Networking Reviews

Mine died after 2 years of service (out of warranty). I also had one of their PC cards gradually fail and then stop working. It's a good product when it works, but not very reliable, in my experience.

I'm not an experienced wi-fi user, perhaps it's due to my near novice status but I found the perfomance of this set-up unpredictable and capricious. The base station was simple enough to get running, although it's range was less than a similar Netgear unit I'd tried the week before. However when I introduced the repeater, in an effort to connect my living room ( a consistant dead spot), I was only able to achive intermittant connection. This in spite of trying many different positions for the two units and following the enclosed set-up guide to the letter.

I also found the security options somewhat ambigious, I was able to get MAC addresses to work, but I had to disable the WEP to get the base station to communicate with the repeater. I had the nagging feeling that I might be exposing my network to any "war drivers" who happened to be in the neighborhood. I don't mind providing free internet access to passersby, but my files are my livelihood and I need to be careful with them.

My guess is that I could have eventually made the whole thing work by adding external antennas (which would have added 50% to the cost of the set-up) and spending a couple of hours on the phone with tech support. But the bottom line is that I was willing to spend the money but not the time.

If you have more available time than I do, this might be worth it. I'm returning it and waiting until theres a simpler way for me to get complete wireless coverage in my (not very big) house.

Maybe I just happened to get a bad one.
Anyhow, I bought a brand new Cendyne External 56K and it died about 3 months later.
I verified it's demise with diagnostic software that ran loopbacks and such, on the modem. It failed 2/3rd's of the tests.

I run EVERYTHING connected to my PC (except the laser printer)
on an UPS unit, both to "clean up" the 110 volts incoming to the PC and to avoid over or under voltage situations.

An external modem is great. Lots easier to setup under win98.

After my cendyne died, I bought a Multitech modem (business line) and have never had any problems with connections.

Cendyne went out of business in 2003, I believe.
So if you buy one of these, do it on a credit card that will provide an externded warranty of it's own.
Since Cendyne probably can't help you if you modem dies.

This card, supposedly "AirPremier" really has bugs in its firmware and/or drivers. This is with the firmware version dated 5/27/2004 on their website. I live in a high rise in downtown Chicago and *everyone* has 802.11b/g wireless networks nearby. These other wireless networks often cause interference and disconnects on the 802.11b/g frequency band (approx. 2.4Ghz) because there are too many of them in close proximity. I figured I'd solve the problem by purchasing an a/b/g access point and a/b/g card. So I went out and purchased a D-Link DI-784 access point with two DWL-AG660 cards. I have setup an 802.11a(5Ghz) wireless network on this access point and have had troubles connecting to it and staying connected to it reliably. Here are the symptoms:
My computer will often get disconnected when I connect to my computer via remote desktop. When my computer gets disconnected instead of automatcally reconnecting it remain disconnected. I am using Windows XP. I must disable the network adapter and re-enable it to get it to re-connect to the wireless network.
Other times it will say it is connected, but when I go to use a browser or ping something there is no connection. Again, I must disable and re-enable the network card.
I have two cards which I have tried on two different laptops (Sony and Toshiba), I have spent many hours checking and re-checking my settings etc, and have worked with D-Link support to no avail. I am now ordering myself a Proxim ORiNOCO 11a/b/g Combocard Wireless PC Card. I have had excellent results with them in the past and hope the results will be good again.

-Chris

P.S. I am a software engineer

My 3 /win2k systems do not see or work with this unit. My NT4.0 sp6 does see it and works fine. Dlinks tech support had me add Netwre Client and NWLink Protocols to my Win2k systems, would still not work, they then told me to update the printservers firmware to 1,38, but this is not available on their site anywhere. This thing was made in 1997 ! and has not been updated to work with newer OS's. If you only have NT 4 systems go ahead and get it. But if you have any NEW systems (OS) then pass it by.

Purchased one from Amazon/Tigerdirect. It comes with 2 sets of cables. Installation was easy and intuitive and it worked like charm for both keyword and mouse (I used both USB keyboard and mouse and had USB-to-PS/2 adaptor for both). However, it gave me highly blurry image output (LCD 1600x1200) compared to direct linking from the computer. I tried to downsize the display resolution but the blurriness was still visible. Decided to return it!
The good thing about it? (If you really do not care about the image quality which I dont think so). Easy installation, no power supply needed, free 2 sets of cables, easy hotkey from the keyboard, stylish design etc.

These guys have a long way to go. The documentation is poor, the product has many inconsistencies and is fraught with typos embedded in the interface. Stay away until they get their act together.

On the plus side, they did call me back fairly promptly from tech support, but alas, not with the answers I needed to hear.

I had this KVM switch for a few days - it has all the regular features that other KVM switches have, for a good price. Housing is metal, unlike some other plastic switches, and it looks good.
However, my main gripe with it was that even with excellent quality cable sets, the picture on the monitor was blurry. I couldn't stand it... had to get a Linksys instead that has no such problem.
Oh, and one more thing: you need cables that are different than the regular KVM switch cables. For some reason, this uses male-male monitor plugs, unlike most other KVM switches, that need male-female connectors.

Despite the description in the owner's manual and a long session with tech support, it cannot be configured for DHCP through the web interface. Difficult to impossible to re-configure without resetting with a paper clip AND use of the Windows utility. Don't be misled by the "no drivers" claim. If you don't have access to a Windows PC with an Ethernet card, you'll be disappointed. The Linksys WGA11B is smaller, cheaper, and easier to configure.

I got this card to work with Dell X5 PDA and my Sony T610 phone. However, I cannot get it to work with my Dell Latitude Laptop running Win 2000. It finds the remote device, allows connections, but if you try to move files, you get a protection error. Synchronization using the Sony software never finds the phone, even if it is connected, bonded.. Emails to Socket support get no reply. No mention of problems or hints in their FAQ. No updates for the Windows software or drivers on the website (they seem to be selling this software for previous card buyers). They get two stars because it worked with the PDA.

Gratuitous comment: why does anyone think Bluetooth has a future? It is more complicated than wifi, slower, and seems more difficult to use. Once the low power wifi chips enter the market, bye-bye Bluetooth.