Best Desktop Wireless Card

Hi everyone,
I have been installing wireless networks for a while now and I've been solely using wrt54g/gs Linksys routers because they are (well were before version 5) the best bang for the buck wireless routers out there for SOHO networks. On all these routers versions 1-6 I have put dd-wrt firmware on them to insure stability and I have no problems with any of them at all connecting and staying connected with my laptop. Now here is my question. Wireless cards drivers have been recently very buggy. Right out of the box I always go to the site to get the most updated. I have used d-link, netgear, belkin, Linksys, and smc wireless adaptors. Various 802.11g usb and pci models from all companies. I have used mac address, wep, WPA-PSK, and WPA2-PSK encryption methods on all the routers I installed. But my problem is that these damn wireless cards on most computers will keep the connection beatifully. But on computers left and right i'm hitting stability problems. The exact same versions of the cards that I have running perfectly in other computers. But on certain computers the drivers cause the wireless cards to either crash the computer out of nowhere or cause it to drop the connections randomly and not come back on untill you restart the computer. I clean installed windows and all the drivers fresh onto most of the computers I had trouble with just to erase any adware or viruses that these computers had before I started working on them. Is it just that the wireless drivers quality have slipped over the years? Is there something in windows causeing these cards to work poorly? I have used windows wireless zero config and also the clients that come with the cards with the same results. This is just driving me nuts with the 3 different people that keep calling me to tell me that their internet is out again and I go there and their computer has no wireless connection and a simple restart usually brings it back. I have eliminated all sources of interfearance such as neighbors routers, microwaves and such. I'm just hoping someone has run into these problems with multiple companies of wireless cards and there is something to do with window setting causing these cards to work like junk (the cards that I can run in linux, run perfectly from it). Sorry for jumping all over the place, not the best writer... Thanks a bunch in advance to anyone with advice!!!

You aren't alone with your concerns and I've had to return cards and swap them with other models in the past just to get things right. I believe the drivers for some cards are not as well written as they were in the past, possibly in the maufacturers rush to try and become the first out with a new feature or standard and also to try and reduce cost as much as possible to try and dominate the market.

My guess is that Linux suffers less from this as most drivers are open source meaning anyone in the community finding faults is able to fix them, instead of relying on a single profit-hungry manufacturer with proprietry code (and I'm not just pointing the finger at Microsoft). I also use reference drivers where possible as some second-tier brands modify drivers to introduce their own features and in the process more bugs come with it.

I have also heard of known compatibility problems between some cards and chipsets, especially Atheros cards and VIA chipsets. Personally I don't buy or supply computers with anything other than Intel chipsets maily because I have found they seem to be the most stable with a wide variety of peripherals. Mind you it doesn't mean I don't always come accross such machines in the field so occasionally it can be purely trial and error.

It's also worth trying to use cards that feature chipsets by the same manufacturer as the access point they connect to; many manufacturers slightly different features and implimentations (especially with so-called 'turbo' modes).

I realise this probably isn't particularly helpful but it basically summarises some points I have found in the past. Sadly there often seems to be no pattern to some events.

My 5c (long live the 5c!)

__________________
Jeremy

Marlborough WiFi Project

Hmmm, I just got off the phone after talking with with a Dlink 2nd and top lvl support technicians.

The card is a WDA-2320 to be installed in a dual athlon 64 system running XPHome SP3...
I found out that they DO NOT have any drivers compatible with SP3..
Nor could I get a list of devices that they make that are SP3 compatible.

So all you techies that have running systems and apply all the XP patches look out,
as Microsoft might be the cause of your problems.

Very frustrated..

Bob "N9LVU"

The best wireless card by far is the 200mW engenius eub-362 ext

http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...roducts_id=137

This is a usb adapter so you can plug it in and place it away from the desktop case where it gets the best signal. There are good vista drivers for 32 and 64.

If you use a pci card the case will block the signal and reduce the range / quality of the connection and can cause stabilty problems with the computer if the case is too hot.