Belkin Wireless G Plus Notebook Card Network adapter

...to the good people at Belkin to come to my aid.

I had a good look at which sort of Wireless network adapter I should get before I chose this one, and I chose it for a number of reasons. First of all I didn’t want a USB connected Adapter, I am fortunate enough to have two USB ports, but one is always used for my external hard drive and the other tends to be connected to my printer or Ipod or something else and I didn’t want to have ...
...you very much. Thirdly, Belkin is a good name in this area, this was one of their higher spec models at the time and the price of around 20 quid off amazon was a good deal at the time. This model’s protruding part is also quite compact and nicely designed.

So I bought and connected easily enough. I used the drivers from the Belkin website which I downloaded via the Ethernet cable first under my brothers recommendation, as he assures ... more

So here I go again with another review of a technological product which in today’s ever evolving world will no longer be needed, as every laptop made now seems to have built-in Wi-Fi capability. However if like me you paid a substantial amount of money for a laptop a few years back, and it serves all of your needs ably still and should continue to do so for some years to come then you may feel the need to get into the burgeoning wireless age which is currently encroaching upon us. The necessity for me to go wireless stemmed from the fact that my room is positioned so far from the nearest telephone socket. To run a wire from my mothers’ bedroom all the way to my desk was a dodgy proposition, firstly because of the considerable distance and secondly because it would have involved lifting loads of carpets or running it mazily across doorframes and the logistics of such an operation had me and my brother flummoxed. So we thought we’d go down the ol’ wireless route, cutting them pesky wires out of the equation. So we got in our BT broadband wireless router and connected it all up via the Ethernet cable first off to get connected to the network. Once that was completed, (not the easiest of tasks due to the pathetic customer services of BT refusing to do anything about my lack of signal until I made threats to get my local MP involved, another example that idle threats get you everywhere) the next stage of the operation was to get connected in my room with no wires at all. My old Samsung laptop couldn’t do this alone, and as such I turned to the good people at Belkin to come to my aid.

I had a good look at which sort of Wireless network adapter I should get before I chose this one, and I chose it for a number of reasons. First of all I didn’t want a USB connected Adapter, I am fortunate enough to have two USB ports, but one is always used for my external hard drive and the other tends to be connected to my printer or Ipod or something else and I didn’t want to have my internet usage dictated by USB port availability. My Cardbus port however had never been used and I had no other idea as to what I would ever use it for in the future so I thought a card was the way to go. USB adapters also seemed pretty bulky and I didn’t like the idea of it sitting out the back of my computer for me to forget about and push up against a wall or even have it drop out with me unaware, no chances of that using a card. Secondly, unlike some other products like this one, it doesn’t have a stupid little antenna protruding from it, begging to get caught on something and either snap off or drag your laptop to the floor. I’m eternally vigilant of these things since I saw a friend do this to hers with a headphones set and smash her screen, I can do without those bills, thank you very much. Thirdly, Belkin is a good name in this area, this was one of their higher spec models at the time and the price of around 20 quid off amazon was a good deal at the time. This model’s protruding part is also quite compact and nicely designed.

So I bought and connected easily enough. I used the drivers from the Belkin website which I downloaded via the Ethernet cable first under my brothers recommendation, as he assures me and I’ve heard this from other sources too, that you get the basic first tries on the accompanying CD for any of these sorts of products drivers and the updates from the company on their websites usually have most problems already ironed out. That tips for free, though I’m sure you all already knew that. Once I plugged it in the connection ran smoothly from the off, with 100% signal, but that was when the adapter was still in the same room as the router…

Excitedly I rushed upstairs to test the connection at my desk, but to my horror the little green signal level indicator on my screen had turned from the healthy glowing green to a foreboding, unsettling shade of red, only 28% signal received, connection slow as hell. “Oh crap” I thought, “I’ve bought a pup…”

Never one to give up on these thing’s easily I brought the router up stairs and connected it in my mothers room, and progress was made, we now had encouraging signs of an amber light, with signal up to a better yet still pedestrian 50%. This was not what I had paid BT for mind you. It was then that it hit me what the problem was. Part of our house is a very old stone walled structure, through which the signal could ot pass through easily, and was scuppering my plans for glorious wireless connectivity through the house. My room however was part of an extension built just before I was born, when my dad inherited the house. When I tested how the signal fared through modern, thinner walls the results were good, however when you tried it between the ticker stone walls from the original section of the house, it was like there was a lead plat in the way. Luckily a strange little architectural feature exists in my mothers room, where a window was in the original house there is a little alcove remaining in the wall, which is now in her sliding doors wardrobe. I found that placing the router in this little alcove meant the signal had only to pass through a plasterboard wall, instead of the thick stone, resulting in a good signal of over 80% reaching my desk in my bedroom. Problem solved, but tit does mean that instead of roaming the house like they do in the adverts, my laptop never moves from my desk, but I can live with that.

So what have we learned from my experience, well, old houses and wireless technology do not good bedfellows make. I’d borrow something of this nature for testing purposes in your house beforehand, before investing in it yourself.

Now how has the old belkin stood up over time and what other problems have I had with it. Well now that I think on it there are a number of niggling problems which I fear I have come to accept as natural occurrences now. Every so often the Card has a hissy fit. It decides that it is not going to bother connecting today or it will turn itself off at sporadic intervals. Usually it is just a matter of right-clicking the little icon in the bottom right hand part of the screen, clicking repair and it sorts itself out. On other occasions, it just would not connect that day but worked fine the next. I guess what I’m saying is it can be temperamental, though it really is only once in a blue moon that you get these problems, but Sod’s law dictates that this is when you need the internet the most. I did have a theory that it was to do with overheating of the card, as it is positioned right under my right hand as I type and sometimes this area does get really hot to the touch but then there are times when it runs fine no matter how hot it gets. Touch wood it has been fairly reliable of late but it is certainly not bulletproof in the reliability stakes. Oh and I also discovered that sometimes the cause is that the card forgets I have set it up as being in the UK, and thinks it is in the US. I have no idea how this occurs, why it occurs or why it makes a difference but it seems to prevent connection. Knowing this has meant that recent connection problems have been mainly solved quickly though not all. You can also see quite quickly if the problem stems from the card itself or the router, as there are two green indicator lights on the card itself which glow when its hunky dory and turn off when it has a problem. It may have problems but at least it doesn’t hide them from you…

The speed of the connection even at only around 80% signal is just as fast as the connection via the Ethernet cable, so there is no noticeable slowness that I can attribute to the card, which I think is a good indication in its favour. I don’t now how it stacks up with the new really high connection speeds but they just seem unnecessary for me unless you have a huge download to make. The card claims to support up to high-speed connections, I don’t know how true that is, but I’d say in optimum conditions it would work well. It certainly is not a limiting factor on my connection speed. The card supports various types of encryption to suit what your computer can provide and these functions I found straightforward to set-up.

To me I think this is a good stop-gap solution for those who want wireless connectivity for the intervening period until they get a laptop where it’s built in. This product isn’t perfect, but all these things have their problems and I’ve managed to make mine do my job really quite well in the end. Not perfect but who is… 

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