Rating: 
Summary: Multi-faceted poor experience
Review: I purchased the WMP54G thinking it would help me along my transition from 802.11b to 802.11g. What a mistake that was!Installation was a chore. On XP, it recognized the new hardware and I told the Hardware Wizard where the drivers were, but once I started to explore the settings in the device panel, things went awry. I selected 802.11b mode in the panel and everything went dead. No problem, I thought...all I needed to do was uninstall the hardware and reinstall. Nope, it kept throwing me errors about resource conflicts. I'm not much of a PC expert, so I decided not to wrestle with IRQ conflicts. I installed the card in another PCI slot and that fixed it, sort of. Range is abysmal with the little black antenna. My access point is an Apple AirPort Extreme Basestation with a powerful external 8 dBi antenna. Where my Power Mac gets 90% signal strength with its built-in antenna, my PC only two feet away can't connect at all. It's puzzling to say the least. The antenna on the WMP54G is weeeeeaaaak.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesnt Work with XP
Review: This product doesnt work with MY XP installation and Linksys tech support cant help.
Due to having faith that Linksys would fix the problem i cant even return it to Amazon as it is over the 30 day return limit. 1 Useless bit of kit i a box in mint condition. When I put it in my machine event the wired LAN connection fails. I bought the Linksys 54G router and PCMCIA card at the same time and these work great on a laptop running XP, so I know how to set it up. Thanks Amazon and Linksys - between you you have cost me a lot of money for an ornament!!
Rating:
Summary: Beware of what looks too easy ...
Review: I purchased the Linsys Router, a PMCIA Wireless and two PCI wireless cards. The idea was to have devices all from the same manufacturer in order to ease the computers and the network setup. The weak link I found was in the PCI cards. I use XP Pro on an ASUS based system. The cards were not recognized as "Plug and Play" and Windows XP refused flat out to install them. I gave up after two sleepless nights. I then purchased a D-link PCI card and I was surfing the net in 15 minutes flat.
Rating: 
Summary: Works fine for me
Review: I have owned a Linksys Wireless G notebook adapter, and now this adapter for a desktop. Both have worked immediately upon plugging them in and booting up. Configuration can be difficult for a beginner, however.
Rating: 
Summary: It is great once it is running
Review: I run three computers on my home network using the Linksys Wireless G set up. Running my machine that is plugged into the router is a cakewalk. My suggestion is to get a computer running on your base first. Next, I recommend leaving the defaults as they are until you get your wireless computer connected. If you are connecting to an XP machine, be certain that the configuration utility didn't establish a 'bridge' connection. If it did, you'll want to disable it. In fact, disable all connections on your network screen except for the wireless connection. Once you establish a connection, start setting up your security WEP. XP will not recognize your passphrase and the Linksys software won't let you copy the wep key. What I did was type the key into note pad so that I could then copy and paste it into the XP field. Believe me, this step is a big time saver, you'll get sick of typing the key. Good luck with it, you only need to go through this mess once. It's great after its set up.
Rating:
Summary: warning to linux users
Review: as of september 15, 2003 there are no linux drivers for this card
Rating: 
Summary: Connect Problems? Check the "CHANNEL"
Review: I've looked around on various boards to see if anyone had a solution to the problem so often described with this product where you see a message "A wireless connection is available", and the SSID shows up as an available network, but then you can't connect to it. I don't think I've seen anyone write up the solution I found, so I'm going to give it a try here, hopefully it'll help reduce stress for at least a few other users... I messed around with this problem for HOURS yesterday, but decided to try fresh today... I'd decided that if I didn't get it all working today, it was all going to get boxed up and sent back tomorrow! The root cause was that the router was on one channel (6 I believe), and the WMP55G cards (at least when you install the new driver) defaults to channel 11. (I may have these reversed). In this configuration, the network SSID was visible to the client systems, but would NOT connect - at least not usually - they actually connected once or twice briefly with the channels mismatched, but with everything in close proximity. The WRT54G's channel number (assuming you're using the linksys router) is on the "setup" tab on it's web interface. (I had a PC hardwired to the router to do this - that's a good idea if you're having RF problems as I was). It's down near the bottom of the screen in the "Wireless" section. Remember to hit "APPLY" after changing it, so that it takes effect. The WMP54G's channel number (Windows XP - SP1 with the latest driver, anyway) is on the "Wireless G Notebook Adapter Properties" window under the "Advanced" tab. It's labeled "IBSS Channel Number". You must hit the "OK" for it to take effect. I THINK I tried changing the channel on the router yesterday, but failed to hit "APPLY"... I had been seeing the same thing over and over... the network was visible to the client computers, but wouldn't connect... Interestingly enough, my portable WOULD connect, but the two PCI cards would not. Once I got all the channels synced up, it was fine. You would expect that if the card and router were on different channels (especially as far apart as 6 and 11), that the network would not be visible from the cards, but that's not the case! They are visible, but just will not connect - usually anyway. I believe that any sort of RF problem might cause a similar symptom... a bad antenna connector, an interfering wireless phone, (another network next door?) or what have you. The first thing I did today was to disconnect all the wireless phones in the house BEFORE starting to troubleshoot. The next thing was to turn SSID transmit back on, and security off. Once we got the channels synced up, both PCI cards synced up right away... then I turned SSID transmit off, verified that it was OK, then put in a WEP key, verified again, then went in and restricted the mac addresses to those of my client computers. It's all working reliably now.
