Rating: Summary: Antenna should have been separated from the card Review: I bought this card last December. Opened my desktop PC, installed the driver, put the card in one of the PCI slots, had the desktop connected to the network in less than 20 minutes. Then I spent the next 7 hours trying to get good, reliable wireless connection. The major complaint I have with the card is that the Linksys should have separated the antenna from the card and allowed users to put the antenna somewhere else via a cable. With the antenna mounted on the back of the card directly, it is completed shielded by the PC's metal case, which makes the wireless transmission and reception poor. With all the cables and connectors in the back of a PC, it also makes it hard to adjust the antenna at all (I had to move the wireless card up and down the slots to find the optimal location). My wireless AP was only about 60 ft away and I was only getting 20 - 30% signal strength and link quality. From time to time it would lose the connection completely. Linksys should really have thought through this antenna issue. After all the hard work and time spent, I finally got the optimal antenna position. I am now getting 40 - 60% of signal strength and link quality. It now runs reliably at 11 mbps speed. The second problem I had was that this card interfered with my daughter's favorite music player Winamp. Whenever she played music using Wimapm, the wireless card would lose connection and stop working completely. This problem was fixed after I downloaded the latest driver and firmware for the card. Not sure if this is related to the Creative sound card interference problem reported by another review. My desktop does have a Creative sound card.
Rating: Summary: Great Wireless with a little work Review: I own the Linksys WMP-11 PCI card and a Linksys Wireless 4-port Cable/DSL router. I had a 10/100 ethernet card in my machine and was running off of the router for a good long time, so I knew the router settings were correct before I went to install my wireless card. When the day came, I disconnected the wired network, installed the wireless software, and put the card in my machine. I powered back up, and although I had 100% signal strength and 100% signal quality, the link was terrible - I could only download a few KB of data before losing a link, and I couldn't even connect to my router's configuration page. I made a quick call to Technical Support and they suggested that I upgrade my drivers and firmware in both products. I was skeptical, but I did anyway, and it worked just fine. Since then, I've moved my router to the basement, two floors below my computer, with floors and walls in the way, and you'd never even know. I run with good signal strength and quality, and I never notice loss of connection or errors on downloads. I've been very, very pleased with this purchase!
Rating: Summary: XP Users: This works great. Review: I tried the WUSB11 (USB adapter) first, which XP did not recognize at all. Linksys tech support was no help. I was online 10 minutes after opening my computer to install this card. The Linksys driver disk wasn't even necessary. This gets excellent reception a few rooms away, though I haven't tried it upstairs yet. My WAP is a BEFW11S4 V.2, for reference. It runs a little warm, which may pose a problem in a few months - we'll see. 5 stars can't be justified, however, do to the lack of Linux support. If you're too lazy to learn about the technology you rely upon (using any Microsoft OS) then I'd go with this card.
Rating: Summary: Linksys WMP11 Is A Timesaver Review: Sick of the slow download and page load times with a dialup connection I wanted to give myself the speed boost of a cable modem connection. The WMP11 saved me the trouble of having to run an additional Ethernet cable all the way up to the second floor. My wireless router and cable modem is located in the basement which is connected (via ethernet cable) to another PC. I installed the drivers then the hardware that came packed with the card. Physical card installation and driver installation were both easy. I had a 80% signal strength right out of the box! To be sure I had the latest drivers I checked the Linksys site and there was an updated driver (just released about Nov. 9, 2002). I Downloaded and installed the new driver... now my signal strength is consistently at 100%!!! The only problem I encountered was of my own doing. I misconfigured a network setting which caused my system (Windows 98 SE) to become unstable. After re-reading the card and router configuration instructions I fixed the problem. So far I've been quite satisfied and there's been nothing but smooth surfing since.
Rating: Summary: Warning: Needs firmware update / placement a problem Review: Just in case you didn't see the first review with this heading, I'm saying it again. The card "worked" right away, giving me Internet Access as well as PC-to-PC connection, but it ran painfully slow, worse than a 300-baud modem if anyone can remember what that's like. Like the other reviewer noted, I wasted hours and hours of searching for the problem - moving the base station and PC, network settings, router config, browser settings... - and I called a friend. He told me to get the new firmware and driver, which I did with another PC. That did the trick. I can't believe I had go to the Amazon.com reviews to find documentation on this problem - the LinkSys website mentioned nothing about this problem. Effectively, LinkSys is shipping a product that doesn't work as is, and they offer no help on their website or installation software and documentation. Placement problems really [stinks] with this card. I'd recommend you get the external wireless unit with USB connect to your PC; this allows you to leave the PC on the ground, but place the antenna where it needs to be. Hours and hours later, now that the PC is sitting 8 feet in the air, and the card has new firmware, it works as it should have within minutes out of the packaging.
Rating: Summary: Linksys WMP11 - easy setup-works well Review: Bought this PCI card for my daughter's 5 year old Compaq running Windows 98. Bottom line; it installed easily and works well. Just follow the directions. The router is in the basement and my daughters room is on the first floor at the far end of the house. The signal strength is 87% and the signal quality is 93%. One minor hitch. Although the hardware was working, I could not get any web pages to load until I went into the Device Manager and disabled the internal dial-up modem. (r. click My Computer > l.click properties > l. click Device Manager > l. click plus sign on network adapters > l.click on your internal modem > l.click on properties and check box - disable in hardware profile. Do the same with Dial-Up Adapter.) After that - no problem - works well.
Rating: Summary: Not worth the trouble Review: Despite everything I have tried, this unit crashes my XP system. Linksys tech support is no help....they eventually said (in almost unintelligble english)..."Well, there is something wrong, but we can't help you". I went out and bought another brand, popped it in and it worked perfectly. I threw this one in the trash.
Rating: Summary: DO NOT USE FOR ONLINE GAMING IN WinXP Review: The configuration utilities that ship with Linksys wireless products will not install/run properly on WinXP, Linksys requires you to use the WinXP Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC) service. One feature of WZC is that once every minute it will drop the current signal in search of a better one, resulting in constant, annoying interruptions to your online play. Thus, if you try to use Linksys wireless products for online gaming, prepare to be VERY annoyed. Otherwise, the card seems to work fine for normal web browsing.
Rating: Summary: Decent card at a decent price. Review: This card is very easy to work with. Just plug the card in setup the drivers and you're good to go. I'm running an all Linksys setup so compatibility isn't an issue. My only nitpick is with the antenna, it will only stand straight up or down, there is no way to keep it from dropping if you mount it sideways. My VGA cable is right above the network card so the antenna won't stay up. I lose some signal strength when its facing down, so I have to tape the antenna off to the side to get the best signal.
Rating: Summary: No Linux support Review: i just got this card installed. It rocks on windows 2000 and works well with Netgear router. But it is based on broadcom chipset. Broadcom has not released drivers for Linux. so this card does not work on linux :-((.
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