Gigafast 11MBPS Wireless PCMCIA Card FREE after rebate PCClub

[jrichrds]

I'm happy with the TI version. Not quite as good as D-Link's TI card (the 650+), but pretty close. Slightly lower signal strength may (or may not) have to do with the shorter antenna butt on the Gigafast card (half the length as the D-Link one). It's nice not having something protruding as far out from the side of the laptop though.

This card's antenna shape and LED positioning looks very similar to that of the Netgear MA521:
http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_details.asp?prodID=195&view=

Although the Netgear's is based on the Realtek 8180L chipset like the other Gigafast version.

If you're close to one or more PC Club locations, your best bet is to find a Realtek and do an in-home comparison between the two Gigafast versions...see which one works best for you. It doesn't sound like you have a 802.11b+ router, so that aspect of the TI chipset wouldn't matter to you.

 

[SleepyB]

Thanks for the updates jrichrds.

I guess I'm gonna keep this card. I actually liked the small antenna butt.
Can't imagine a big huge antenna sticking out the side of the laptop. I actually wanted a 3Com X-jack WiFi card before and then read the reviews about the horrible reception it gets.

PC Club charges a restocking fee for non-defective item. Maybe I'll try to get a Realtek one next time this thing goes on sale again. Also, after a crazy day of search for compatible TI ACX100 drivers, installing, and testing. I've finally settled on the D-Link DWL-650+ driver version 3.05, I found on the Canada site. All the other ones, USR, SpeedStream were at least a year one and haven't been updated at all. Have you tried to use 2x or 4x mode on this card?

I don't have a wirless AP/router at home. I'll mainly use this at school to access the school's wireless network, so no 802.11b+ use. At home I try to access my neighbors wireless routers, but this card couldn't hold on to the signal. Every 10 seconds, it'll display "Wireless Connection not available" and then reconnect again. Kind of annoying, but I guess that's what happens with a weak signal. I'll try to set up an "Ad-hoc" network with the other laptop with built-in wireless and see how it performs.

Also I found yet another version of the card with different antenna:

Linky to Newegg

 

[jrichrds]

Originally posted by: SleepyB
Also, after a crazy day of search for compatible TI ACX100 drivers, installing, and testing. I've finally settled on the D-Link DWL-650+ driver version 3.05, I found on the Canada site. All the other ones, USR, SpeedStream were at least a year one and haven't been updated at all. Have you tried to use 2x or 4x mode on this card?

I've tried SMC, USR, Trendware, and D-Link. None of them were more than 6 months old (when these cards first got the 4x feature update). All of them are based on 1.9.3.101 firmware version provided by TI (DSP uses software firmware). D-Link has the newest driver, 3.0.23.4, which is WHQL certified. They also modified the reference utility to be the nicest-looking, but also removed a couple features (something D-Link is known to do, probably to reduce tech support needs). D-Link Canada's 3.05 package is the same as D-Link US' 3.03 package...looks like D-Link Canada decided to rename their .zip package after the utility version. Siemens, Network Everywhere (a Linksys brand), D-Link (DWL-650 Rev. K1), and Gigafast (duh ) also have TI drivers, but they're feature-reduced as these cards are marketed to be plain 11mbps 802.11b. I expect an update by the end of the year to make these cards WPA-compliant.

I did try 22mbps and 4x mode with an 802.11b+ router, and it worked fine. Not 4x like their marketing claims, but about 2.5x faster than standard 11mbps 802.11b. And the extra security of 256-bit WEP (vs. 128-bit WEP max for standard 802.11b/g).

Also I found yet another version of the card with different antenna

Linky to Newegg

Haha. They just keep on coming. Wonder what chipset this one uses. I looked at an enlarged image of the Netgear MA521 (Realtek 8180), and the plastic antenna casing looks identical to the TI Gigafast we have. Only difference is in the color and the size of the holes for the power and activity LED windows. If the Gigafast Relatek card is also like this, it's going to be hard to tell the difference between the two just from the outside box.

By the way, our TI Gigafast cards are indeed BroMax cards.

 

[papaschtroumpf]

PC Club now has a USB wireless adapter FAR. Don't know anything about it but it's a good alternative to populating the pcmcia slots.

 

[ww4397]

Originally posted by: papaschtroumpf
PC Club now has a USB wireless adapter FAR. Don't know anything about it but it's a good alternative to populating the pcmcia slots.

Thanks.

Here is the Gigafast page for the USB adapter and the PCClub page too.

Looks like $8.00 for FedEx Ground.

 

[Demogorgo]

If you buy that new USB nic, make sure that they put it on a separate reciept - or make a separate purchase if you're ordering online. That product has a separate form and address, and they reject all rebates that have a reciept number that was already used.

