Wireless Belkin networking - another easy install

[John]

These cards are being deeply discounted the last few weeks . Ive seen
them as low as $10 (wireless router) and $20 or less for the PCI cards
after rebates.

They are both the older "b" type.

If you do a serach youll see a few glowing reviews and lots of
horrible reviews. Generally some people claim they cant go farther
then 4-10 feet with decent speeds and other say they have to reset it
all the time or cant get it to install.

This was another super easy install for me. In fact all I did was use
the auto install feature after installing the card and did the same
for the router and it worked right off the bat. Not using WEP yet
though.

My router and PC is about 35 feet apart with a a wall/door seperating
them . Theres a sofa and other stuff surrounding the PC in a desk.

So far no problems at all after 3 hours of use except that I had to
reinstall the wireless card in another slot - the first one I picked
wasnt recognizing the card properly and I used the current driver at
the website instead of the cd rom for the card.

One thing - the current cards are version 2's and even has a 2004
sticker rather than 2001-2 so they might have improved them from
ones the posters were whining about and the routers 2.4 g maybe
improved. The connection at that distance feels at least as good as
a 56k, actually much better but not as good as my PC connected
directly to the router with wire . Havent tried to download a huge
file yet though.

 

[Kentuckyfan77]

Thanks for the personal review. I should do this. I go through a lot of
hardware. Thanks.

 

[John]

Thanks for the personal review. I should do this. I go through a lot of
hardware. Thanks.

I want to emphasize thats MY experience because there are so many bad
reviews on the net Im not sure if Im lucky or what.

At the site PC stats they go thorugh the installation etc and give it
a pretty high rating.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1053

For some reason many others have had horrible experiences.

So far things have worked great. However Im still waiting for any
signs of the other problems - resets. Some consumers claim all kinds
of weird things - having to reset the router daily, hourly , every 15
min ! And some claim it happened overtime or after WEP was enabled.
Though none of the other things they claimed came true for me -
horrible range (4 feet max) and terrible installation problems - you
never know.


Id like to add though when I talked to people, consumers at Compusa
who were shopping like me, who had them - they also had positive
experiences.

My only criticism so far is the manual. They have it laid out like -
heres the automatic easy way , and heres the harder manual way.

They dont mention though this may be laughably obvious to most , that
there is no encryption of the signal etc so you have no security
measures enabled when you do it the automatic way. What about first
time consumers ?

Actually the manual way is laughably easy too. However just go
through the automatic installation process and then read the booklet
for the manual method just to bring up the manager dialog box so you
have access to enabling WEP and taking some other security measures as
mentioned at PC STATS.

 

[kony]

I want to emphasize thats MY experience because there are so many bad
reviews on the net Im not sure if Im lucky or what.

At the site PC stats they go thorugh the installation etc and give it
a pretty high rating.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1053

For some reason many others have had horrible experiences.

Some hardware is certainly more user-friendly for one reason or
another but typically it's when things go wrong that you here about
it. Since these cheap parts sell so well there must be quite a few
people satisfied even with so many bad feelings towards them.

On the other hand it can be the little things that get you... I have a
Belkin wired router that I swapped into a network so I could move an
existing router with more features, somewhere else... previous router
was "happy" in a cramped cabinet but the belkin overheated, crashed
every now and then till I popped it open and added a heatsink.

One thing about the Belkins though, they just look cheap! The casing
reminds me of an old Revell model or a frozen dinner tray, while the
competition, like D-Link or Linksys have much better cases. Granted
it's not the case that counts for much, but why not a nice case too...
it can't cost that much for a few extra grams of plastic.


Dave

 

[John]

One thing about the Belkins though, they just look cheap! The casing
reminds me of an old Revell model or a frozen dinner tray, while the
competition, like D-Link or Linksys have much better cases. Granted
it's not the case that counts for much, but why not a nice case too...
it can't cost that much for a few extra grams of plastic.

Yeah I noticed that. The first time I took it out of the case I
thought the profict margins for these things when they sold for more
than $100 must be outrageous. It looks like a cheap wall wort , simple
plastic case and a circuilt board inside.

Its till working OK though the second day.
And the signal strength meter stays close to 100% excellent all the
time on the other PC. My main PC which is connected by wire to the
router also has zero problems and works as well as it did when it was
directly connected to the cable modem.

They warn you about microwaves, other interference problems and the
types and numbers of obstacles in the line of sight from the wireless
router to the card.

The other PC in a desk with metal frame and flanked by a sofa and my
router is down the hallway in another room with potentially several
walls blocking the signal and still works great.

The thing that really kills it is when I used the microwave oven I
noticed. Even though its in another room , when you use it the signal
totally dies out.

Its possible the people having huge problems have some sort of
interference problem I dont.