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D-Link DWL-900AP USB Wireless Access Point w/ SNMP

D-Link DWL-900AP USB Wireless Access Point w/ SNMP

List Price: $179.99
Your Price: $94.58
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Poor UI--Mac Address Filtering works...
Review: I'm in agreement with the review from September 30. The software included with the DWL900AP is sorely lacking. There were times where my hitting the 'Apply' button had no discernable impact on the Access Point's operation. Only after I hit 'OK' and re-loaded would the Access Point change its behavior.

In addition, if you install the USB drivers for the access point on a computer, despite USB's hot-swap ability, make sure you reboot prior to trying to modify configurations.

But you can get mac address filtering to work. The file needs to be in a specific format. Each address must be on it's own line, and the last line in the file should be empty (i.e. hit Enter after you're done entering the last entry).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Terrific speed and signal strength
Review: I've been using the DWL-650+ card with the matching DWL-900AP for a year now and have been completely excited and happy with its performance.

Its range through two rooms, up stairs and down a hall is very good. I've never once had a problem with dropped signals. I turn my laptop on and the signal stays solid until I turn it off. I'm using 128-bit WEP encryption, as well.

The speed is terrific. I applaud D-Link. I picked this combo because of the 22Mbps data rate. I can tell you that it really does double your throughput. On top of that, D-Link has a new firmware for the 900AP and driver for the 650+ that provided 4x/44Mbps mode. Note: it never actually negotiates at 44Mbps, but it does boost the speed. For example, at 2x/22Mbps, I get an average of 6.5Mbps (tested with QCheck from www.netiq.com), and at 4x/44Mbps, I get an average of 9.2Mbps... almost a 50% boost. Advertisement aside, getting 9Mbps from 802.11b is absolutely terrific.

Although I'm so high on this combo, if you're thinking of ordering any combo, I suggest going with D-Link's Extreme G 802.11g combo of DI-614 and DWL-G650, like I've done (should arrive in a few days).

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Works... barely
Review: The software included with this device is terrible. There were bugs everywhere, mispellings in the interface, etc. I downloaded the latest version from their website, which had improvements. After playing with it for a while, I got it working. However, some of the features of it don't work (like Mac address filtering) because the software is horrible. Also, the device just stops working periodically, and you need to mess with the configuration for a while until it'll start working again.

I've been updating the firmware and Windows software for the past week (bought it last week), and it seems like they put up a new version of the firmware every 2 days. This is probably a fair indicator that the device was released with immature software, and that they're struggling to get the thing to a point where it actually works for their customers.

I do not recommend this product to anyone.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Works... barely
Review: This is a "cheap access point", in all possible interpretations of the phrase. Sure it's very inexpensive, but it has its quirks. None that can't be overcome, of course.

#1 - Setup
The physical installation is a snap. Plug in the cables and you're done. Installing and configuring with the USB configuration program was easy. But then you have to switch to the SNMP configuration tool if you want to use any of the more useful features like MAC authentication. Only problem: you need to assign it an IP address, which is hard for those of us that use public IP addresses, since you either waste a public IP or set up a private IP on a different mask and alias the configuring computer's interface to communicate with the private netmask. It's manageable for someone that does networking for a living, but certainly not for a typical consumer.

#2 - Signal Strength and Latency
I don't think this is as strong as most AP's. I can AdHoc between two cards across my apartment complex, but I only get very weak intermittent signals using the AP from the same location. While playing games such as WarCraft 3 over the WLAN, I often times get timeouts and lag, for something that only averages 20ms in ping times even if the cards are in good range with 80-90% signal.

#3 - SNMP
For a product that claims to be SNMP manageable, it certainly isn't SNMP compliant. It uses its own proprietary SNMP OID's and can't be used with typical management programs. On the good side, there's a Perl filter online for those interested in running MRTG for bandwidth usage graphs over this AP. VERY useful.

Overall, I would recommend this AP as it is very cheap and still useful for all my needs.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cheap Access Point
Review: This is a "cheap access point", in all possible interpretations of the phrase. Sure it's very inexpensive, but it has its quirks. None that can't be overcome, of course.

#1 - Setup
The physical installation is a snap. Plug in the cables and you're done. Installing and configuring with the USB configuration program was easy. But then you have to switch to the SNMP configuration tool if you want to use any of the more useful features like MAC authentication. Only problem: you need to assign it an IP address, which is hard for those of us that use public IP addresses, since you either waste a public IP or set up a private IP on a different mask and alias the configuring computer's interface to communicate with the private netmask. It's manageable for someone that does networking for a living, but certainly not for a typical consumer.

#2 - Signal Strength and Latency
I don't think this is as strong as most AP's. I can AdHoc between two cards across my apartment complex, but I only get very weak intermittent signals using the AP from the same location. While playing games such as WarCraft 3 over the WLAN, I often times get timeouts and lag, for something that only averages 20ms in ping times even if the cards are in good range with 80-90% signal.

#3 - SNMP
For a product that claims to be SNMP manageable, it certainly isn't SNMP compliant. It uses its own proprietary SNMP OID's and can't be used with typical management programs. On the good side, there's a Perl filter online for those interested in running MRTG for bandwidth usage graphs over this AP. VERY useful.

Overall, I would recommend this AP as it is very cheap and still useful for all my needs.


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