3Com Wireless (802.11b) PC Card for $79 shipped

[UWDawg]

I ordered mine 4 days ago and just recieved it. Works great at school. Now I need a wireless base station at home. Sigh. Will the madness never stop!

 

[Leatherneck711]

Just got my card today, ordered 1/12/02. This card kicks ass! Using an SMC broadband router and I can connect through my entire house, 3 walls and a ceiling with the antenna RETRACTED! and I still get 11MBS and excellent signal strength. Cant wait to see how well it works at school.

Thanks Guys for the great deal.

 

[hans007]

XP drivers just came out for it. oddly it wouldnt recognize on my toshiba laptop, until i upgraded the bios to a bios for another laptop (3490ct, instead of 3480ct) that was a newer bios. damn toshiba now supporting my laptop that is nearly identical

 

[Lytech]

Yes, If you are close, the antenna does not need to be in the out position. I used mine with the Linksys Wireless router about 10 feet away. I have been dissapointed with the overall range of the setup with the antenna OUT!

 

[Lytech]

<<Did anyone get this to work under Windows 2000 or XP?

If so, which driver did you use?

I couldn't get it to run on either OS, it worked for a couple minutes, then the connection seemed to be lost............any idea?

Thanks >>


YES, After 8 torturous hours on technical support with 3com and Linksys (router WAP), I finally got mine to work on WIndows 2000. After syaing not so nice things about both companies, the thing that fixed the problem was to update WIndows 2000 to service pack 2... ARGHHHH

Now I am once again happy, and all is right with the world. 3com makes a really good card, and the retractable antenna was the selling feature for me, as I use a hard shell laptop case, and having an antenna sticking out would not work for me.

The moral of the story,
Download the newer firmware and drivers from 3com's website and install those. Install service patch two, and you should be fine!!!

 

[MitzEclipse]

Could you guys tell me if this PCMCIA card takes up just ONE or TWO slots? I'm assuming just one, but there are some out there that take two or block access to the other!

 

[fr]

It takes up one slot. It's a Type II card.

 

[olouie]

Just got one, now all I need is a wireless accress point and router.

hehe.... going broke fast

 

[hans007]

wow i finally got my own access point. got thelinksys wap11, did the software hack to make it 100mw, and this card is working great with it.

 

[dmk11]

Anyone using this card with WinXP?

I got it working with the newest drivers with a small problem.

Whenever my laptop comes out suspend, the card doesn't work anymore. The red X dissapears and it announces that "one or more wireless networks are available" but I can't connect to it.
I need to either reboot or pull the card out and back in again.

anyone experiencing a similar problem?

 

[thai]

i have the same problem under winxp, where i can not re-connect to my gateway after the computer coming back from a standby mode. going into the 3com device manager property then power management, here, you can set it so that the computer not turn off the device during power saving mode. this will fix the problem with reconnecting after after wake up from a standby mode under winxp.

 

[Koinonia]

seeing all these stories about the shipment problems, i wanted to add my strange one as well.

basically, i came back and ups posted a sticker saying i had a package from VISPAC. i thought it would be this 3com card since i hadnt ordered anything lately, so i got back earlier the next day to get the package. however, ups didnt show up! the NEXT day, i did the same thing, and they didnt show up again!!! frightened, i took the sticker that ups left me and called their infonotice number, and the package was freaking LOST. but they'd get back to me on monday to see if they can deliver to me.

so as luck has it, a nice old man came to my apt and told me the package was accidentally left at his door, or something or other. now i have the package, yet ups believes it is lost. funny.

i was reading this thread and saw the multitude of shipping problems, and wanted to share mine as well.

unfortunately, i didnt get any steel mug or business card... freak...

 

[fr]

I didn't get anything with mine either. Took me about 10 days to get it. Mine had a bad shrinkrap job on it which makes me think it was resealed. My Wireless AP doesn't get here until next week so I can't try it out yet.

 

[kbaxter]

I finally got around to unpacking this thing -- it's been sitting in it's shrink-wrapped box for weeks as I've been working on other projects. It's now installed in a laptop under Windows 2000 and is working very well. I've surfed the net from just about every room in our house. Now, if it would just warm up, I could see how the outdoor performance is.

I've had nothing but strong links on this thing since it's been turned on. Very easy to use and I really like the retractable antenna. I didn't see what the big deal was when I bought it, but it's nice to have it out of the way when you're not using the card. I like the bright LED that blinks on the antenna when it's out and connected to the network. I'm a bit puzzled by the earlier post from the person that said they had a good link even with the antenna retracted. On mine, it cuts the link when the antenna is in (although it comes right back once it's back out).

Overall, a great card. I think I'll get some good use out of it. And a great deal at $79!

 

[jplee3]

. I'm a bit puzzled by the earlier post from the person that said they had a good link even with the antenna retracted. On mine, it cuts the link when the antenna is in (although it comes right back once it's back out).

hmmm that's strange - it seems to work fine when the antenna's pushed in on mine. although, the airport base station is about 5 ft away from where i'm sitting - i guess if you're further away from the access point, pushing in the antenna would definately cut the reception.

 

[hk29]

I just got another one Arg I thought I only ordered two, but I got three. I have mine retracted and I'm about 15 feet from my Linksys AP and I still get 11mb!!! I love it!!! It works great.

 

[novrain]

<< I just got another one Arg I thought I only ordered two, but I got three. I have mine retracted and I'm about 15 feet from my Linksys AP and I still get 11mb!!! I love it!!! It works great. >>



would you consider selling one? I am willing to pay the shipping

 

[hk29]

<<

<< I just got another one Arg I thought I only ordered two, but I got three. I have mine retracted and I'm about 15 feet from my Linksys AP and I still get 11mb!!! I love it!!! It works great. >>



would you consider selling one? I am willing to pay the shipping >>



Sorry its already spoken for ... are they taking any more orders?

 

[CanOWorms]

Would this work for those Hitachi tablet pcs that run Windows CE (if you know what deal I'm talking about )