I currently have 3 of these adapters installed at my home connecting 3 PC's wirelessly to a BT Voyager2500V Router.
I purchased the first one after suffering months of problems with an intermittent broadband connection using an extension cable.
The adapter comes well packaged in a far larger box than is necessary (minus points for environmental responsibility) and is supplied complete with software drivers, software to manage the wireless network, a desktop stand for the adapter and an instruction sheet.
1st impressions were that the build quality is adequate although with the adapter being very light
the stand could definitely have done with being heavier.
I have never installed a network before but the installation sheet made all seem very straightforward.
The software is supplied on a cd and installed without a hitch. When prompted to do so I connected the adapter stand to the USB port and plugged the adapter into this. Windows detected the adapter and the headaches began.
Firstly, the stand is not heavy enough to hold the adapter upright, I have now stuck mine to the desk with blu-tac.
Secondly, the software was indicating that no network could be found. In order for the adapter to detect the router and the network I had to plug the router back into the extension cable. This defeated the whole point of buying the adapter in the first place.
Once this was done I followed the instructions for my router to switch over to a wireless connection, but that software could not find an internet connection. This in fairness was down to my own lack of knowledge as I had not set a profile into the adapters software with the appropriate keys etc (the wireless adapters instructions do not mention that this will be necessary).
Once I had set the profile up and placed the adapter right next to the router I was finally able to switch to a wireless connection and connect to the internet. Moving the router back to it's preferred position (i.e not using extension cable) still worked so all seemed good.
Connection strength is usually about 46% which gives about 12mbps but it is often higher than this and never lower. This is with the router approx 7 metres from the adapter with approx 4 brick walls in between. I no longer have any problems with my internet connection so this is far better than my old extension cable. This is adequate for on-line gaming and allows guild wars to be played with no lag.
On my main PC the software does sometimes lose the network and when this happens I have to right click on the windows network option and select repair. This fixes the problem 95% of the time. Sometimes the profile with all the security keys gets lost and I have to re-enter all the information but this is once in a blue moon and only takes a minute or so now that I know how to do it.
I mentioned at the start that I have 3 pcs connected using these adapters. I decided to buy another 2 despite the problems above simply because I now know how to get around the above problems.
To be fair on the other 2 PC's I do not have any issues. They installed without a glitch. Find the network no problem with the profle setup and never lose connection or the profile. They also have a better signal than the main PC with 1 in the room directly above the router having a constant 100% signal strength.
All 3 PC's have been using the internet at the same time and even under these circumstances my connection is faster than it ever was using an extension cable for the router.
Overall I would say they are excellent value at around £20 proving reliable and fairly straighforward as long as you are comfortable installing hardware and changing windows settings. Of the 3 PC's I have connected using these adapters only 1 has problems which suggests that the problems lie more with the PC setup than with the adapter.
New Info
After writing this review for some reason the software for the adapter neglects to load up on the main pc when it is booted. The other 2 PCs are fine. To get round this I just unplug the adapter from it's stand and then plug it back in. If it makes 2 sets of 2 beeps close together it will not work. I do this again and again until there are 2 sets of 2 bleeps ( 1 set fast 1 set slow) and then windows detects the hardware and the network connects. The other 2 pcs are still fine though.
Re-installing the sofware may work but I haven't tried yet.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
some fair points made in this review, the stand is too light, and connection can be a little bit intermittent (but isn't that true of wireless in general). personally I would be more positive from my experience with the product, and if I had three computers I would probably buy this for each one, it is cheap, affordable and does the job.
alleycat01 08.01.2007 22:37
Good review - very helpful. alley x
Theworker 08.01.2007 14:09
Really helpful, I'm planning on getting one tonight!
Wireless G USB Network Adapter The Wireless G USB Network Adapter easily connects your ... more
USB-equipped desktop or notebook computer to your wireless network for Internet and file sharing. Desktop users can now join the network with the ease of a USB plug...
The Wireless G USB Network Adapter easily connects your USB-equipped desktop or notebook ... more
computer to your wireless network for Internet and file sharing. Desktop users can now join the network with the ease of a USB plug-in, without opening their PC ca...
Postage & Packaging: £4.39 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Jan 8th, 2007
(Jan 25th, 2007)
very helpful by (86%):
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