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Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter

Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter

List Price: $116.00
Your Price: $49.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works great with Win XP
Review: Installation was a snap - a few minutes of one's time. Find an available PCI slot and load the included driver with the supplied CD. Once installation is complete, the card will detect all available networks in the area. All you have to do is enter the necessary WEP key (if enabled) in ASCI or HEX format, depending on the type of wireless router.

In my case, I am using an Apple Airport Base Station for my two Apple computers. I recently added a Windows PC using XP. I initially had hesitations in wireless network compatibility for the "G" standard properly commuicating with my "B" standard Base Station. I finally decided on buying the Linksys and found that there was no compatibility issue at all.

The signal strength is excellent. I never had any problems with my network status and online surfing experience.

My only complaint is the unattractive long, generic-looking antenna. Compare this with other products like D-Link, Netgear and SMC Networks that have a short (flat/square design) antenna.

Why did I settle on the Linksys brand despite the ugly antenna design? For one, I have great experience with their wireless router (BEFW11S4) which I purchased years ago during it's initial release and have not had any problem with it. Second, Linksys is the current leader in wireless technology. I am hoping that they will be able to provide excellent drivers should compatibility problems arise with the latest operating systems. Third, Linksys is owned by another leader in the networking industry, Cisco Systems. These factors should be enough to assure a sturdier product.

But before you purchase on any product, do your own research for your specific system compatibility.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Intermittent Disconnects
Review: I recently installed an entire wireless network using Linksys 54g products.

The installation took place in one room. The router was to sit in the room with the desktop, but I also installed the laptop in that room because it was easier than walking around.

The first issue was that a neighbor had the same system (or 802.11b) and failed to secure he network so I accidentially picked his up and was a little confused until I realized what happened.

Now the desktop has XP, the laptop has Win2k.

Either the linksys desktop software (Which is different from the laptop software. Why????) or the PCI card itself had problems because the wireless connection would drop all the time, and to reconnect you needed to go through this whole process (about 3 clicks every 5 minutes as it dropped). It would not reconnect automatically even when I set the network as the default network to connect to, and it would repeatedly pick up the neighbors network even though I kept deleting it (you'd think it'd be able to detect the same MAC address and once I reject it once, it never brings it up again...).

During this time the laptop's PCMIA card worked fine.

We ended up hard wiring the desktop to the router, because they were in the same room anyways (the laptop of course would be used to wander the house).

Can I recommend this card then? No. It didn't work. Do I recommend the PCMIA card and the router? Yes.

Additionally the laptop software was much more intuitive than the desktop stuff.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How Can They Sell This?
Review: This is my second try at installing a Linksys wireless PCI card in my Win2000 computer. I returned the first one to LinkSys because it locked up my computer during boot. The one they sent as a replacement gets through boot but fails to start (Device Manager troubleshoot error code 10, "Device won't start"). The only reason I rate it 1 star is because there's no lower selection -- if I could give this product ZERO STARS, I would. (Actually, I don't feel too bad about the 1 star ... at least they sent me a replacement.) I should have heeded the reviews here regarding this product, but I felt constructing a wireless network using only the products from a single manufacturer would yield the least number of interface and connection problems. Wrong-o.

Having two LinkSys PCI cards fail is surprising because I also have their Wireless-G router (WRT54G) installed and running, albeit in wired mode, and it's performing flawlessly. Its predecessor, a wired-only router (BEFSR41), also performed well and without problems.

But I'm giving up on this company. My next wireless-g PCI card will be D-LINK, which has much better reviews here at Amazon.

Now to find out how to return this lame PCI card and get back as much of my money as I can.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: No significant problems so far.
Review: I've been reading other user's reviews on this product and I'm not really sure where all the problems are coming from. First off, I am a computer technician with four years experience in the field, so I am fairly familiar with computers. But I've had this product for about one month and I've noticed nothing significant in terms of problems.

I am running 2 Linksys wireless-G PCI cards along with the Linksys wireless-G broadband router (WRT54G). I have one machine running Windows XP about 5 feet from the router. I have a second machine running Windows 2000 upstairs approximately 25 feet away from the router. The machine next to the router gets excellent signal strength and the machine upstairs gets very good signal strength which really has no negative effect on the user's experience with Internet browsing (DSL).

These are a couple of things that I learned while installing these devices:
- For the Windows 2000 machine (and other 9x clients), the instructions specifically say to install the software BEFORE installing the card. I have no idea why this would be the case because Windows should be Plug N Play, but for some reason, it will not detect the hardware until the software is in place. (I used the device drivers from the CD, I did not use any updated drivers from the website).
- Do not download the latest firmware (2.02.2) to the router unless there is something wrong with the router (unless you're adventurous). I updated the router firmware to the latest version from the Linksys website as soon as I was up and running and the router stopped grabbing an IP address from my ISP. After some frustration, I finally reset the router to factory default settings and the router came back up. I don't know if that is the definitive solution to the problem, but that's what worked for me.
- Do not power off the router by pulling the power cord from the back of the router. I have not fully investigated this yet, but it seems like the router loses its settings for WEP and SSID when it's powered off. This can cause some more frustration (especially since I'm using 128-bit WEP).

These are the things that I found out installing my devices. But besides those issues, I have not had any other major problems. I have no comment on Linksys customer service since I never called them. I hope that those who complained about this product were able to get their problems resolved. But I have noticed nothing significant so far. I will write another review if things change in the near future.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Unstable Junk
Review: Do not buy this card. It will break on you within 6 months if you ever get it to work properly. This is my second card both have failed with the dreaded (will not start code 10) error within 6 months of purchase.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: no worries
Review: This is a great card for your desktop. I have a homebuilt PC runing windows XP. I set up a totally wireless G network yesterday morning with a linksys wireless router kit and the desktop was the first to go online (and it was not the computer used to configure the router). Sofware and hardware Installation were both easy and took less than 5 minutes. I get great reception about 40 feet from the router on a different floor of my apartment. I have been able to stream long streams without dropping. Excelent card, worth the extra dough.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mystified about the negative reviews.
Review: I cannot understand the negative reviews of this product. I used 12 of them for a customer in one network and they have been running for 2 years without a single issue.

My only criticism is that there is no antenna extension available and for a workstation squirreled int he back of a desk behind a wall just cannot get decent signal strength.

Other than this, this card set up the first time and works wonderfully.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Stay away if you have older hardware
Review: Got one of those, and even after a month trying I couldn't get it working properly with older hardware (Celeron, P2, P3). It has been reported by several users that this card has issues with Intel BX/ZX chipsets, once you plug the card the system does not boot at all. Linksys support was useless solving this issue.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Plug and play on MAC!
Review: Zero installation hassles. Shows up just as an airport card would. Great product to get the old G4 connected without the wires. Reccommended.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad Installation and Linksys Customer service
Review: Could not get the card to work properly with any level of consistency. OS is Win98SE with AMI Bios. Bios would recognize the board and assign an IRQ but Wlan monitor would indicate card inactive. Attempt to call Linksys Customer service and was informed to 1st update Bios (it is at recent), no help at all. 2nd call I was emailed a firmware upgrade for the router (WRT45G) and a prior version of the driver (Sometimes, older drivers actually do work, but not this time), ver 1.2. No luck. Amazon replaced the card with no questoins asked, but the new card performed the exact same way. No level of driver/irq/Bios tweaking was able to get the card to run. I am very disappointed with Linksys and Cisco.
I am considering replacing the entire setup with DLink.


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