Cisco-Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter
by Linksys
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter
Customer Review: Does NOT work with Win2K
Summary: 1 Stars
I have a Linksys wireless G router so I thought I'd buy this G PCI card for a Win2000 PC which is in another room. 1st I tried the card with WinXP (same room) and got it to work, but there was a lot of fooling around that needed to be done 1st (download drivers, docs don't correspond to what needs to be done, etc). So I then tried to get it to work with the PC that I really needed to hookup which is Win2K. I could not get it to work no matter what I tried. I called tech support and they were very helpless, because the person that I spoke to was just reading from the manual. Several long phone calls and still no joy. So I then tried emailing tech support. This produced weeks of useless interactions because the tech support person would not/could not read the stuff that I wrote down. The same stuff repeated over and over, and no responses to direct questions. She could not grasp the essence of the problem: card hardware works but software does not work under Win2K. She kept telling me how it worked fine on her WinXP machine. My guess is that the Win2K driver is for the draft G protocol, and not the approved/final G protocol. I updated the Linksys router to the approved G protocol, and did not want to go back. Since it was impossible to get the most basic concepts across to tech support, I finally I just gave up. They can only help you if you have very basic problems like the device not having problems, or not loading up the drivers.DO NOT buy this this card if you want to use it for Win2K. BTW, Linksys only supports WEP under Win2K. To get WPA you will need WinXP but that's not in any of the documentaion.
Customer Review: RIP OFF City - Cisco still promoting it with no Win7 support
Summary: 1 Stars
If you currently have or soon will run Windows 7, ignore the 5-star reviews and read all the one-star reviews instead. What has happened to Linksys? They've turn into a bunch of shameless rip-off artists. I wish I had read the negative review experiences of other Amazon customers of this card before I bought my card.
I have no 802.11n wireless equipment, so I bought this wireless-g card for my new Dell PC with Win7; it's useless.
It turns out the suits at Linksys saved money by not releasing drivers (32 or 64 bit) for Windows 7. They're saving more money on staff education by not having the guts to tell their support staff that no drivers will be forthcoming. If you contact Cisco-Linksys support about drivers for the WMP54G card, they say they "haven't heard" if drivers will be forthcoming. Up-selling me to there latest card was the only solution Cisco support could offer. The suits are saving even more cash by not wasting time updating their own sales website to mention this card is not usable on computers running Win7. See:
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Current owners of this card needing Win7 might as well just throw your WMP54G PCI cards away and find a new vendor. Save yourself the frustration and double-talk of calling Cisco-Linksys support.
How did one of the most respected IT Networking companies in the USA get reduced to this sort of conduct?
I ordered a D-Link Wireless-g PCI card to replace the WMP54G. And I will not be buying another Cisco or Linksys product again.
Customer Review: Unstable at Best
Summary: 2 Stars
First of all, I am not biased against Linksys, their PCMIA Laptop cards and Wireless G gateway devices (after loading the latest firmware) are top notch, works fine and pretty stable.But this product is unstable at best.
Note that my laptop is using Windows 2000 while my desktop is using Windows XP for the WMP54G.
- The original driver disk's software crashes instantly upon autorun. Bad omen, but if you manually run the software from the subdirectory, then you can get the drivers to load, but the WLAN Monitor software will not load (the newest drivers don't help).
- There was a time where the card worked, but unless you are good with tweaking settings/drivers and just plain lucky, then you aren't going to get this thing to work.
- I had to reload my machine and am tweaking and after two days, can't get it to connect. It is maddening, esp when it does "see" my gateway and give the indication that it sees a signal, but won't connect.
- And, yes, I have disabled WEP and running my network at the lowest common demominator.
I really hate to think that I am going to have to go out and buy a diffrent manufacturer card to work with my Linksys network, but the frustrations are not worth it.
Maybe if you are using Win 2000 with this card, then you might have better luck, but really, unless you are an Electrical Engineer with a specialty in wireless protcol design and have a friend at Linksys that can write working drivers for you...go with something else.
Customer Review: Intermittent Disconnects
Summary: 2 Stars
I recently installed an entire wireless network using Linksys 54g products.The installation took place in one room. The router was to sit in the room with the desktop, but I also installed the laptop in that room because it was easier than walking around.
The first issue was that a neighbor had the same system (or 802.11b) and failed to secure he network so I accidentially picked his up and was a little confused until I realized what happened.
Now the desktop has XP, the laptop has Win2k.
Either the linksys desktop software (Which is different from the laptop software. Why????) or the PCI card itself had problems because the wireless connection would drop all the time, and to reconnect you needed to go through this whole process (about 3 clicks every 5 minutes as it dropped). It would not reconnect automatically even when I set the network as the default network to connect to, and it would repeatedly pick up the neighbors network even though I kept deleting it (you'd think it'd be able to detect the same MAC address and once I reject it once, it never brings it up again...).
During this time the laptop's PCMIA card worked fine.
We ended up hard wiring the desktop to the router, because they were in the same room anyways (the laptop of course would be used to wander the house).
Can I recommend this card then? No. It didn't work. Do I recommend the PCMIA card and the router? Yes.
Additionally the laptop software was much more intuitive than the desktop stuff.
Customer Review: Works Great!- Will also work with WIN764bit - manual driver install
Summary: 4 Stars
Cards work great! However, if installing in a windows 7 (64b) must download driver from OEM (not available thru Linksys...Linksys does not claim support,either)
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1. From the link given above, find your chipset (under part number column) and then click to download. In the case of my v4.1, it is the one listed as PCI/mPCI/CB (RT256x/RT266x). Do a Google search to find your chipset (no identifiers on the card).
2. The download is an installer. Run it and make sure to choose the option to JUST INSTALL THE DRIVERS.
3. Now go into the Device Manager and find the Network Card (should be flagged under Network Adapters since the driver hasn't been found yet by Windows). If you don't have the network card installed yet, install it then look for it. If you have it installed and you can't find it, you may have already associated it with another driver and it is not working. Find it in the list of devices and uninstall it.
4. Right click on the Network Card in Device Manager and select Update Driver Software...
5. Select - Browse My Computer for driver software
6. Select - Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
7. Select - Network Adapters if not listed yet
8. Select - Ralink from the manufacturers on the left (note mine had 2 and it was the first one for me which had the a/b/g drivers the 2nd has the n nic drivers)
9. Select - 802.11G WIRELESS PCI ADAPTER