Customer Reviews

D-Link DWL-520 Wireless PCI Adapter, 802.11b, 11Mbps

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

The following answer on the D-Link tech support site says it all: "The DWL-520 requires a PCI 2.2 compliant motherboard (3.3v) in order to function. If your PCI slot is 2.1 compliant, or if the PCI slot is using 5v, then the card won't be detected by Windows and unfortunately will not work." And how will you know if you have a PCI 2.2 compliant board? Essentially, you won't, until you try the card or dig deep into the specs on your computer's motherboard. I have a very reputable ASUS Pentium III motherboard, that won't recognize this card. Very frustrating...

I installed a DWL-520 in my wife's Linux workstation to connect to my homebrew access point with no real issues besides having to download and install the wlan-ng drivers, which is probably not for the novice. The only two notes would be:

- Must be a recent (post Pentium II?/Athlon) motherboard that supports PCI v2.2 The IWILL Athlon motherboard that is in my wife's computer worked just fine. If the green LED on the back of the card comes on when you turn on your system, your motherboard should be okay. If not, you may be out of luck.

- MUST have it's own system interrupt (IRQ). Some PCI slots share interrupts with other slots or built in devices. If the card doesn't work, try moving it to another slot.

Other than that, it's been rock solid under Linux. Unfortunately, I believe this card has been discontinued in favor of the DWL-520+ card, which uses a different chipset and is incompatible with Linux.

D-Link created a confusion out there in the market area, selling the wirelss adapters with diffrent chipset using the same name for them.
The first models (version A and B) used to have Prism chipset from Intersil (which are supported by POSIX sistems) but now they changed thei chipset with other vendors like Realtek without changing the name of the product - that's how I bought this thinking it is spported - unfortunaltelly it is not !

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, PURCHASE THIS CARD

I bought this NIC at CompUSA for $40 and thought it would make a nice, low cost wireless card. This thing was a nightmare from start to finish. The configuration utility that comes with it is totally counterintuitive. Nothing is where you think it would be. After installation, it detected my wireless network just fine. Steady 80-90% signal strength with NINETY-FIVE PERCENT packet loss. The connection would be stable for two minutes at the most and then die. I tried different PCI slots, I tried different channels, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software... nothing worked. I called D-Link support multiple times and spoke to a totally clueless "technician" each time. They offered such pearls as "try a different router" and "try uninstalling your sound card". Please.

There are plenty of other complaints online about this piece of junk. Don't bother buying this card. It's a complete joke.

The 520+ "works"... for the most part. However, it
has a fundamental software bug that causes an NMI memory
parity error on shutdown causing your computer to freeze
with a "blue screen" and error message. There is no way
out of the freeze unless you unplug the computer.

For Compaq's they have a workaround to their bug. You may...
may... might be able to workaround their bug by diddling your
system BIOS (always a fun adventure unless you botch up a keystroke). For HP (and possibly others) there is no workaround. You are stuck. Repeated emails to D-Link have yielded nothing, which says something about there customer "service".

Stay away from D-Link unless you like pulling the power
plug in and out on your computer. Poor, buggy software and NO
customer service.

Use and install at your own significant risk.

Using this wirless network card dropped my internet download speed from 2700 Kbps to 1200 Kbps.

That's with link quality of 100 and only one other computer on the network with no applications running on either computer (aside from the one browser window required for the test). Both computers had brand new DLink DWL-520 Wireless network cards operating into a new DLink DI-514 router.

Following industry standards, DLink apparently mans their first echelon phones with technical illiterates who while capable of following a scripted check list, haven't a clue what's causing your problem or how their sequence of steps might might solve it.

So, after numerous calls, multiple case IDs, and never talking to the same person twice, I decided it was best to cut my losses and give up before they reconfigured my computer to the point where it wouldn't work at all.

If you surf the web a lot or do internet gaming, stay clear of DLink products. Stick with a reputable name and save yourself the aggravation and wasted hours trying to make cheap junk like this work. The money you save isn't worth the headaches.

I have used the DWL-520 for a month now and I have nothing but gleeming satisfaction for it's ability. The card installed quickly and setup was quick and painless. For first time users who have limited understandings of home networks, this is a great buy. Especially for the price!

Picked this NIC up because it was selling for a reasonable price. I am using it with a Netgear MR814 Wireless B Router. Have had no problems with it since. It is running on a generic Pentium-III running Windows 2000 Server. I did experience some of the slow-down effect reported (slow mouse movement) initially, but when I upgraded to the latest software, that seemed to solve the problem. This computer is upstairs, about 40 feet away from the router. I bought a second one and installed it on another server downstairs - a PowerEdge 400SC about 20 feet from the router running Win2K pro. Again, no problems and no dropped signals.

I get about 75% strength upstairs and 90% downstairs. It does not interfere with the Netgear wg511 that I am using with my laptop. If you're looking for an affordable, basic, wireless NIC, consider this one. I recommend installing the latest software from the website first to ensure compatibility.

All of these negative reviews really surprised me. I have had this wireless adapter for over two months and it has not given me a bit of trouble.

I have a home network, consisting of four desktops and a laptop. My network equipment consists of a Netgear router, 2 Linksys wireless PCI adapters, this D-Link wireless adapter, Netgear wireless card adapter, and a Linksys ethernet card. Of the three wireless adapters, this D-Link has been the most reliable.

Let me add that this situation may have more to do with the operating system on those computers, rather than the Wireless adapters themselves. The Linksys adapters (WMP 11) are both installed on computers with the Windows XP Pro operating system. They give me constant trouble. They lose connection with the router on a regular basis. I noticed that this did not happen with a computer running Windows XP Home Edition that did not have the Windows XP Service Pack 1 installed. I am not alone in having this problem. There are plenty of people using Windows XP, with the Service Pack, that experienced the same problems. There is a possible fix in the microsoft knowledgebase.

This D-Link adapter is installed on an old, Pentium III computer. This particular computer is running Windows 2000 Advanced Server, as well as Windows 2000 Pro in a dual-boot configuration. I have not experienced any difficulties with this system. None.

I can find no fault with this adapter. Perhaps there are other factors that are causing the difficulties. I must admit that I have not explored the possibility of the Netgear router having a "preference". Unlikely, but perhaps possible. I would have preferred to have all my equipment come from the same vendor. However, given the situation, this D-Link adapter has been the most solid component of my mixed-vendor network. Since these reviews are based on our personal experience, and mine has been great, I would have to give this device a five-star rating.

I will try and install the D-Link adapter on a desktop running Windows XP Pro, with the Service Pack installed, to see how it will perform.

I got this card for pretty cheap ...so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about its quality, but I would really recommend going with something else. I had reservations about buying this card considering my relatively poor experience with another D-Link wireless card (for my laptop), but I figured that range wouldn't be an issue this time because my computer was only going to be 20 feet away from the access point (I just didn't want to have the clutter of a cable running through the hallway). It turns out that when this card works, it works all right, but sporadically (about 25% of the total time on average for me), it just stops sending or receiving. Obviously, this is very frustrating. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the drivers or the hardware itself, but either way, I'd rather spend twice as much to get a card that works nearly 100% of the time.