I graduated from Lancaster Uni in Computing in 2003, and now work as a software technician for a com...
I graduated from Lancaster Uni in Computing in 2003, and now work as a software technician for a company that provides systems for insurance brokers.
I watch a lot of movies, play video games and also do some web design.
Member since:20.04.2002
Reviews:12
Members who trust:1
In my house we have two computers and a broadband internet connection, but we couldn't use both PCs on the net at once. To sort this out, I decided to set up a wireless network but was a bit worried it would be too complicated. Thankfully this network adapter proved to be very easy to use.
I bought two, one for each PC. The card comes with a CD, with all the software needed on it. You have to install the software BEFORE you put in the card. Installing the software was very simple, there were no problems or errors. The PCs I was installing the cards on use Windows 98SE, and the software worked fine on it, so 2000, NT and XP users shouldn't have any difficulties. The software features a utility which sits in your system tray and allows you to easily change different settings, including encryption, and shows you signal strength and other PCs in the network.
Talking about encryption, that was also very easy to set up. I also have a wireless router which both PCs use to connect to the net, and I used that to generate encryption keys which I could then easily change using the utility. The card supports 64 and 128 bit encryption. The difference doesn't mean much to me, but I guess it's handy for the varying types of routers out there.
The instruction manual with the card goes through every step of installation and also what to do if something goes wrong. It comes in lots of different languages too.
Moving on to the card itself, once the software was installed the card needed plugging into the PC. I've installed RAM and a CD drive before, but even without previous experience of opening up the PC, it's very easy to install. You simply slot it into a free space alongside all the other cards in there, close it up and start up the PC again. The card comes with a small aerial which screws onto the back of the card where it comes out at the back of the PC. It doesn't get in the way and can be adjusted to suit your needs.
Once the PC is back on, Windows will find the card, and then that's it! Of course, the card needs something to connect to such as a router or at least another PC. With my cards, all I had to do was type in the router's SSID (which is written on the router itself). It immediately found it and the utility showed a signal strength of 90% plus. Later I used the router to generate encryption keys, which I then just entered into the card's utility.
The only problem I experienced with the network card was the one on my PC, which initially would lose the signal a few times each day. I read that the less walls between the card and the router the better, so I moved the router to another room, and since then it has been fine. There have been a couple of times where the card has lost the signal, but it picks it up again immediately.
Overall, the card was very easy to install (both the hardware and software). It was also one of the cheapest cards I could find, costing me around £20 each. The cards rarely lose the signal and the encryption and other settings are easy to change using the very handy utility. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a cheap wireless network and has little experience of networking.
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