Customer Reviews

3COM Corp OFFICECONNECT WIRELESS 802.11G ( 3CRWE154G72 )

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have bought this card together with the 11g wireless router (3crwe554g72). The combo is great as long as you use WEP or non encrypted.

When ever I use WPA, the connection establishes, works for an hour or so and then drops for 5-10 minutes. I need to reassociate with the router again. Sometimes I need to pull out the card and even (rarely) restart the router.

This WPA problem may be related to the router (supports WPA), the card (supports WPA ONLY trough the OS), or the OS-drivers them selfs (Win XP PRO). However it seems, that some products do not have this issue under Win XP, so this indicates that the problem is either the router or the card.

When the WPA issue will be resolved by for instance a firmware upgrade, I will give this product 5 stars.

Please note: alla the newest (/6 april 2004) relevant updates for Win XP, the newst drivers for the card and the newest firwares updates for the router was installed!

***Review Update Notes 2004 28 July***
Ok, the card and router were droping connection when WPA was used. Also, I could never boot my notebook with the card in it. I needed to eject the card, boot the notebook and insert the card back in.

Now: both the boot problem and the WPA connection drops was originating from the fact that 3CRWE154G72 has a hardware failure! I got my card exchange by 3com to another card. It seems that ALL 3CRWE154G72 cards have HARDWARE ISSUES, since 3com offered me another card, namely 3CRWE154A72 (Works great! Buy it instead!). The hardware issue may be restricted to some notebooks only - not sure.

Given this, I give this card rating of only one star! 3coms support earns 5 star for fast and customer friendly support.
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As you can tell with my review of the 11g base, I'm completely sold on this 3com configuration. I've used this card in my laptop, and it's been smooth as butter, plugging in, pulling the card, going on standby, roving to other rooms, firing it back up, it's solid.

CD installation of the software was the only minor trouble spot... and it's simple... the Windows plug-and-play hardware wizard will ask you for folder locations of drivers (the folder it tries to look in by default doesn't have the drivers... they're in sub-folders)... you may have to open up a Windows Explorer window, and look thru a few folders on the CD to find the right file, then copy the folder location to the wizard. Took only an extra minute. And it might have been because I'm using Win98.

After installation (which was still incredibly easy, compared to any other hardware install), the thing has been perfect. If it ever glitches or causes me a headache, I'll come back and amend this review pronto, promise. Also, don't forget to check the 3com website to get rebate money back.