D-Link Air DWL 520 (DWL-520) Network Adapter

Pros: Cheap these days.
Cons: Might work in your configuration - then again, it might not.

Anyone who has suffered through my reviews will know, I love technical detail, spend too much time building and installing computers, networks and garden sheds and am usually forthright when I don’t like something. Such is the case with the D-Link ...

Pros: Will work with Win2000
Cons: Will not work with WinXP

In my home I am fortunate to have both a wired and wireless network installation. I recently completed the upgrade of the wired portion from 10 Megabyte per second (Mps) to 100Mps; a total of two servers and one workstation. The cost of PCI 10/100...

Pros: none
Cons: poor tech support; doesn't work; antenna easily fell apart

I am an experienced PC builder. I got two of these to use with a Dlink wireless router (which works fine).

First I tried both cards in a PC-Chips mobo and neither was recognized, even though that mobo claims to support the PCI level of the...

Pros: Price.
Cons: Very buggy drivers, causes OS to become unstable, very poor performance, laughable technical support.

Based on my experience with this card, all I can presume is that it was brought to market before being thoroughly tested with all compatible operating systems. The card failed in several computers, including bare bones machines where there was little...

Pros: Works good for me. Signal stength is 73%
Cons: XP install is a bugger!

This wireless card works great in Win98se, but I had problems installing it in XP. There are extra instructions on the support page of the Dlink web site. These instructions tell you to uncheck the "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings" ...

Pros: Price and apparent excellent compatibility with 802.11b standards
Cons: Needs PCI 2.2 compliant slot and configuration/monitor utility is NOT AVAILABLE under Windows 2000!

Although this 802.11b (WiFi) card looks good and the price was too good to believe, this is NOT the card for the average corporate user or more sophisticated home user either.
The manuals and all documentation indicate this product can be used...

Pros: It came in a pretty Box
Cons: It won't work-Tech support useless

I do IT support for living, and consulting on the side. I bid a home job using a D-Link Router/AP and DWL-520 PCI adapter.

Being Cisco Wireless certified, I usually use only proven
devices, but this time I tried something new. I must say...

Pros: Works great with windows xp
Cons: apparently some people are having problems, but not me so i dont care

I have Windows XP pro, i bought this card because it was on sale for 50 bucks. Since then i have bou ...

Pros: Works well after hours of painstaking configuration solving. Price
Cons: Config Software doesn't work in XP. Unless you edit your bootlog a certain way.

I purchased 2 of these 2 weeks ago and I thought I could get them up and running in no time. Little did I know that setting up D-Link wireless systems seems to be a difficult thing to do, I had to find the updated XP drivers from the web site because the...

Pros: None
Cons: Impossible to install Crashes under network load Refuses to work with Audigy 2 cards

This card is horrible. I'm an experienced computer professional and it took me hours to get this thing to work. I've installed it 4 times now after OS reinstalls and everytime I nearly go mad trying to get it up and going. Everytime I install it, it's something new too.

Eventually I get it working, but I am forced to disable/enable it after every reboot or it will drop connection after 2-3 minutes. It also crashes my PC under heavy network load, freezes up for a second or two frequently, and absolutely refuses to work with my new Audigy 2 card.

Don't buy this card unless you want some serious pain and frustration.

Pros: None
Cons: Blue screens XP

Worked great in 98 but upgraded to XP and it blue screened the system. After 4 weeks with tech support they sent me a new one with a newer bios and it still does the same thing. If I turn on the computer without the DL-614+ router turned on it will blue screen every time. Except for that it works great.

Pros: Cheap Easy to install 128bit encryption works well Easy to user software
Cons: Installation messedup tcp/ip protocol. Fixed by readding it.

I got two of these cards for the price of one other brand desktop pci wireless card and they work great in my systems. Both are Windows 98. I get about 2mpbs which is decent considering the distance (about 40 feet through 5 walls and interferance from a cordless phone).

Installation was not too bad although I had to reinstall the tcp/ip protocol on each machine to get it to work correctly. (I think the d-link driver might have messed something up here). But after that all went well.

So for about $80 ($40 for each card) and free software (vsocks lite and hummingbird socks and [optional but recommended] sygate firewall) you can share a dial-up internet connection in Windows 98 (first edition) as if you were directly connected via dial-up.

Pros: None
Cons: I can't get it to work!!!!!!!!!!!!

I originally purchased the first card, I couldn't get it to work, they did replace it but it still doesn't work. I was told that they couldn't help me any longer because it is trying to connect to a linksys product, a router and wireless range extender!! I was on hold for over 1 hour and still, nothing

Pros: Great signal when it works.
Cons: Sends Windows XP to its doom!

D-Link makes great routers but after borrowing the DWL-520+ wireless adapter I have vowed not to buy any more than routers from them. Windows XP will detect the card but the drivers will run your system to the ground. Even the latest drivers never fixed the problem. So if you decide to buy this card for a Windows XP system just keep your receipt ready for a refund. This card will give you hardware faults non-stop, lock the computer up, or send it into resets. Just don't buy this card!

Pros: Inexpensive
Cons: Would not negotiate WEP with Linksys WAP11 access point.

I could not get this to work with my Linksys WAP11 access point. It connected ok if WEP was not used, but it simply would not negotiate WEP with the access point. Part of it may have to do with the ASCII to HEX translation scheme (it pads blanks in an unusual way, I think), but I couldn't get the two to agree on a HEX key, either.

Otherwise I think it worked ok. Because this problem was insurmountable for me, I returned it.

Oh yes, I was on hold for 30 minutes for technical support before I gave up. And they never responded to my e-mail inquiries. Probably somewhere in India or something...