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D-Link DWL-122 802.11b 11 Mbps USB Adapter

D-Link DWL-122 802.11b 11 Mbps USB Adapter

List Price: $49.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: nice concept, needs a lot of polishing up & software tweaks.
Review: Nice concept. Completely portable. Pocket size. Wireless convenience.

I bought this unit so that I could connect some older machines wirelessly to our network at home, and also to my workplace's wireless network. It was advertised as compatible with Mac - and I had good experiences with our D-Link 614+ Wireless Router.

Using the latest drivers (1.3.2) for Mac OS X, on three different machines (brand new G4 1.25 GHz, older G3 533MHz & G4 630MHz, all with fresh installs of OS 10.2.6 or 10.2.8) I have had only very limited success. It initially works, giving a good connection, but within anything from several seconds up to an hour or two, the connection spontaneously drops and it does not reconnect. Sometimes it will only reconnect if I restart the computer. Often a simple disconnect& reconnect of the adapter gets the connection up...for a while. Without fail, I can't get through a day without the connected machine freezing completely (this should __never__ happen in OS X).

The control interface in the System Preferences sometimes displays incorrect/garbled information (wrong channel, WEP status says on when it is off, etc.)

In my opinion, as the D-Link's drivers for the DWL-122 are now, it is not reliable and not really usable on Macs. I have spoken with a Level 3 Tech person at D-Link, and gave him all my data & symptoms-he committed to passing on the information to the software/driver gurus at D-Link. Apparently, a fix is forthcoming...clearly though D-Link should have __never__ put this out on the market for Macs yet...so many of us are having headaches with it. It is most disappointing.

When they fix the drivers for the DWL-122 so that it works as well in OS X as it does on Windows, then it will deserve 5 stars, I feel. For now, only 2 stars, though.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Neat device..works just fine (Win 2K, Pentium 4 laptop)
Review: I have had a nice WiFi network using an Orinoco card at home for the past two years. The PCMCIA slot in my laptop suddenly stopped working and I was stuck. Thankfully, I learnt of USB based WiFi adapters - I approached this rather cautiously as I was concerned about compromising range. The early reviews indicate limited range with USB based adapters as compared to PCMCIA cards.
I got this device for $29.99 after rebate..(at a local retailer who is the best buy I know :-)). This worked really fine out of the box. A pleasant surprise, the wireless range is amazing.

I have my SMC router on the second floor..my office is in the basement. The get great signal strength while in the office ...I clocked the transfer speed at 2.5 Mbps in speed tests. Not bad! As good as what I used to get with my Orinoco Gold PCMCIA based card which is believed to have the best range in its class.

I would strongly recommend this to anyone.

A word of caution. I suggest you download the latest version of the driver available at the D-Link site. The latest version (v 3.00.04 for Win2000) is much better than what was shipped with the item.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Do NOT buy this crap
Review: I have a powerbook with MacOSX 10.3, and it only crashes when I'm using this adaptor. I've gone weeks without a single crash, and as soon as I use this adaptor for more than 2 hours, I get a kernel panic. Their tech support is no help either. I needed to buy this because my Airport card can't see the DWL-900AP access point we have (we have an all D-link network... a big waste of money). Go linksys or netgear, but definitely NOT D-link.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Feel totally lead-on by D-link (iMac 400MHz 10.3.3)
Review: No end of problems, including the adapter not even being recognised by the D-Link software! Needed to unplug, and plug in again to get a connection.

Our vendor has now got an updated driver direct from D-Link that has improved things but after restart the DWL-122 still won't connect (incorrrect WEP key), although it you click 'connect' it appears to connect. Although yet to actually get a network connection!!

Seem to be spending all our time travelling back to the vendor for them to test/fix(!?) and collecting it.

Feel 100% conned by D-Link, into buying a half hearted Mac product, certainly won't be using them again.

