Customer Reviews

Medialink - Wireless G USB Adapter - 802.11g - 54Mbps - 2.4ghz - Windows 2000 / XP / Vista 32-Bit / Vista 64-Bit / Windows 7 Compatible

5 star:		(116)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I am using this with an old Celeron Compaq situated on the opposite end of our large home. Our router is the dreaded Actiontec supplied with my Fios service and I wasn't expecting a very good connection or speed. WRONG! After a very quick install the thing just worked! At first all I could get was a "poor" on signal strength and a "weak" signal status. I added a short USB extension to the cable they already supply and sent it up my wall about 7 feet. THAT was all it needed. I now have a "very good" signal and a 'normal' status and am consistently hitting the speed limit of the device. I was very pleasantly surprised. I hope it keeps working.

UPDATE: I have had the dongle for about 2 weeks now and after moving the router about 1 room closer to me I now get an "Excellent" signal strength and it maintains a steady 54 mpbs. More than good enough to stream Hulu with no glitches. It dropped the connection occasionally on startup before moving the router, but now it is right there at all times with no drop offs. It does get hot though.

Unfortunately I've experienced a similar problem to a couple of other reviewers. For the longest time I just could not get the unit to work on my system. There were two main problems:
1) My wireless network is found easily enough, but when I connect, it disconnects within seconds, and goes into an intermittent connect-disconnect loop, being only connected for a few seconds.
I worked at length with their friendly tech support to no success. As a former phone support person, I know that there's an infinite number of PC configurations 'out there.' This XP machine had never had wireless. I isolated the problem to something unknown on my system (by returning the adapter, which then worked perfectly at the factory; but of course the replacement had the same problem in my home). OK, it wasn't the hardware, it was my personal problem.
I consulted a network professional, who said he had seen similar problems with other wireless adapters. His workaround was to test by turning off security on my router. That fixed it! Then by changing my security to WEP from WPA-PSK, the connection problem was solved. Yea!
2) I now have a 26 character WEP alpha-numeric security code (I'm unwilling to run the network wide open with no security). But the code is not 'sticky' in the software. This means that every time I want to connect, I have to enter the code. I have not yet resolved this problem. It may be related to an XP problem of not all items appearing in the system tray at boot time. If I log off and log back on, all items appear. A Microsoft tech bulletin acknowledges this system tray problem on some machines, but offers no solution. I'll update this review if I get it fixed!

Recently installed Windows 7 RC (release candidate) on my PC. Found that my wireless network adapters I had were not supported. So I went on a search for inexpensive yet functional adapter.

This adapter is perfect fit, Windows 7 RC has drivers for this adapter. I didn't need to install anything from the CD included with the adapter. I simply plugged the adapter in, Windows 7 recognized it immediately. The info on the device manager was different than displayed, but just assuming the internals for this adapter are "borrowed" from another adapter and repackaged under this manufacturer.

I only had to set-up my wireless info (WPA2 password) and my PC was connected once again to the web. Connection was very good, my router is on third floor, my experimental PC is in my workshop in basement, had 3 out of 5 bars on connection (router is DLink DIR-655) with solid throughput so far.

Works flawlessly with Vista and XP (I have two of these, one for each of my computers). After endless headaches (driver incompatibility, dropped connections, lost packets, etc.) with Netgear, Belkin, and Linksys adapters, I decided to try this. Haven't had a headache since!

August 2009: I plugged it in to the USB port and within three minutes Ubuntu had detected and configured it. It's worked like a charm since. Linux users may buy with confidence.

May 2010: Stopped working after less than a year. If the price had been say $10-15, that wouldn't have bothered me so much. For $30, that's too short of a lifespan.

I have a very, very old computer (probably circa 2003) that I had upgraded to wireless via a PCI card. Well, when I upgraded my network to the Airport Extreme, the card stopped working. Since the old card was 802.11 b/g compliant, I thought the newer security protocols on the Airport Extreme i.e. WPA and WPA2 were what had caused the problem. Although this computer is old, it still has some value for the kids and other lite duties like surfing the web so I decided to make a small investment in an more modern wireless adapter. Now-a-days, you can connect a wireless adapter via USB, so that's what I did. The medialink card comes packed with a USB extension cable and an installation CD. I'm running Windows Xp SP3 on this particular machine and the install went very well.

I had some minor problems reconnecting to my network because you have to establish a profile for each connection in the utility software that comes with the Medialink. The profile is where the network password gets stored. Otherwise, when the connection terminates you'll have to reenter the network password every time you want to reconnect to the network. For the uninitiated (like my wife and kids), this can be frustrating. Unfortunately, this morsel of information was not mentioned in the documentation(at least I didn't see it). Anyhow, that's my only gripe. In terms of connectivity, my computer is on the main level and the router is upstairs and I consistently have 3-4 bars on the Medialink connection graph and plenty of speed. It's very fast and supports all of the latest security protocals. I love a bargain!

Well, I do have one more minor gripe: I wish it came with a stand of some kind for the Medialink itself. I have a stand that was meant for some other USB adapter so I used that one with the Medialink and it works great. Without it, I would have had a problem plugging it directly into the USB port becasue this adapter is a little taller than other things I had in that USB slot so it partially blocked the USB port that sits below. The USB stand/adapter fixed the problem by allowing me to plug the Medialink into the adapter at the end of the USB cable. You can accomplish the same thing with the USB extension cable included with the Medialink. A USB port on the front of the computer would do the trick too. This is by no means a show stopper, but it is worth mentioning.

Overall, this is a great product. I did not have to use tech support so I can't speak to the quality of that service but the adpater itself is a great deal here at Amazon.com. Highly recommended.

This device comes with little in the way of instructions. I cannot get Windows XP to recognize the device so I have to use the software on the CD that came with it. That is fine except that every time I turn off my computer I have to start over in getting it to connect. It sees the router and shows the connection (100% signal) but I have to manually select it, input the password (every time - at least I now have it memorized) and then wait to see if it connects. Most of the time it doesn't. I keep trying and then I unplug the adapter, plug it back in again, unplug the router and plug it in again. Finally, at some point it connects (I still don't know what the magic combination is) and I try to avoid turning off my computer so I won't have to go through this again. Their website is useless. I got more information from Amazon reviewers here than from any information provided by the manufacturer.

This thing is perfect, it gets good signal strength, and it is very reliable. I have left my computer on for probably days and it hasn't dropped connection once for me. =} Really good adapter, and has a 1 year warranty. Best you can get for the price.

I purchased two of these to add to our desktops at home so that we could take advantage of the wireless networking of our new printer. I am not very technical. I am also not naturally inclined for any type of engineering outside of putting a puzzles together (HA!). It was even easy for me!

I used the easy to follow directions that came with it. (A miracle in itself that they were easy and perfectly detailed - step by step) I am thrilled to report, it worked right off the bat! I have not experienced any slowness in performance or delays in printing. This really beat adding a splitter (or something) to get everything working together!

Bought for older desktop running Windows XP. Insert the setup CD and took less than 5 minutes to install software then connect to wireless network. Router is about 40 feet away through about 6 walls, status tab states receiving 100% signal. For $25 not bad for turning desktop wireless as oppose to fishing a 50ft ethernet cable which probably cost more.