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D-Link DWL-650 Wireless 802.11b PC Card

D-Link DWL-650 Wireless 802.11b PC Card

List Price: $49.99
Your Price: $37.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Does not work with T-series Thinkpad
Review: Being an IT geek, I did not think there would be any problem with this NIC. but to my disappointment, it did not work with my T21 Thinkpad. It seemed to install ok, but after I rebooted and put the card in, it got the Blue Screen of Death. In fact, anytime I inserted the card, I got the BSOD. I checked for IRQ conflicts, but could not find any. The client software did not recognize the card, even though the device manager indicated that it was working. Oddly, when I put an Orinoco gold card in, the Client software for the D-link became activated - weird...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: okay, but not the best choice
Review: I bought this card along with a wireless router. It worked okay, but the signal strength was very weak from only a few rooms away. My router is in the study and when I went to the living room (about 100 feet away) the card couldn't pick up a signal. At first I thought it was a problem with the router, but then I read some more reviews and got the impression that another card might work better. I ordered another brand and it works much better. Now I can sit in my living room and surf away. Also, and this is important, if you are thinking of using a software "sniffer" program to find other wireless networks when you travel, you should know that most of them will not work with this card. Most programs rely on a Lucent chipset.

Finally, the antenna on the D-Link feels flimsy. I had the feeling that if I bumped it the wrong way (while balancing my notebook on my lap), it might snap off. So every time I wasn't using the card I was careful to take it out of the computer, which is a hassle.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The DWL-650 Control Utility doesn't work with XP.
Review: When I received the DWL-650 NIC I loaded the Control Utility that came on the DWL-650 CD. After loading the DWL-650 Control Utility and installing the DWL-650 NIC, the computer would continually reboot as if it were stuck in a loop. Once the Windows XP screen came up the computer would again reboot. If I removed DWL-650 from the PCMCIA socket the computer would boot into Windows XP correctly. But, if I reinstalled the DWL-650 the computer would immediately reboot and would go into the same loop again. When I uninstalled the Control Utility the computer would again boot correctly into Windows XP even with the DWL-650 installed in the PCMCIA socket. It was not until I called D-Link the third time, about this trouble, that I was told that the Control Utility that came on the DWL-650 CD was not compatible with Windows XP. Leaving the Control Utility off the computer solved that problem but I also had download and install the XP drivers to get the system working. The XP drivers did not come with the DWL-650. I feel D-Link should have a note either on their website or in the DWL-650 box describing the compatibility issues with Windows XP.

If you are thinking about switching to a wireless system it would be a good idea to go the manfacturer's website and download all the latest software and driver's before you install the wireless system. Especially if you are going to use wireless only. Luckily I had a desktop computer connected to the wireless router's port via a CAT 5 cable which allowed me to download the drivers I needed to correct the issues and get it working. Once it was working I was quite happy.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Good price but hardware issues to be aware of....
Review: Purchases a DLINK DI-713 access point and DLINK DWL-650 pcmcia card. The AP works great but the PCMCIA first did not establish a connection for my DELL laptop with Win XP on it. Tech support spent 2hrs with me trying to resolve but was unable to. I then tried to install on my other DELL laptop with NT4.0 and now the PCMCIA port on that laptop is toast. Not a great track record for software and driver installations, but their support is very helpful and their hardware seems well made. Stick with an 802.11 Intel or Linksys pcmcia - which may cost more but cause less grief.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An ordinary wireless PC Card
Review: I've bought both the 1000 AP and the DWL-650. No problems at all getting it hooked up.

But as this was my first hands-on experience with wireless LAN's, I got a little bit disappointed when doing some benchmarks. First, I cant get more than about 5-6mbit. Secondly, my CPU-usage goes up to about 80% when transfering data (without WEP enabled). After some investigation on the net I found that a maximum speed of 5-6mbit is what you should expect.

Im really disappointed of the CPU-utilization. On my system I get about 10% CPU-usage with every 10mbit on my 100mbit NIC. Over wireless I get over 10% of CPU-utilization for every 1mbit.

Surfin the web and so on works nicely. But watching a highresolution movie is a no no because of the CPU-utilization.
My system: Dell Inspiron 8100 1.13GHz P3 WinXP

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Beware of PCMCIA vs cardbus setup
Review: I've worked in the computing field for longer than I care to remember and was confident that I could get this card to work without a problem. It took me about four hours to get the card to load its drivers correctly.

In a Toshiba Tecra 730 XCDT running Win98 1st Ed., the card drivers were reported to be improperly installed by the OS. I had my PC card slot configured as PCMCIA during first install. After downloading the latest drivers found on the company's web site and installing the latest Win98 network driver patches from MS; I still had no success.

After, on a lark, switching the PC card slot to cardbus/16bit; the PC card was located and started running without an issue.

Right now I have the remote PC located four rooms and one floor away from the D-Link acces point and get, on the average, 85% signal strength. Also, I tested the connection speed and average approximately 5 to 8 Mbit/sec speeds.

Good product for the price. Linksys is much better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy setup, good range, low price
Review: I installed the card on a laptop running Windows 2000 -- no problems at all. But note that the manual is written for Windows 98/ME. Fortunately, there is a foldout card that includes the Windows 2000 setup.

Setup and use is easy and quite intuitive. Product works well with the campus network I tested it on....

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: No Good for windows XP
Review: Certainly not my best purchase, recently.
The linksys was out of stock, so I bought the D-link.
I've nothing bad to say about the company in general, but buying this card for windows XP was a mistake.

**Some** reference to XP should've been made in the packaging, and a more obvious link to the drivers should be made on their web site.

I'm using the card now, but it took a bit of investigative work to find the new driver and install it correctly AND Win XP is now giving me an occasional error when it restarts. Also, complains when I try to return to a hardwire connection (even though I reboot in between).
Perhaps there's a reason why they've (D-link) not yet received the Microsoft XP seal of approval.
I'm sure there are better cards to be found.
Our home has 8 computers, a few of which we built from components; we're serious computer users, yet I just spent a half a day getting this new card to play nicely with XP, and I'm not sure I've succeeded.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: It crashed 3 different computers on install
Review: It didn't work for me. I tried it in 3 different laptops - 1 XP and 2 ME machines. It crashed all 3 - I never got it to install. I couldn't find any patches on their website and D-Link customer service never responded to email technical support requests. I returned the card. Love the Amazon return process! That was the best part about buying this card!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Windows xp supported
Review: I bought this because the drivers support windows xp. The linksys ones don't. So if you use XP, get this. It works well communicating with a linksys base station.


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