Don't waste your time and money, instead buy an AirPort card. You have been warned ;)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mac OS X Drivers cause hangs
Review: Wish I'd read these reviews before purchasing - now I'll have to return it. Am seeing hangs on my iBook running 10.3.3 with this device plugged in. Connection is also intermittent and takes a long time to come up when waking from sleep or booting. Driver panel fails at time as well. This is as poor a product as I've ever seen. I wish there was an alternative but my experience with the MacSense Aeropad USB 802.11b is nearly as bad.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great connection, great price!
Review: Tested this against a D-link 614+ 802.11b wireless router and after a few teething issues (more on that later) got it working just fine. When the router is in the same room as the DWL 122, I get a 100 % connection rate, after moving the router a few rooms away, the connection rate drops to about 75 % but that doesn't really affect the upload/download speed in the slightest (1200/300). (I tested the speeds using the speed test tool at www.dslreports.com).

I had some problems getting it connected initially, the problems though were mostly caused due my ham handed go-it-alone configuration attempts. Wouldn't have been difficult if I hadn't tried to set the SSID/WEP/MAC address filtering from the get go. Called up the tech support when I was totally frustrated, and spoke to an extremely rude operator, who obviously din't know the first thing about the products. Luckily on my second attempt, got this nice gentleman who managed to untangle my mess and get me up and running.

My reason for giving it 5 stars:
1. I din't want to penalize D-link for my clumsy configuration attempts,
2. The connection is so strong and sweet, couldn't find any fault with it,
3. The DWL 122 looks pretty nice and is easily hidden from view.

My rig:
PIII 450 Mhz, Win 2000, SBC YAHOO DSL

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mac Wireless (somewhat) quickly.
Review: Well, I finally bit the bullet and decided to see if I could make our house wireless. I purchased the D-link wireless router and this USB wireless adaptor and had everything installed and hooked up within an hour.

First the bad: I am using a Mac PowerBook and the drivers and software were not as easy as previous plug-and-play items. At first, I could not get a consistent connection after reboot. I would have to go back into my network settings and fiddle with them for a good 5 minutes until the computer finally connected. I think the problem is because I had the wireless adaptor plugged in at all times. If I plug the adaptor in right before I need the internet...everything works fine.

Now the good news. It works. And works very well. I have a 3 story house and the router is on the third floor in my office. The connection on the bottom floor is about 50%+ signal strength--pretty impressive. I cannot get a connection outdoors, but that may be due to the fact that I am in an all brick home with lots of electrical wires outside.

I was looking for a solution that would allow my wife to work downstairs wirelessly. Since she is not a big computer geek, the solution had to be very easy, simply to use, and require nothing more than opening the laptop and start working. This product certainly fit the bill.

I would have no problem recommending this device, particularly since the price point is very attractive. As a Mac user, it is refreshing to have a company that supports the platform; one more reason to purchase this item.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Freezes my Beige G3 with Mac OS X.2.8
Review: I have to agree with everybody here. It works great when it works. But after about 10 minutes it hangs my Mac and if I wait more than that I get a nice message telling me to restart my Mac. I'm taking mine back to the store I bought it from.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a hunk of junk!
Review: I installed the drivers from CD. I re-started computer as directed. Computer will not boot! I call tech support, and I wait a couple hours without anyone anwering. I search D-link support board and there is no information at all!!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Connectivity Issues With Macs
Review: Though they say they support Macs, I've had nothing but problems with this card. The installation went smoothly, but connectivity on OS 10.2.8 was inititially a problem. After many hours of different configurations, I got it to work. Then, I find that it was locking up periodically. My Mac works fine without the adapter plugged in. Who want periodic lock ups? Not me. I don't recommend this item if you own a Mac. Can't tell you about installing on PCs --havn't gotten that far yet--

Oh yeah, the updated driver version on their web-site doesn't match the driver version it installs (tech support wasn't able to explain why). What's up D-Link??


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