And while you're at it, if you get multiple products with the same rebate form, send it all in one envelope and check all the products, so they know that it's all in the same purchase and you aren't sending a duplicate reciept. It couldn't hurt to go over the items with a highlighter either (I won't let them screw up).

I'm sure that someone mentioned it already, but it can't be said enough. Cover your ass.

 

[ww4397]

Looks like the shipping has gone up on the FAR items.

I paid $8 shipping for the USB adapter last week. Now it is up $3 to $11.

Sneaky.

 

[SinMen]

It was $6 to ship to the east coast 2 weeks ago.

 

[jrichrds]

Yup, they've raised the shipping price 3 times (!!!) since my first purchase. Guess they want to make some extra profit off of the shipping. And they even shipped my card without an outside box...just slapped the FedEx label onto the wireless card box.

 

[ehong]

I received my card yesterday, and it too is has the FCC ID : O6M-WE302TF

for some reason my laptop detects the card fine, but i can't transmit any data. won't connect to my DHCP for god knows why. shows a strong signal, but won't connect. looks like i might have to return this thing.

 

[SleepyB]

ehong - Tying using the D-Link DWL-650+ driver/utility for that card. jrichrds and I have used it fine. I don't trust that old software/driver that came on the CD. I remeber too it showed like almost 100% reception, but didn't connect at all. Try the D-Link drivers and see if it helps.

 

[batmanuel]

Anyone know what drivers work well with the USB dongle version PC club is selling? I'm picking one of those up, and am interested in running it in 22Mb/s mode so I can get the 256-bit encryption. D-link doesn't seem to have a USB adapter that is in a dongle format, so I'm stumped. I am hoping it uses the same TI chipset because TI listed that the chipset could be built into a USB dongle-style product on their info page for the chipset. Anyone got one of these yet and played around with it?

 

[dealseaker]

anyone get their rebate yet?

 

[darklyte]

I have had this thing for a 2 days and can't get it to work no matter what I do. Actually, I can get it to work for a few minutes but it shuts itself off or just freezes. Tried both the software that comes with it and the windows wireless mgmt route.

Unfortunately this thing arrived while I was out of town, the period for returns is up, so I am stuck with it.

If anyone has some suggestions on how to get this thing to work with Windows XP let me know.

If you haven't already ordered it, but are considering it, my advice is to stay away and get something else.

 

[Twinhead]

I got my card on eG@y. Someone cut the UPC off and put it there. When I was installing, instead of using the driver from D-Link, which was the driver for DWL-650+ specifically, I actually used the driver off Gigafast website itself. And then I even updated the driver again using the one I downloaded from Realtek website! So I guess my WF721-AEX is using Realtek RTL8180L chipset, not TI ACX100. I also have Red Hat Linux on my laptop, and I ran a command "cardctl ident" also shows up RTL8180L chipset information.

darlyte, try to update the driver using D-Link's one, if that doesn't work then try those from Gigafast or Realtek websites. I bet one of them should work fine.

Let us know if you can work this out.

 

[mooo]

Help!

How do I go about installing the DLink drivers?

I am on Win2K. When I tried to go through Device Manager/Update Driver and say Have Disk...Pointed to the downloaded drivers airplus.inf file. But I get a message that says, the specified file does not contain information about your hardware.

I have tried the 3.06 as well as 3.05 versions from DLink's Canadian site. No luck with either. Am I doing something wrong.

When I scan for hardware, Win2K automatically finds the hardware as a "Texas Instruments PCI-1410 CardBus Controller" and installs the Microsoft drivers.

What am I doing wrong? What should I be doing to use the DLink drivers?

 

[mooo]

Ignore my previous post, and apologies for posting on this thread which is meant to be for the Hot Deal rather than tech questions.

I was able to get it to work. For those that may be interested: I am not sure of the exact steps that I took, but it involved Uninstalling the Device from Device Manager; reinserting the card, and doing a Scan for changed Hardware in Device Manager and then installing a generic cardbus driver. Then changed the driver using Update Driver and pointing to the 3.06 DLink drivers. Link Quality and Signal strength are much better than what I had before.

One thing that I couldn't find was the ability to generate the WEP key using a passphrase. Fortunately I had the key as well.

 

[Boomer2]

Originally posted by: dealseaker
anyone get their rebate yet?

Nope.

Both I and "my Mom" needed to call. Guy at rebatestatus.com sounded like he was working out of his living room with his kids playing in the background. Didn't ask me to fax anything as proof. Just entered me in the system and gave me a conf#. Told me it's be 8-10 weeks from THAT date.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: dealseaker
anyone get their rebate yet?

Got my $40 MIR on the laptop card yesterday. Didn't have to call or anything. No problems at all.