D Link AirPlus DWL-520+ Wireless 22MBPS PCI Adapter

by D-Link

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000068UY8
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 3, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The D-Link AirPlus DWL-520+ PCI adapter is an enhanced 802.11b network adapter. The DWL-520+ is fully compatible with the IEEE 802.11b standard, making it interoperable with all existing 802.11b-compliant devices. Now you can transfer files or communicate up to 20 percent faster than with earlier 802.11b solutions, even when connected to a standard 802.11b network. When you're connected to other D-Link AirPlus products, the performance is even greater--up to 22 Mbps.

D-Link's PCI adapter also features 256-bit WEP encryption that gives you a higher level of security for your data and communication, and a configuration utility that can quickly and automatically discover available wireless networks and create and save detailed connectivity profiles for those networks accessed most often.

The DWL-520+ is a powerful 32-bit PCI adapter that installs quickly and easily on desktop PCs, and, when used with other D-Link AirPlus products, automatically connects to the network. And all D-Link wireless adapters can be used in ad hoc mode to connect directly with other cards, or in infrastructure mode to connect with a wireless access point for access to the Internet in your office or home network.

Product Description

D-Link Air Plus Networks can transfer Data up to 22MBPS up to @X faster than standard 802.11 b Networks On Standard networks D-Link airPlus products provide upt to 20% faster data transfer rates.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to Install and Connects with Router Automatically, September 5, 2002

By 

Richard - See all my reviews

This review is from: D Link AirPlus DWL-520+ Wireless 22MBPS PCI Adapter (Personal Computers)

I'd like to contribute a positive review here, since the previous reviewers seemed to have problems with this card. I bought this card to go with my D-Link Wireless Router, and everything has worked fine since I bought this. I haven't had one issue since I've installed this card.

My signal strength has always been above 75%, but I don't expect it to change much since it is installed in a desktop PC. I am running Windows 2000 and I don't notice much of a difference if at all in my internet access speeds.

I used to have a wired network but wanted to expand to more than 2 computers and my hub was old and slow. So with this wireless upgrade to my network I was able to install everything in about 1 hour. I bought the D-Link router with 4 wired ports still use one wired PC connection, and another PC has this PCI card in it, my laptop has the PCMCIA version and they all network together quite nicely. I was impressed with the short time it took me to implement this change.

Thats my experience with D-Link and their wireless networking products. I hope your experience is as easy as mine.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super fast, but requires extra configuration to work with XP, December 8, 2003

By 

Stephen Britton "tech writer and web developer" (A quiet suburb outside NYC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: D Link AirPlus DWL-520+ Wireless 22MBPS PCI Adapter (Personal Computers)

When I first installed this product, I had my doubts about the whether it could work in an area with numberous APs. I live in an apartment building and there are three wireless networks operating next to mine. One of them doesn't use an encryption. (I have tried to explain to the guy how to use WEP and he doesn't want to listen.)

Anyway, when I first installed the DWL-520+ in my Windows XP Pro desktop. It kept trying to jump over to the other networks. I turned on WEP and tried to use the default Wireless manager that comes with XP. Using XP to manage the connection turned out to be the problem. I would connect to my own network and then five minutes later it would drop the connection try to link to my neighbor's wireless network.

Finally, I visited the DWL-520+ support section on D-Link's website and discovered that D-Link recommends disabling the Windows XP Wireless Manager (it goes on by default) and turn on D-Link's own wireless manager software. It took me less than five minutes to follow the screen shots which showed me how to turn off the Microsoft's XP Wireless Manager by using the "Properties" section in "My Computer". Since I started using D-Link's wireless manager, I haven't had any problems with the connection. In fact, because I have a D-Link DI-614+ wireless router, I am able to connect as fast as the advertised 22 Mbps. If I needed second desktop, I would buy another DWL-520+.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars DWL-520+ and SoundBlaster Live! Value Incompatibilities, January 31, 2003

By 

Bob Paehr (Islip, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: D Link AirPlus DWL-520+ Wireless 22MBPS PCI Adapter (Personal Computers)

I recently purchased a D-Link Airplus DI-614+ and a D-Link DWL-520+ Wireless PCI adapter card. If you want to avoid many frustrating hours of e-mails and calling the D-Link support team (on-hold times were usually 25 minutes), it may be wise NOT to purchase the DWL-520+ card if you have a "SoundBlaster Live! Value" sound card.

In my case, most of the time when I had both cards installed, the computer froze during the boot process. This was in a Pentium3 500MHz computer. Only after placing the wireless card in PCI Slot 3 and the SBLive card in PCI Slot 5 was I able to get the computer to finish booting to the desktop. Even then, the SBLive card still did not function well, sometimes causing echoing sound effects, or spontaneous re-booting of the computer. The D-Link support team insisted that they got good results with the SBLive card in Slot 5 and the wireless card in Slot 4 -- which in my system was one of the freeze-on-booting situations.

When installed by itself without the SBLive card installed, the D-Link DWL-520+ worked flawlessly with the D-Link DI-614+ Access Point Router. But I did not wish to run that computer without a sound card.

After spending way too many hours trying to get this system to work, I returned the D-Link devices and purchased the LinkSys BEFW11S4 Access Point Router for use near my new computer, and the WUSB11 Wireless USB Adapter for my older computer. I am now effortlessly using the internet on both of my computers.

One additional point -- the people at D-Link will not provide you with support help for File Sharing problems between computers on a wireless network. I'm not sure if this is true for other wireless manufacturers.