Rating:
Summary: Will not connect...
Review: I purchased the WRT54G router and WMP54G PCI card. Install was fine for the router and Internet still worked going through the router. The router was installed on a PC running Windows XP Home.
The PCI card went in a brand new computer also with XP Home. I followed the instruction to the letter. Basically the steps are:
1. install the PCI adapter into a PCI slot
2. Let XP detect the adapter and then insert the CD and let it install the software automatically and click finish.
so far so good...
3. Finally, a pop-up for the system tray displays "A network connection is available" which you click on.
4. Check the box that connects you to non-secure wireless networks (default for Linksys is to not turn on WEP). I see my network name as being available so I know it is sending a signal.
5. Click "Connect" ... nothing... no connection. After about 10 seconds, the same pop-up saying "A network connection is available" shows up again. Basically, this continues to loop without ever connecting. 3-4 hours of trouble shooting and researching their web site with no luck so I decided to call tech support. We spent an hour and a half (I must say they were willing to try lots of things and were patient). We tried everything:
- uninstall/re-install
- switch PCI slots
- change channels
- reset router
- upgrade firmware on router
- dance a jig around the computer (just seeing if you're still reading)
- Changing multitude of settings (with/without WEP, MAC address, modes, etc.) Still no connection! The tech guy's was not even able to conclude if the problem was with the router or the card. I don't know what to do and am tempted to just send it all back. I even bought a Linksys PC card for the laptop that I'm expecting in a week. Maybe I will see if that works with the router. If so, maybe it is just the card at fault. These comments are very interesting since some people don't seem to have any problems at all and others like me struggle for hours. If anyone out there has had this problem, please contact me with a solution (david@ideadirect.com).
Rating:
Summary: Bad Product
Review: Unless you have system restore, do not purchase this product, because you will probably be needing it. Multiple crashes, driver failures, and when finally installed, unable to communicate with its mother router. I don't know why my problems were so extreme - however, I am unable to understand how anyone got this to work properly - I'm no idiot either.
Tech support is NON EXISTENT ! If you email, you will get instructions to go to a fague link that tells you nothing !!!
Save your money, and wire your house for ethernet - wireless is a waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: Installation difficulties in Windows XP
Review: I had a few problems getting the WMP54G to work using encryption with my router (WRT54G) under Windows XP. The quick installation guide implies Windows XP will detect the card and set it up automatically. It did no such thing for me; it wanted me to provide the driver manually. I highly recommend getting the latest driver from the Linksys website rather than using the one on the CD. I don't recommend using the Windows network wizard, or whatever the thing is called. It added a Network Bridge device with an odd IP address. I could not communicate with my router until I deleted this device. This was not intuitive at all, but again this is a Windows problem. On to the next problem: when I used WEP encryption (either 64 or 128-bit), the wireless connection would drop out at precisely three minutes. Everything worked fine with encryption turned off. I then decided to try WPA encryption, which is supposedly more secure than WEP anyway. There is a Windows XP update to add this capability to the operating system, which you'll need to install. Unfortunately I found that this didn't immediately solve my problem: WPA was not available as a selection in the wirless network setup. I then updated the driver for the WMP54G and I was able to use WPA with no problem! Again, a word of advice: do NOT use the driver on the included CD! Get the latest driver off the Linksys website. I would imagine this was the source of my WEP problems as well, but I never went back to try it. I'm happy with WPA. Also make sure your router's firmware is up to date. Some manufacturers have only recently added WPA capability. Other than these difficulties, this seems to be a great card. It works just as fast as my wired LAN connection.
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