Comments on: Linksys by Cisco EG1032 Instant Gigabit Desktop Network Adapter

By: Ron D. Troy

Ron D. Troy — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:49:31 +0000

I’m upgrading my home network to gigabit wired, N wireless. I have a Linksys 610N as the router/switch, a Netgear GS605 as a local switch to connect an older pc and a work laptop with a gigabit ethernet port. I installed this card (EG1032) in the older PC and installed the driver. Going forward I had much slower boot times, and the CPU pegged at 100% all of the time. Yes, I did have network connectivity, but the PC was almost impossible to use. I put the old etherfast card back in, and the PC went back to normal.

I want to emphasize that that the old PC is slow (P3) but is fully up to date with XP Pro SP3. My guess is that this card puts one hell of a load on the CPU that just isn’t noticed on faster processors. It may well be fine for newer desktops that due to cheapskate manufacturers still come with etherfast connections.
Rating: 3 / 5

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:00:37 +0000

Purchased card and installed drivers provided on CD with product. Had problem with Ethernet LAN wiring that runs through my surge protection device APC BX1500LCD (which only supports 10/100 pass-through speed). Solution was to have Ethernet bypass APC BX1500LCD to allow Gigabit LAN speed. Purchasing an APC PNET1GB device to add RJ-45 protection back for PC. Keep this in mind when connecting you PC to switch / router if you are not getting Gigabit LAN after installing card and drivers from CD.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: Jeff Travis

Jeff Travis — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:50:24 +0000

This product works great on my PCs with XP and Win Vista but as soon as I upgraded to Win 7 64 bit it became a doorstop. No support as of yet for Win7 64 from Linksys…

If your looking for any other OS, this is a great card but if you plan on Win 7 look elsewhere. Real Shame.

Update: Just wanted to update everyone that I have spoken with Linksys support and they told me that their not sure Win 7 drivers will ever be created for this product. Shame because I just purchased it about a month ago. Linksys used to be so good about supporting their products.
Rating: 3 / 5

By: Gavin Scott

Gavin Scott — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:00:35 +0000

Ok, it's a basic PCI gigabit ethernet card. Probably not one you want to buy however, since Linksys says they may never provide Windows 7 drivers.

However it *is* possible to get this card working fine in Windows 7 if you have a Version 3 form of the card (the currently shipping version).

You can find the required download by googling for RealTek and "SID:1364590" which should find you RealTek's Windows 7 driver installer (dated 2009/10/23). You install this which will say it doesn't find any matching hardware, then in device manager update the driver for the unrecognized network adapter, use the option to browse from a list of drivers, select Network Adapter, RealTek, and PCI GBE as the card, and tell it to install anyway.

This has made the card work fine in Windows 7 (retail version) for me.

Hope this is of help to someone.

G. Rating: 3 / 5

By: James Rodgers IV

James Rodgers IV — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:31:41 +0000

The is a hot little item. I do not even have a gigabyte network and its already dowloading at 1.5 mb and more. I can download more programs at one time. Its like an overclocked network card.
Rating: 5 / 5