Advantages: Simple setup, manages itself
Disadvantages: Very occasional low signal

...Following on from my review of the Belkin wireless router, this is the piece of kit at the other end of the link. The PCI Desktop Card is whats required to allow the PC to communicate with the router. This product cost me £25 when I bought it. I was interested in the Belkin wireless router, so I played safe and used the same manufacturer for both items that would allow the router and my PC talk to each other. --Whats in the box-- On opening the box, there were no real surprises. There was the PCI card, the antenna, a quick installation guide and a CD which contained the drivers and a full manual. --Installation-- On reading the quick installation guide, it was apparent that the software had to be installed before the card was plugged in. The reason for this was because, when the hardware was detected, the software would... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to install, and very reliable
Disadvantages: Large aerial can look unsightly and get in the way.

...I bought one of these cards only a few months ago. I was debating running a cat5 cable from one floor of my house up to the next and through a couple of walls. Logic suggested to me that using a cable'd method for connection would work out to be the cheaper option, seeing as the technology has been around for quite some time now and wireless technology is still fairly new. I visited my local reseller of computer and electrical products to be faced with a moral dilemna. A cat5 cable at the length I required and 1 PCI network adapter worked out to be £5 more than buying the linksys wireless PCI adapter. My router was I knew was already wireless, as they all seem to be these days. Suddenly it was a decision based on whether I believed wireless could compete with a cable solution. Well to cut a short story even shorter I opted... Read review

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Advantages: Easy of Installation, Backwards Compatible, Price
Disadvantages: Only compatible in PC's

...The Linksys Wireless-G PCI card is perfect for adding Wireless functionality to your home Computer and is a definite buy if you are building your own home wireless network. Before buying its worth checking that you have a spare PCI slot in your PC, installation is nothing more daunting than removing the cover of your computer (powered off of course!!) and slotting the card into one of the free PCU slots. If you are running Windows XP the operating system will detect the new card automatically and prompt you for the driver CD, other operating systems will require that you insert the CD first. The card comes with a quick start guide which contains more than adequate instructions for installation; however for the more advanced user there is a full instruction manual in electronic form on the enclosed CD-ROM. It is backwards... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, fairly fast, and useable
Disadvantages: Poor reliability, poor installation method, and lacks WPA and WPA-PSK support

...There are a huge number of PCI WiFi cards out there, so it's often hard to tell which are the better buys; the better value, the better quality and the better functionality. Does the Belkin 54Mbps Wireless PCI card The first, and probably only advantage of this wireless adapter is the fact that it has a PCI interface rather than USB 2.0. This means less clutter on your PC desk, more free ports, and normally means a higher quality product. It supports 802.11b and g, so there are few issues of network compatibility, except security, which I'll come on to. Unfortunately, the device does not deal well with obstacles of many kinds. Walls, pipes in walls, microwaves and halogen lightbulbs cause a drop in performance; noticeably more than in other similar devices. Even without such barriers, it still occassionally cuts out... Read review

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Advantages: Range, Speed, Reliability
Disadvantages: Bulkier than other PC-Cards, slightly more expensive

...laptops). My only gripe here is that the MiMo technology, which relies on multiple antennae in the network card, makes for a fairly bulky protuberance when used in a laptop. There really aren't any other problems with it. By way of summary, if you're looking for a flexible and reasonably future-proof way of upgrading your wireless network, or if you're just about to embark on building a wireless network at home then you could do a lot worse than look at th