| D Link AirPlus DWL-520+ Wireless 22MBPS PCI Adapter |
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Model: 520+
Brand: D-Link
Manufacturer: D-Link
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 49
Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4, Windows NT 5, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, Windows
Form factor: Plug-in card
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Up to 22 Mbps with AirPlus products
Fully 802.11b compatible
Higher data encryption (64/128/256-bit)
For desktop computers
3-year warranty |
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| Description: |
| The D-Link AirPlus DWL-520+ is an enhanced 802.11b wireless PCI adapter featuring advanced silicon chip design from Texas Instruments that utilizes their patented Digital Signal Processing technology. The DWL-520+ is fully compatible with the IEEE 802.11b standard making it interoperable with all existing 802.11b compliant devices. When the DWL-520+ is connected to standard 802.11b devices, transfer rates can be up to 20% faster. When connected to other D-Link AirPlus products, the performance is even greater - up to 22Mbps!The DWL-520+ also features 256-bit WEP encryption that provides you a higher level of security for your data and communication. The D-Link AirPlus DWL-520+ also includes a configuration utility that can quickly and automatically discover available wireless networks and create and save detailed connectivity profiles for those networks most often accessed. The DWL-520+ is a powerful 32-bit PCI adapter that installs quickly and easily into desktop PCs and when used with other D-Link AirPlus products automatically connects to the network. And all D-Link wireless adapters can be used in ad-hoc mode to connect directly with other cards or in infrastructure mode to connect with a wireless access point for access to the Internet in your office or home network. |
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| User Reviews (49 total): |
Page 1 2 3 of Total 3 Pages
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Wireless Card works great!, March 18, 2008
By C. Larson (Wisconsin USA)
Bought this to go with my other D Link AirPlus products. I could not be more happy with this product! No problems at all! Better than expected performance!
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It works!, November 2, 2004
By J. Li (LA, CA USA)
I have had no trouble with it or 810+ bridge that other people had claimed. I read the installation instruction and set up was a breeze (you need to install the software 1st prior to install the unit). It worked flawlessly in my Win 2k and later Win XP (both home and pro.).
Signal strength is good, reliablity is great, and data transfer speed is good.
Overall, good product.
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Works ok w/ driver 3.0.23.4, not with 4.15.5.1 (ver 3.07), June 29, 2004
By John Williamson (Houston, TX United States)
Like everyone says, Customer Service is terrible. They deny that a problem exists, blame everything else. I had problems with their 810+ Wireless Bridge not working with WEP also, same awful experience with cust service then as well.
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Not FOR W2K, June 25, 2004
By unknown
P1$$P00r Compatibility issues found across the www. Don't be Too late to get informed. D-Link support even less helpful than a diaper against a dam break. System lock-up maybe resolved by diabling this or that or removing other PCI devices.
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Beware - major software bug causes blue screen crash, March 29, 2004
By unknown
D-Link has a major problem with it's products (including the 520+) crashing systems on power down with a blue screen and a message stating that there has been an NMI parity error in hardware. You system will be locked up. Pulling the power cord is the only way out.What is REALLY bad is that I have 3 "Case I.D's" requesting a fix. If... if you own certain Compaq models you may... may be able to fix the problem with manual modifications to your system BIOS. However, unless you "get lucky", you are stuck. There is, apparently, no real customer support at D-Link, only an automated response system that patronizes you with the issuance of a case I.D. Be very, very careful about purchasing D-Link products. Buggy software and NO technical support nor issue resolution.
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No problems, February 3, 2004
By Derek G (Las Vegas, Nevada)
It's ironic that another model, the DWL-520 (without the +), gets so many bad reviews. This model works fine. In retrospect, I'd probably be happier with a USB connection as those adapters can easily be transferred to a laptop or another computer. If you don't mind opening up the computer for a "permanent" install, you should be happy. One issue I did run into - I ended up having to remove my ethernet adapter to get it to work or I ran into IRQ conflicts (I thought Windows 98 and up were supposed to solve this problem.) I also notice problems if a 2.4ghz cordless phone is too close, but I'm not sure if it interferes with this card or the wireless router.The drivers out of the box seemed a little deceptive. My signal strength was showing as much stronger than it actually was. Later drivers were even more deceptive, showing signal strength at the highest level and the strength never changed. The most recent drivers (version 4.15.51 as of the time of this review) seem to be accurate so you may want to download those for your initial install rather than use the ones in the box. Performance is great. The card is powerful enough to pick up (and connect to) my neighbor's network two houses down. One of these days I might even advise him to put a password on his network, but first I want to catch him downloading porn.
