total overkill. For traffic between the two computers, I just wanted something better than 100Mb/s.

Set-up
I bought all the aforementioned equipment at once (wifi router, several wifi cards, two gigabit NIC cards, and this switch). They all connected beautifully. The only tricky part was getting the bridges correctly configured, but that part is not relevant to this review. The EG008W was out of the box and in position in minutes. It's an unmanaged switch, so there's not a lot to do here to set it up. Plug in, connect cables, check status lights. Done.

The Roaring Beginneth
I had read reviews of this switch on other sites (amazon, newegg) which complained of fan noise. I am somewhat sensitive to fan noise, but I have all my computer stuff in its own (properly cooled) closet, so I figured this would not be a big deal next to two large ATX cases with three fans each. Upon plugging the EG008W, I could not believe my ears! One reviewer on another site had compared the sound of the fan on this thing to his hairdryer on low. That's only a slight exaggeration. Even in a closet with the door shut, this sound of this switch was clearly audible over everything else. Indeed, even in the next room, through the wall, I could hear it clearly.

Here's why version number is critical: I have read that the new version is fanless, which makes a huge difference (although I've also read that the new version still has reliability issues -- so read around a bit before buying).

After the first day, I couldn't take it any more, and I started looking for remedies. As far as I can tell, the tremendous noise is not due to bad bearings (some people seem to presuppose this, request a replacement, and get an equally loud unit in return, only to be vexed). It seems to be due to a cheap fan at high RPMs situated where there is very little airflow inside the case.

If you're stuck with one of these units, or able to get one second-hand or cheaply, and want to try a modification, here's two good ones. Note that ANY of these void your warranty and should only be attempted by those who know how to solder.

Here is the one I performed:
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/jperry69/LinkSysGigabitFanFix.jpg

Here is a better one:
http://www.theshoemakers.net/linksys/

Ah, all better
After the fan replacement, I had a pretty quiet switch, with better airflow. I put it back into position and saw 120Mb/s transfers between my two machines, which are ancient and only have PCI busses feeding their gigabit NICs. This was a nice improvement over a 100Mbit hub I previously had in place.

The Linky quietly did its duty for 14 months, neatly tucked away on a ventilated wire shelf, never getting hot, fan purring, until this month, when it totally died.

I was two months over the one-year warranty, but this was irrelevant since I had opened the case to modify the fan. Could my mod have led to an early death? Perhaps, but I doubt it. I did a good job, checked the wattage on the new fan, taped all the soldered connections (no shorts), and double checked it after I was done. Postmortem shows nothing unusual around the fan.

Then I checked on newegg's site once again to see options for a replacement switch, and I noticed a string of reviews wherein owners reported that their EG008W died just after the one-year mark. I can only conclude that this indicates a defect in workmanship.

I would have tried Linksys again, but I was not willing to try the new version of the EG008W since I had read a few reports of unreliability even with this new version, although Linksys has ditched the fan-cooled design in favor of a fanless, metal chassis design. (Perhaps the metal helps dissipate the heat?) I also like having a 100Mbs/Gigabit light for each port in addition to the Link/Act light, which the EG008W version 2 has, but the version 3 does not.

I bought a D-Link DGS-2205 5-port gigabit switch instead. Fanless, ergo totally quiet. It also dropped into place effortlessly, and has been doing its job for a few hours now. It gets along fine with the otherwise all-Linksys set-up. Transfer rates are just as good as the Linksys. The D-Link gives you two lights per port: Link/Act and Speed.

Will one bad Linksys product make me avoid Linksys for good? Not likely, but if the D-Link keeps performing well, I'm shopping both brands in the future.