On the topic of wireless

[John]

I said my belkin which is routinely bashed online in consumer reviews
worked fine.

Well it does and it doesnt.

Many blame the hardware but it seems to work fine with a few gripes.

a) microwave oven seems to drastically affect the signal or even kill
the signal which contradicts another review , a more professional
review Ive read at a site on the belkin which was positive and said
the microwave oven affected it slightly

b) phones - cordless 2.4 gig phones totally kill the signal even
switching to other channels and Ive read plently of similar comments
when looking at consumer reviews of cordless phones recently . Many
say their phones interfere with their wireless - a variety of brands.
One guy says get a new 5.8 gig phone though another says he got one
and that still screwed up his wireless.

c) random drops in signal strength - not sure what causes these but
Ive got several people runningwireless networks in my building now. Do
they interfere with one another? Ive also read rain may affect it.
Anyway I can live with these.

d) Weird installation problems. The first time I installed it - it
worked great. Since then if I install it with the non-windows option
which I did the first time - it never holds the settings and you have
to fill them out everytime you boot up. If you check let windows set
up the wireless card (Im talking about the card side - no problems
with the Belkin router "b" wireless ) then itll hold the settings but
you have to strangely TURN OFF the signal on the card receiving side
after booting up before it will work. Ive read at another site the
much praised linksys card had huge problems too until they came out
with a new driver. Im using the latest driver for the Belkin. Seems
like a software issue.

The actual performance is very good despite the many negative reviews
Ive read on the belkin b - I get very very fast speeds , at best only
slightly off my normal cable modem speeds on my wireless vs the
directly plugged in PC network card.

 

[Cyde Weys]

a) microwave oven seems to drastically affect the signal or even kill
the signal which contradicts another review , a more professional
review Ive read at a site on the belkin which was positive and said
the microwave oven affected it slightly

Microwave ovens that emit radiation at those frequencies will mess up
all 2.4Ghz wireless networks easily. Don't blame Belkin for that - it's
a product of physical laws. Same for the wireless phones.

 

[kony]

Microwave ovens that emit radiation at those frequencies will mess up
all 2.4Ghz wireless networks easily. Don't blame Belkin for that - it's
a product of physical laws. Same for the wireless phones.

Well that may be somewhat true, but then again if the Belkin's signal
timing is slightly off, less precise timing of data or frequency tuning, ,
or lower signal stregth, antennae, etc, any interference could be even
worse, more significant on range.

An unrelated example might be walls... Some cards can com with a router
though 4 walls, while others can't... we can consider the walls a
different kind of obstacle, but another example where not all hardware has
same performance even if (the available) specs make them look equal.