Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys WPC54GX Wireless-G Notebook Adapter with SRX

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I bought this card along with the WRT54GX router. My house has two stories and plenty of walls. Before I had 3 11a Access Points. Now I only have the WRT54GX. This card works as advertised. I can get 108mbps with almost 100% signal anywhere in my house.

With this card, I can also get a strong signal from my neighbor's wireless network :-)

My only gripe is that if you want to use WPA, you can use the Linksys wireless utility. You must use the windows one. I find the Linksys one better. Minor complaint though.

I upgraded from a wpc54g and wap54g and i was completely amazed with the card, however anyone not using a mimo enabled device with the srx router will see a serious slowdown so i stuck wih the srx card and dropped the router using the old wap54 to benefit other users on the network, but even use of just the card gives you a 25-50% range increase and about 50% more speed i did have trouble configuring the card to work with wep however after changing the code it worked fine. The card also takes 3 Different IPs from the DHCP.

I bought this to help get a better signal into my laptop, which has built in wi-fi. The signal strength seems to be quite a bit higher, usually boosted by a bar or two, and I'm picking up other people's routers that weren't detectable before. The only problem I do have is with the linksys utility. It doesn't always launch correctly at startup (it stays grey, and you have to exit and relaunch), and even when it does, it jumps signals even when I have something listed by priority-whether I use the linksys utility or windows to configure. I ended up ditching the linksys utility and everything seems to be fine just running through windows alone. None of the other equipment has SRX, but I've noticed a boost in both signal strength and speed after using this. It might take a little while to work out the kinks, but if you need something to increase signal strength, this works a lot better than the range extenders on the market.

First of all, I'd give five stars for the performance when one is done with setting it up. But in my case CD Setup turned out to be useless, so for that I'm giving four. The similar situation occurred with installing related Wireless-G Broadband Router with SRX - WRT54GX (see my review about that under the same title).

The instructions (.pdf format) are on CD. Anyway, before inserting the adapter, you have to first install its software and drivers. Only then you can install and use the adapter (hardware). In my case software installation was going fine until I got a WARNING message from my Windows XP SP2 that drivers, I was about to install, might make the system "inoperable immediately or in the future". Don't you love that? Well, immediately all right, I cancelled that installation process and went to the Linksys' Support page. There, I found the "Easy Connect" link for "Windows XP Users Only" that dealt with wireless adapter installation issues. They obviously are aware of the problem since they provide such a service. Anyway, following their further online instructions (including inserting this time the adapter into the slot) took care of the proper and final setup. Yet, that still didn't install the adapter's own software "Wireless Network Monitor". Instead I have to use Windows to display the current configuration of my wireless network settings. But to actually access and change all of them I'm using router's Web-based-utility.

I constantly lose connection with this card while my other Belkin card stays connected. Eventually I decided to get rid of this card and get another Belkin. Funny thing happened! The linksys card can't be uninstalled and it prevents the belkin card from being installed. Nothing happens after I run the uninstaller.

I had to call them. They said they would send me a registry cleaner via email. It never arrived, even though they made repeated promises. I had to make numerous calls and wait in long line to get connected.

I also had bad experiences with a Linksys router. I will never buy a linksys product.

Update: I called them again and again. Finally I was told there was in fact no such cleaner for this model!

I had originally purchased a Linksys WRT54GX router along with the companion SRX wireless PC card because: 1) I wanted to replace an 802.11b wireless network in my 2-story home for better coverage (I was having to use a Linksys wireless access point in repeater mode to get "complete coverage" with the old setup); and 2) I wanted a faster wireless network.

I quickly became frustrated with the new Linksys SRX wireless setup, primarily because my laptop (a 2004 HP model) wouldn't always detect the wireless card after powering up from sleep mode, and often there would be dropouts in my wireless internet connection, even when my laptop remained stationary. In addition, even though the wireless icon in the task bar would constantly indicate a connection speed of 108.0 Mbps, it was obvious that my new wireless internet connection was often far slower than even my old 11.0 Mbps wireless network connection! This problem was especially obvious with websites rich in photo-quality graphic images, like ESPN.com.

So, I contacted Linksys tech support and, with the help of a friendly tech support agent, reprogrammed several parameters on the router. The problem improved, but only temporarily. Frustrated, I returned both the wireless router and the PC card and immediately ordered the Belkin Pre-N router and PC card (based on Cnet reviews, which rated the Belkin system higher anyway).

Both the Belkin wireless router and PC card installed quite easily with the accompanying installation CD's and my system has been up and running without a hitch--so far. One other thing I have liked about the Belkin system is that (using the included Belkin Wireless Client) it displays realtime send and receive speeds of the wireless card, which are often slower than the 108.0 Mbps the wireless icon in the taskbar is constantly pegged at; but at least I know the "true" speed of my wireless network at any given point in time (the measured speeds that are displayed are constantly changing and fluctuate mainly according to distance from the router).

Needless to say, I have been impressed with my early experience with this Belkin system and won't hesitate to highly recommend it to others considering a future home wireless network upgrade. Oh, and did I mention that the Belkin system was cheaper than Linksys'?!!

This card is well worth the money. Easy to install and very fast at 108 mpbs when used with the linksys srx router. You will need to only use windows xp to configure the card and away you go. Very easy to setup to router and your lan.

I have no problems with this product. The walls in my house are cement and I still get a strong signal at the other end of the house. Works great outside too.

After reading some of the reviews on this product,I was a little hesitant to purchase it. However, I have had absolutely no problem with it. I would recommend it.

Ordered this adapter for my Sony VAIO laptop to replace a Linksys USB adapter that we used on another PC on our home network. After following the cd instructions included with this unit I have had no problems connecting to the internet at home. I also have a desktop wired to the same Linksys router and I can not see any difference in speed downloading or surfing the 'net between the two. Very happy with this buy.

Would highly recommend this product.