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Super fast, but requires extra configuration to work with XP, December 8, 2003
By www.sbritton.com (Larchmont, NY USA)
When I first installed this product, I had my doubts about the whether it could work in an area with numberous APs. I live in an apartment building and there are three wireless networks operating next to mine. One of them doesn't use an encryption. (I have tried to explain to the guy how to use WEP and he doesn't want to listen.) Anyway, when I first installed the DWL-520+ in my Windows XP Pro desktop. It kept trying to jump over to the other networks. I turned on WEP and tried to use the default Wireless manager that comes with XP. Using XP to manage the connection turned out to be the problem. I would connect to my own network and then five minutes later it would drop the connection try to link to my neighbor's wireless network. Finally, I visited the DWL-520+ support section on D-Link's website and discovered that D-Link recommends disabling the Windows XP Wireless Manager (it goes on by default) and turn on D-Link's own wireless manager software. It took me less than five minutes to follow the screen shots which showed me how to turn off the Microsoft's XP Wireless Manager by using the "Properties" section in "My Computer". Since I started using D-Link's wireless manager, I haven't had any problems with the connection. In fact, because I have a D-Link DI-614+ wireless router, I am able to connect as fast as the advertised 22 Mbps. If I needed second desktop, I would buy another DWL-520+.
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Great Signal Strength and Reliable Use, November 7, 2003
By madatyou (Portland, OR)
With this in my desktop it's just like having my PC wired into the network. The web surfing isn't slower, online games are the same and the only difference is that there is a little icon in the system tray that shows your signal strength.Installation was totally easy and is like any other PCI card you need to install.
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Decent buy, October 31, 2003
By unknown
I bought this card with a Dlink 614+ router. The combination works great and I get amazing speeds. It just got messed up only once. I had to re-install the drivers and even tried resetting the router. Now its fine. Actually the customer support toll free line is pretty engaged always. I got my friends help instead.Overall - Pretty easy to use/install.
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For all of you looking in to Wireless Networking..., October 24, 2003
By SoadLink (Kalispell, MT)
I looking into it, and after seeing the great reviews for this product, I decided to buy it. I put it in our older computer, and it finally connected after about 2 phone calls to technical support, and an upgrade to the drivers. But then, my fast dsl internet was going slower than dial up when using the card. After many more calls to technical support, and stuff they told me to do which i did, the card still did not make my internet or network file sharing fast. it was not the phones or anything like either. I decided to switch the card to another pc, which i didnt really want being in there, but now it works fine! I dont reccomend this product, because it may not work on your pc like it didnt for one of mine, but i was lucky to have it working later on a different pc AT ALL. look elsewhere if you plan to go wireless, such as Linksys, whos routers and cards have never failed me.
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Avoid this card., October 13, 2003
By Jeremy Lockwood (Sacramento, CA United States)
I'm sure this card would work well on a machine running Windows XP on an all D-Link wireless network, but it looks like that's where D-Link's product testing ended.I should say up front that I didn't do my research before buying this card. I intended to buy a DWL-520 based on the Prism 2.5 chipset in order to build FreeBSD based access point. Despite the similarity in name, the DWL-520+ is based on a TI ACX100 chipset, which has only a very small (and not vendor supported or assisted) open source effort behind it. When I tried to verify the card was in fact working on a win 2K machine I discovered that it would: a) Crash the machine if the drivers are installed via the normal "Add new Hardware" discovery process (to be fair the instructions state to install the drivers before introducing the card into the machine). b) Once installed and operating under ad-hoc mode, it would cause the ORiNOCO wavelan card on my laptop to lockup. This thing might work for you if you have a homogenous setup, but if your playing with the technology, expect it to cause problems.
