D-LinkD-Link DGS-2205 5-Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch

I purchased this switch 23 months ago. It worked fine until it failed this past week.I submitted an RMA request online, and got an email in response giving me a case ID and telling me to call their number to talk to a live tech support. After fumbling through their menu, I reached someone who told me I needed to talk to their tech support department--which I thought I chose, but apparently not. She forwarded me to their tech support.An Indian-accented girl was on the other line, who proceeded to ask me to supply my name, contact info, product model number, serial number, etc., all of which should have been available through the case ID for the RMA request I already opened. Furthermore, she insisted I supply answers to irrelevant questions such as what operating system I was using, how many wired computers were on my network, how many wireless computers were on my network, what ISP I was using, what cable modem I was using, etc--despite my objections several times that these questions were irrelevant.She then placed me on hold for several minutes. After this, she had me run the diagnostic procedures of unplugging and re-plugging the power to the switch to see if it was still broken--which I had obviously done before. Then she had me try plugging the switch to a different power outlet. When it turned out that the switch still wasn't functioning, she concluded that my switch was defective and apologized that I was unfortunately out of warranty. I had to point out to her that this switch is covered by either a 3 yr warranty or a lifetime warranty, as is ambiguously stated on this product page, but either way I should still be covered.She then placed me on hold for several more minutes, and came back and told me that I had to call their customer support line. I re-stated that I'm trying to do an RMA on this device, and their system told me that I had to talk to their live technical support, not customer service.She then placed me on hold yet again, and came back telling me that she'll escalate me to their next tier of technical support. This lead to a ringing phone that was never picked up after several minutes.All in all, I wasted about half an hour on the phone trying to get this product through their RMA procedure without any progress. It seems that all their tech support does is delay and deflect. This is the worst tech support experience I've ever had.

I bought three of these back in 2009, and when I got home from vacation last month, found that all three had ceased to working properly. Not sure if there was a power surge or something- they were all plugged into power stations designed to prevent that sort of thing- so who knows. It took some troubleshooting to find these switches were the cause of the failure, but eventually discovered they were not working, despite the lights still on and flickering like they were working normally.I paid $31.50/each for these, and the similar gigabit replacements from tp-link with metal rather than plastic housing and lifetime guarantees cost $11.50/each.I point that out because there is no reason to buy this product. It is over ten years old and I see it is selling now for $55. Much better value and quality elsewhere. Time to bury this product.

I am posting this review to highlight something about D-Link that is not mentioned in the mainstream. This is my 2nd of these and my 4th D-Link gigabit switch. That is NOT an endorsement, but to display a pattern of power brick problems with D-Link.See, for every single one of those 3, the power brick failed. My first 2 D-link gigabit switches were DGS-1005Ds. I bought two in a internet promotion at another web store. One lasted a year and a half then it started behaving strangely. Would suddenly not sense any cables plugged in, requiring an unplug and plug in of the power supply. Then it would work for a couple hours and then need to be power cycled again. Google produced a string of exact same complaints about this switch in various forums, and the solution was the power supply on it was crud. Plugged in the power supply from the other switch and it worked fine. So I tried 2 different replacement power supplies from Radio Shack, that matched the voltage and amperage perfectly and neither worked. They would power the switch but none of the ports worked. Yet when I plugged in the power supply from the other DGS-1005Ds, it worked fine.D-link seemingly made their switch purposefully not to work with replacement power supplies? Who knows, I can't prove it. A month later the 2nd DGS-1005Ds power supply died, so now I had 2 DGS-1005Ds and no power supplies. Moved on to other brands.Memory is a funny thing though, and while I still remembered the problem I had, I saw a dirt cheap deal on this switch a little while ago and jumped on it to convert my living room setup from wifi to faster gigabit ethernet. About 2 weeks after the warranty was up, the power supply failed. Yeah, it wasn't just the DGS-1005Ds. So I contacted D-Link. I have this switch tucked away neatly in my AV cabinet and it would be a pain to remove it and install a new one. Maybe I could get replacement power supplies, and I still had at least one working DGS-1005Ds in my closet:"Hello,I need new power supplies (aka power bricks) for a DGS-2205 rev A2 (5V 1.2A) and a DGS-1005D rev C2 (7.5v 1A). How do I go about getting them? "vanessa.galvan at dlink.com:"Hello,Thank you for contacting D- Link Customer Service. We have these power supplies available for $25 each. If you'd like me to generate the Spare Part order please reply back to this email with your name, address, phone number and spare part that you'd like to order. Thank you and have a great day!"So I replied yes and gave my info. No reply, I sent it again, this time to Ms. Galvan and the general D-link support email. No reply. Sent again, no reply. 3 weeks and no reply, not a peep.Well as you can see, I then saw this switch here at Amazon for about the same price as I would have to pay for a new power brick. Might as well just buy a new one and I get the power brick that way and give me some time before I have to go through the effort of uninstalling and remounting a new switch (after all Thanksgivings is coming up and I don't want to go messing with it). I even got free shipping at Amazon.The moral of the story, avoid D-Link! Their switches are fine, I have no complaints. However, the power supplies stink and their support is abysmal!