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Linksys WCF12 Wireless-B Network CompactFlash Card (Type I)

Linksys WCF12 Wireless-B Network CompactFlash Card (Type I)

List Price: $144.95
Your Price: $63.54
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Fast Network Card
Review: Clicked it right into my Dell Axim, running a LinkSys wireless router. Installed software on my Pocket PC, recognized the wireless network and I was surfing the internet!
Works great, it eats the battery pretty fast, but not too bad if you check "Auto Power Save" in the options. Besides most of the time, I use it to sync my device with my office computer upstairs without going upstairs, then disable it. By the way, I used to have a wcf-11, this new model wcf-12 is A LOT smaller!! Perfect, I hate huge CF devices sticking out of my Pocket PC

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Linkless Lynksys
Review: The Linksys WCF12 has issues.
PDA: COMPAQ IPAQ 3765 and 3835 PDAs
Platform: Windows CE 3.0

Issue: The encryption setting in the Linksys link configuration software for the PDA changes itself to hexidecimal when the user saves the settings as alphanumeric. I thought this was just a user error until I spent an hour with Linksys technical support trying to resolve the issue. They told me to return the card and gave up after an hour of troubleshooting...if you can call "Please reinstall and try again, but this time try..." troubleshooting.
The software installs with no problems. The configuration utilty supplied for your PDA detects wireless networks like it should. However, it was unable to save the encryption settings on the encryption tab. The wireless network I needed to attach to was using 128 bit encryption with a key. Non encrypted networks were accessable with minimal effort. After receiving mediocre support from Linksys ( they didn't even pretend to read a troubleshooting script ), I found several reviews indicating similiar problems with this CF card and Compaq IPAQ PDAs. This is funny as the packaging has an IPAQ as an example on the back of the box. Don't buy if you have an IPAQ.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Requirements not clear.
Review: This item worked neither on my Cassiopeia E-115 (running WINCE 3.0) NOR my IBM x20 laptop with Win 98SE. After 5 frustrating calls to their customer service, (to Linksys offices in CAL as well as the Philippines) I FINALLY reached a senior tech who told me that earlier builds of WINCE3.0 do not support this card and that the card is not designed for 98SE. (Win 2000 and above). Their packaging does not reflect this. To make matters worse, when I tried to uninstall the software from the PDA, it will not allow me to uninstall and the senior tech told me that they know this and the only way to uninstall the software is a hard reset of the PDA! The card went back for a refund and Linksys is out of my book for future purchases.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: 2 tries, finally works
Review: Picked this card up and the first one would not work in infrastructure mode. Exchanged it and it worked perfectly. I use it with a Linksys befw11s4 access point. the wcf12's reception is decent, not great, and its power consumption seems pretty high. It works great with my 300Mhz Dell Axim X5. Once I got the working card setup was a breeze, even with 128bit WEP.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Works with new Dell Axim-After following this procedure
Review: I picked one of these cards for my new Dell Axim handheld. It took a little doing, but I got it installed. Everytime I used the install program, the Axim would freeze on the screen, "Installing Software", and would not recognize the new card.

I would give it 5 stars, but the install program did not work correctly, so I had to figure it out on my own.

After attempting to install the program on my handheld, it had installed some files on my laptop. I went into the directory on my computer (Not the handheld, the computer it connects to) and found the 3 CAB needed files for installation in C:\Program Files\WCF12 Wireless Network. I then transferred them over to the handheld the old fashioned way (Not using my new network card). After the files are on the handheld, I used File Explorer to find the files and clicked on each of the three Cab files. One of the three will work and install the drivers, the other two will give error messages (I forgot to note which of the three worked...I was just happy to get it working...Shoot me for not noting the file).

Now I have my wireless access to my Axim. It is great. I used Instant Messenger from my couch to talk with my daughter, I surfed the 'Net without a computer or laptop, etc.

I even used the Diagnostics program that came with the handheld to go around my house and see the signal strength of my Wireless Router upstairs.

Overall, I would give the card itself 5 stars, but the amount of time it took me to install drops it down to 4 stars. The issue may be because my Dell Axim handheld is brand new to the marketplace. I can understand the driver that came on CD not working, but Linksys has no mention of this on their website. Linksys needs to get on the ball and post work-arounds if people have issues (I saw a few people with the same issues with this specific card on Dell's website).

Ron

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great Value!
Review: Got this card for my Axim and it works great when it works. Installation on my Axim didn't go too smoothly because of something (maybe because of the WCF12's software or because of PPC 2K2) that caused IE not to use the WCF12 for networking.

Using an old WAP11 and a few WPC11's with this card and connection would drop from time to time thus requiring a reset and reseating the card. However, I can't be sure if that's because of my v1 WAP11 and WPC11's or because of the WCF12.

The software could be better at managing different profiles by not requiring me to re-enter the WEP paraphrase everytime I switch profiles.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It works mostly
Review: Got this card for my Casio E-125 PocketPC. Fits quite snuggly in the CF slot, but it goes in with a little patience. The drivers out of the box said that it did not work with the "connected device". So I downloaded the slightly newer driver from the website. The new driver installed and I was able to set the SSID during installation. But the Linksys Wireless CF Control panel doesn't work keeps saying that I'm missing a progam or library. (I've reinstalled numerous times to no avail)

I can however connect, so the only access control I can turn on is MAC level from the access point (USR8011). I suspect WEP is setup in the control panel that I can't start on the E-125.

Drains the battery significantly as well. Equivalent to running some media playback, and having the screen on all the time (cause that's pretty much what you'll be doing).

Connects fast! Maybe a second or two and the card is connected.
So it works adequately, I just don't know if I'm missing anything with the lack of WEP.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pretty swift
Review: I'm using this card with my iPaq 3650 and SMC7004VWBR. Setup was pretty straightforward. The only problem is that the connection seems slow, but I think it's the iPaq not being able to render the web pages fast enough (need more CPU power). I'll have to try it on my laptop to see how fast it really is. I only wish the card didn't protrude this much out of the top of the iPaq and power consumption needs to come down (hence 4 start rating).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Couldn't be easier!
Review: The WCF12 was so easy to install and works so well on my "old" Jornada 548 that I just had to write this review on it! For the 54X Jornada, don't forget to download the updated driver.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works great with Dell Axim
Review: Network consists of a Netgear WAB102 802.11a and 802.11b dual band access point, Linksys WET11, Netgear WAB501 Cardbus for Compaq laptop, and a Dell Axim PDA using the WCF12. Had no problems installing it and immediately was surfing the net from the PDA. Network should be configured for DHCP for easy installation. Have had one problem that I don't think is with Linksys, Netgear access point stopped working on the 802.11a channel while 802.11b still worked. Cycled power and all was fine again. WCF12 was scanning away as it should be trying to make a connection. Have since upgraded the firmware in the access point so will see what happens... Also no problem inserting the CF card in the Dell Axim as a previous reviewer did. May be a manufacturing tolerance problem which I lucked out on.


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