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Worked wonderfully, until I shut down my system., October 13, 2003
By unknown
Purchased this for mom's eMachine. Worked great until I shut down the computer. I would receive a blue screen of death with a hardware error message and NMI:Parity Check error. From my searching I found that it is a frequent problem with some computers. I am returning it. I purchased the DWL 120+ USB adapter instead, and it works as beautifully as the 520+ did (until shutdown), except that I have no errors on shut down anymore, with the 120+. If you have any problems with the 520+, I recommend switching to the 120+
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This works very well with the DI-614+ or the DWL-900AP+, October 9, 2003
By really bored
I have a DI-614+ for an AP and router with a 900AP+ as a repeater to extend my signal to my neighbors yard. The neighbor I share a yard with can recieve my signal, but this 256-bit WEP keeps everybody out.This card works great with my Dell PC since all I had to do was open up my PC and install this card. It was very easy and I get a nice strong signal connected at 22Mbps all the time. The D-Link wireless software is nice and fits well in windows. Overall I am very pleased with D-Link's 802.11b+ @ 22Mbps products. Very easy and fun to use.
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Reliable and Frees up your PC, October 2, 2003
By into weezer
I put one of these in my portable XPC from Shuttle and now everything I need is built right into that machine. I use wireless keyboard and mouse so really the only thing my PC is plugged into that restricts it from movement is the power cable, and Monitor. I take this to LAN parties and everyone is impressed. I also bring my DWL-900AP+ so I can get fast 11Mbps actual throughput is I want. Or I just plug in the Ethernet into the built in NIC and I am high speed wired. All in all this PCI wireless adapter helps me find networks nearby. I've attached external antennas directly to this and I can pick up my local starbucks if I want to. Overall this card works great and is a good addition to any PC even if your aren't very mobile.
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Works very well with DI-614 router., September 27, 2003
By pkannan90 (Phila, PA)
Very easy to install and easy to easy to setup. I already bought DI-614 and the setup was a breeze. Did not encounter any problems at all. Just had to download a patch from Microsoft-xp site for D-520+ using the windows update.
I highly recommend this product if you are using with DI-614+.
Great product, Great price.
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Constant Wireless Connection with good speeds, September 26, 2003
By bluemonkey
With this wireless adapter in my PC I am eliminating the cable that attaches my PC to my router. Being that one of our PCs is in a different room than the router it is kind of hard to drag cable everywhere. So with this easy to install wireless adapter in my card I still get a strong connection to the router, plus it is encrypted so nobody can see my data or log on to my network. With 256-bit WEP enabled I get no bad effects, which I've heard could be an issue.Overall I think this is a great choice to those who need to be wireless.
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Performs like a Champ!, September 4, 2003
By walter or perry
This card is very useful in my desktop.
We've always had a desktop in the den for the kids to use and play with, but I never had the time, or want to drill holes in the walls or floor to wire it to our network. Well we eventually got a wireless access point for our laptop. Then I realized that we get a pretty powerful signal in the den. So I went out and bought this card and stuck it in my old PC desktop with windows 2000. The antenna seems to be in a bad place (behind the PC and all), but it gets good signal so I have no complaints. Now the kids can go online when they are in the den. The install was easy and hardly worth mentioning.
I recommend this to others who don't want to drill holes or climb in the attic.
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Crashes computer, August 27, 2003
By unknown
Installed it in an XP machine w/ MSI K2T combo board. It crashed my computer several times. It either freezes as XP boots or freezes after completed booting. Installed it in a different computer, did not freeze but was unable to connect to netgear router. Frustrating!!! Spent several days tweaking I'm finally giving up and getting another brand.
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SOOO EASY!!, August 7, 2003
By unknown
I mean you follow the easy instructions on the manual. Setup your router and that's it. It just connects that simple, and great speeds
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Good, but has some problems., July 11, 2003
By Thomas W Verdel (Sand Springs, OK United States)
Like the other reviewer said, customer service is absolutely atrocious. Expect to be on hold for at least 45 minutes, I spent an hour and a half one night on hold just to talk to a guy that had no idea what he was talking about and wanted to get off the phone (and was willing to make up anything to do it). Be warned, some motherboards will not work with this card, it makes the computer hang in the boot cycle. I experienced it using a Compaq Pentium III with a IN620 board, since no one knows how to fix it, search around the message boards before you make a purchase. Works fine on my Pentium II machine, but the range isn't what I hoped (signal is very week in the room directly below the router, also a DLink, the 614+). Sometimes it decides it doesn't want to connect for awhile. Installation tools aren't very informative either and the troubleshooting sections shot none of my troubles. It does what I need to do most the time though and, since it was so much trouble to install correctly, I learned alot.
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