Customer Reviews

D-Link DWL-G650 Wireless Cardbus Adapter, 802.11g, 108Mbps

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

I purchased this card with a D-Link DI-624 router/WAP; as a pair, they perform flawlessly, and offer the advertised performance, which is on-par with wired Ethernet.

Compatibility of this card with other access points was good in my testing. It connected just fine to all the WAPs I normally use (all of which are B protocol), and offered the expected performance.

The only complaint I have is that I attempted to install the card using the latest drivers from D-Link, downloaded from their web site. Despite carefully matching the hardware revision of my card with the offered download, my attempts to use the card failed. The drivers installed fine, but it would not "sniff" any wireless networks (there were two within range), including one a few feet away.

After uninstalling the downloaded drivers, and using the earlier version supplied on CD with the card, it fired-up just fine, and operated perfectly.

Unfortunately, this is something I've encountered before with D-Link products, both with device drivers (as for this card) and with firmware updates for various D-Link products I've owned. It's not always the best advice to stay fully current on updates, as they occasionally introduce anomalies. If you're technically inclined, this is a minor annoyance that can be dealt with using a combination of patience and judicious back-ups. Average users may not have as much tolerance for this as I do.

With the installation stabilized, I find myself quite satisfied with the DWL-G650, and definitely recommend it -- though less technical users should stick to the drivers on the packaged CD.

First, you must know that D-Link has the annoying and unprofessional habit of releasing unfinished, not so ready hardware to market. It seems that their engineering team is under pressure from marketing (typical) to deliver products before they are completely tested and ready. There are several revisions (internal designs) of this and other D-Link products. As of this writing (April 2004), the DWL-G650 has 7 of them, A1, B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, and C2 each representing a correction to a "Oops" of some sort! The DWL-G520 has 2, A and B, while the DI-624 router has 3, A, B, and C. The latest revision is what you should look for, it is usually on the sticker on the back of the box - just below the serial number.

OK, so I had the DI-614+ router, DWL-650+ PC Card, and DWL-520+ PCI card, and they worked great. I just needed the higher speed to stream music and video from my server upstairs, and wanted to use the more secure WPA protocol (not yet supported on the DWL-520+ *stupid D-Link*), so I upgraded to the DI-624 router (rev. C), DWL-G650 PC Card (rev. B4), and DWL-G520 PCI Card (rev. B). I upgraded the firmware on the router right away to 2.42 and the driver for the G650 to 2.48. The router seemed to work fine, but the card was not seeing it. My older 802.11B card (DWL-650+) was able to see and connect to the new router, but not the new card. I tried many things to no avail. I then installed the older driver 2.42 and the card started seeing the router but had trouble keeping the connection..I played with many settings and nothing helped. I tried two other laptops (different brands) and experienced the same symptoms.
Finally, I went to the a store and purchased another DWL-G650 and made sure it was the newer rev. C2 (the latest). Guess what, it worked right away and kept the connection solid. I tried FTP between the server (wired to the router) and the wireless laptop and got a transfer throughput of about 2400KBytes/sec... This is while using WPA-PSK with Super G enabled and using a short preamble. The same results were obtained with the PCI version of the card (DWL-G520).
I returned the bad PC Card (rev. B4) back to the store and kept the new one! So, just make sure that you have the latest version of the hardware.

One more thing, if you compare the signal quality/strength between DWL-650+ and DWL-G650 or between DWL-520+ and DWL-G520 you'll find that the new cards have a much lower number (worst). For example, my old 650+ used to get around 70% quality compared to 36% for the G650 at the same exact spot/direction. The difference is identical when comparing the 520+ to the G520. I have not experienced any performance issues though, the TxRate is typically at 72Mbps (not 108Mbps)! I think the new AirPlus XtremeG utility calculates the quality number differently and hence the difference, and future driver updates may further enhance the signal measurement.

D-Link's release of faulty hardware is wrong and must be stopped. The problem is that their competition are not much better. So go for what works, and buy from a place that has a good return policy. Someday another vendor will make better products and offer better support, and I will abandon D-Link :)

I decided to dust off a 5-year old laptop (Winbook Z1) the other day and install Ubuntu on it. I selected this card because of the Atheros chipset. I can't believe how easy it was to get it working. I plugged it in, installed Ubuntu and the new OS recognized the card. With in minutes I was on the internet, thanks to my neighbor's open WiFi. After a few hours of reading some wiki's and messages, I had WPA running and my "new" Linux laptop was on my network. Piece of cake! Great card and great chipset!

