Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys WMP11 Wireless-B PCI Card

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

I bought this card last December. Opened my desktop PC, installed the driver, put the card in one of the PCI slots, had the desktop connected to the network in less than 20 minutes. Then I spent the next 7 hours trying to get good, reliable wireless connection.

The major complaint I have with the card is that the Linksys should have separated the antenna from the card and allowed users to put the antenna somewhere else via a cable. With the antenna mounted on the back of the card directly, it is completed shielded by the PC's metal case, which makes the wireless transmission and reception poor. With all the cables and connectors in the back of a PC, it also makes it hard to adjust the antenna at all (I had to move the wireless card up and down the slots to find the optimal location). My wireless AP was only about 60 ft away and I was only getting 20 - 30% signal strength and link quality. From time to time it would lose the connection completely. Linksys should really have thought through this antenna issue. After all the hard work and time spent, I finally got the optimal antenna position. I am now getting 40 - 60% of signal strength and link quality. It now runs reliably at 11 mbps speed.

The second problem I had was that this card interfered with my daughter's favorite music player Winamp. Whenever she played music using Wimapm, the wireless card would lose connection and stop working completely. This problem was fixed after I downloaded the latest driver and firmware for the card. Not sure if this is related to the Creative sound card interference problem reported by another review. My desktop does have a Creative sound card.

I own the Linksys WMP-11 PCI card and a Linksys Wireless 4-port Cable/DSL router. I had a 10/100 ethernet card in my machine and was running off of the router for a good long time, so I knew the router settings were correct before I went to install my wireless card.

When the day came, I disconnected the wired network, installed the wireless software, and put the card in my machine. I powered back up, and although I had 100% signal strength and 100% signal quality, the link was terrible - I could only download a few KB of data before losing a link, and I couldn't even connect to my router's configuration page.

I made a quick call to Technical Support and they suggested that I upgrade my drivers and firmware in both products. I was skeptical, but I did anyway, and it worked just fine. Since then, I've moved my router to the basement, two floors below my computer, with floors and walls in the way, and you'd never even know. I run with good signal strength and quality, and I never notice loss of connection or errors on downloads. I've been very, very pleased with this purchase!

Installed fine but was getting very poor throughput rates. Downloaded the new firmware (12/13/01) and everthing worked great. Also updated the software and drivers.

I would recommend downloading the updates and installing from there and not the CD because upgrading required me to shutdown, remove the card, reboot, unistall, reboot, install new drivers, shutdown, install card "a real pain".

Firmware
ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/wmp11upgrade.exe

Driver

ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/wmp11.zip

PS
I have a creative labs sound card and have no problems. Perhaps the driver upgrade is the issue.

Just in case you didn't see the first review with this heading, I'm saying it again. The card "worked" right away, giving me Internet Access as well as PC-to-PC connection, but it ran painfully slow, worse than a 300-baud modem if anyone can remember what that's like. Like the other reviewer noted, I wasted hours and hours of searching for the problem - moving the base station and PC, network settings, router config, browser settings... - and I called a friend. He told me to get the new firmware and driver, which I did with another PC. That did the trick.

I can't believe I had go to the Amazon.com reviews to find documentation on this problem - the LinkSys website mentioned nothing about this problem. Effectively, LinkSys is shipping a product that doesn't work as is, and they offer no help on their website or installation software and documentation.

Placement problems really [stinks] with this card. I'd recommend you get the external wireless unit with USB connect to your PC; this allows you to leave the PC on the ground, but place the antenna where it needs to be.

Hours and hours later, now that the PC is sitting 8 feet in the air, and the card has new firmware, it works as it should have within minutes out of the packaging.

This product is an adaptation of the popular Linksys instant wireless network card for laptops. Laptops are subject to greater
flexibility of positioning than PC's. I pushed this product to the max. In a large mid tower case, on the floor, in an armoir, facing away from the access point, through several walls,closets, bookcases,appliances and about 100 feet away from the access point, I got a signal strength of about 0-6% at best.
When I moved the PC to the living room, 50 feet away,no armoir, still on the floor,oriented towards the WAP11 I got 70% and a good Internet connection. So I returned the WMP11 for a WUSB11
usb adapter. It is easier to install, requires no power cord. It can be elevated to the ceiling if you wish, while leaving the PC "in the armoir where it belongs"-wife talking. I set it on top
and got a 26-40% reading -enough to go! So I would only recommend this card for PC's at desktop level less than 80-90 feet away from the source.

I might be a bird brain, but I didn't notice this product wasn't compatible with windows xp. I purchased their router which was operational out of the box. However, the wmp11 wireless pci network card won't work. when i called linksys the tech support told me flat out that i needed a different card. too bad for me i already discarded the original packaging. it should be directly stated on their packaging WON'T WORK WITH WINDOWS XP.

Everything about the bad antenna placement is true! I have the computer in normal position, the reception is ~10%. If I turn it around with the antenna facing out, the reception suddenly goes ~85%. That is how much blockage a steel box can make. You might as well get the USB one instead, if you haven't buy it yet.
But if you already did, don't worry, it works. But make sure you install it right. If you are using Windows XP, DO NOT USE THE DIRECT INSTALLATION ON CD. You want the system to detect it and search for driver in the disk. What happen is that if you install the driver first, the software that come with the card and windows default wireless software will be competing for the card and the connection keep dropping after a few minutes. For other windows system, you want to use the software because there are no wireless software build in.
After hours of installtion and trying different placement. I finally decided to place my mail server inside-out on the highest shelf of the kitchen, which give me ~100% signal.
Finally, you might want to check one more thing before setting up a 802.11b network- any 2.4GHz phones. I have a Panasonic 2.4GHz phone and whenever I turn it on, the network is immediately offline. I eventually disconnect the Phone and use only a 900MHz one.

I bought this without reading another review then read the last guys review. I was really worried that it would not work. I got it, followed the directions to install software before installing the card, installed the card and it works perfectly. I am also using the Linksys Access point. Made a few security changes, uploaded the changes to the access point and it works. I had a little trouble with signal strength but I moved the access point up a few feet in the closet and got much better results. The only problem with the antenna on the card is that if it is not in the top slot, it has limited motion because of all the other cables. All in all though it works well on my NT box, 2000 box and 98 box. I tried all three after reading the other review.

Sick of the slow download and page load times with a dialup connection I wanted to give myself the speed boost of a cable modem connection. The WMP11 saved me the trouble of having to run an additional Ethernet cable all the way up to the second floor. My wireless router and cable modem is located in the basement which is connected (via ethernet cable) to another PC.

I installed the drivers then the hardware that came packed with the card. Physical card installation and driver installation were both easy. I had a 80% signal strength right out of the box! To be sure I had the latest drivers I checked the Linksys site and there was an updated driver (just released about Nov. 9, 2002). I Downloaded and installed the new driver... now my signal strength is consistently at 100%!!!

The only problem I encountered was of my own doing. I misconfigured a network setting which caused my system (Windows 98 SE) to become unstable. After re-reading the card and router configuration instructions I fixed the problem. So far I've been quite satisfied and there's been nothing but smooth surfing since.

I bought 3 cards, put one in each of three computers: Win98, and two Debian GNU/Linux boxes (one 300mhz, one AMD 1800+). The old linux box is working wonderfully as my access point and the other two machines are working great in managed mode. I haven't tried the firmware upgrade yet, but from all the other reviews, it sounds like it could only make things better. My download speeds from my DSL via the access point to the other two machine are just as fast as when they were wired. This is an excellent buy if you need a reasonably priced desktop solution with high compatibility.