Thanks to my research on the Internet, I selected this DLink wireless PC Card. And what a great decision it was. It took 20 minutes to install this card in each laptop, and that included the time to download an updated firmware from support.dlink.com that doubled my connection speed!

I get great performance, and even maintain acceptable performance on the floor below where the signal must find it was way through several walls and doors. In the same room as my router I get lightening fast performance that appears to be as fast as my wired connections.

DLink provides a nice status and config tool as part of installtion, and that really eased the way into verifiying that all was operating properly. You can see signal strength and check on which wireless mode you are operating in.

One suggestion, you should enable WEP to add security and encrpytion to your wireless network. It requires changes to both your router and the wireless card(s), but its pretty simple and I did not notice a big performance impact.

If you are thinking about going wireless, this is a great card to select.

After three frustrating months owning this wireless card and trying to get it to work with my Inspiron 4000, I am giving up. It has never worked properly, even siting right next to the base station. A lot of the time the card isn't even recognized by the computer as being in the slot. This is documented by D-Link as a problem with Texas Instrument-made slots, which the Inspiron has. Unfortunately D-Link's customer service is so poor that you get a different answer each time you call. And then the solutions are something like "reinstall your operating system," even though there is a documented problem with the hardware. Don't buy this for use on an Inspiron 4000!!

I had no problems installing the drivers for this card when I bought it. Excellent signal strength, fast speeds. It decided to stop working about 6 weeks later. I have tried getting help from D-Link support and it has been no help. I have been unable to reconnect for 3 weeks now, and D-Link refuses to accept that it might be a problem with their product. My first contact with tech support was rude and patronizing. The second contact directed me to download a "new" driver from their website--a driver which was older than the version that came with the card! The third, fourth, and fifth contacts were no help either. I've given up hope. Do not buy this card unless you have a lot of time to fix their bugs.

(I'm running Windows Me with a Toshiba PXC1100U cable modem and the D-Link DI-624 wireless router. My roommate has no problem connecting the router with his XP & Centrino-running laptop)

UPDATE: I finally got through to someone at D-Link that was helpful. An hour later on the phone, he was finally able to get it working. They need to work on their self-install guide to make it easier for non-techies like me to get their networks up and runnning!

This is the worst 802.11g card out there. Apparently, there are three versions (batches) of this card and the people stuck with version B are in for a major ordeal. Basically, they (D-link) have updated the driver 4-5 times and everytime they ix one bug, another pops up. I have had this card for about two months now and everytime I switch WiFi netwroks (home to school), the card goes crazy and hangs my laptop. After that, everytime I restart the machine, I get the infamous blue screen and the laptop hangs. If I remove the card, the machine boots up perfectly. This is usually followed by me reinstalling the driver and getting pissed-off. The bottom line is that if you get this card, make sure that you get version A or C.

I'm not making this up... see for your self at the D-link website (they only have 1 driver for version A and C while version B has 4-5 updates). Also, just type "D-Link DWL-G650" in google groups and you'll see at least 100 posts about the same problem.

By the way, I'm getting the Linksys card. I have their router and WiFi game adapters and everything works the first time!!

I had a good experience with a previous DLink purchase, so I chose DLink again and bought DI-624 and DWL-G650 this October. I upgraded both firmware and enjoyed 108MB connection for over a month without any problem.

Then, first the router stopped working (It rebooted every 5 minutes or so) and was replaced. We had another fine week before the card started losing connection this time; The signal strength became weak and often goes to no-connection. (We have another wireless card from Lucent which is working fine, so the router is not the problem.) I called the tech support and got the following recommendations:
* Disable super-G because super-G is unstable;
* Don't update Windows because the latest Microsoft virtual device driver does not work with this card; Talk to Microsoft because this is a Microsoft problem;
* Don't move around;
* Don't use a wireless phone with the same frequency; Neighbors' wireless phones can also interfere;
* If you don't like these recommendations, just return it to the store because we can't do anything about it.

I followed their recommendation and returned it to the store.

I have quite a range with this and the DI-624 from D-Link. Everything was rather simple to setup and configure. I can do a site survey and see that my neighbors have an access point up and running as well. I enable WEP so they can't get on my network, but it "looks" like someone can get ont their network pretty easily.

This along with the DI-624 work great together. Plus with this G650 card I can go to other wireless hotspots because they are mostly all 802.11b and the G products can connect to those just fine.

I am completely satisfied.

All,
I Have used this card to connect to various routers and it works well. The Extreme G mode is problematic to enable sometimes. New drivers are available, make sure you down-load the right one. D-Link how about having an automatic update command ?, instead of letting the user figure out which card version he has ?.
/
Brian