I just got of the phone with D-Link technical support. I am not joking, the gentleman on the other end told me that I had "fried" my card upgrading the firmware. I was angry that he used the words that "I" had fried it and I clarified with him. He said multiple times "Yes, the firmware fried the access point". To be completely sure I said "You are saying that your software fries your products, is that correct" to which he replied "Yes".

On the upside, he said they will send me another access point. On the downside I have not received the email he said I would get with instructions.

I don't think I will ever purchase anything from D-Link again. At least not until they can keep their software from frying their hardware.

However, as soon as I upgraded to the new firmware from the DLink site, the product dropped connections so often that it is unusable. This happens with no encyption turned on, or using the 64 or 128 bit modes.

This is a common problem with the new firmware, and DLink refuses to acknowledge the problem, or to post a "downgrade" to restore the original firmware. The problem has been visible on the Internet for a year. I have gone from a DLink admirer to never wanting another one of their products.

If you have purchased this unit, then do NOT install the firmware. If not, then look elsewhere and avoid DLink products.

I spent the last 3 hours trying to configure it and still not works. The AP Manager don't recognize it and when configuring it manual, the MAC number gives me problems.

Right know I'm writting to d-link support for advice. :( I just wish the installation could be easier.

After it was installed, the unit started dropping the connection when the remote computers try to transmit large files to the access point. The customer service at D-Link imediately went into denyal mode and said "it was an interferance problem problem". I tried to explaine that this problem only occured AFTER I upgraded the firmware, but the tech would not deviate from his obviously rehearsed responce. After reviewing many web pages, I found out this is a common problem after the firmware update.

I would highly advise anyone to avoid this and all D-Link products due to poor customer service. However, the unit does work out of the box. If you do buy one, DO NOT load the firmware update. It is better to live with the 64bit (40bit) encoding.

I gave up and replaced this unit with a US Robotics USR2249 which works great.

Thinking that having the same vendor for both AccessPoint and PCCARD would ease things, I have been proven totally wrong.

First off - the AccessPoint comes with a 'bios' that doesn't support WEP128 - but an upgrade is available. After trying to install the upgrade 3-4 times it finally took - but the result was that the web-management went belly up - invalid HTML, missing buttons etc. did I couldn't control basic stuff like the name of the wireless device. Secondly, the WEP didn't support tokens - so you have to type all 32 bytes in HEX on both sides. Not easy.

Well - long story short - even with the bios change, I never got 128 encryption to work. Standard 64 went fine.

Next - the AP software doesn't allow you to see what MAC's are connected or if there are other AP's around. This was a big setback, for as I discovered when I finally trashed DLink and got Linksys instead - a neighbor of mine has another AccessPoint - and it was causing me many problems.

In general - allthough I had a full (100%) connection, the link could go dead. I would have to refresh every so often - causing my work to get totally obscured (loosing database connections, X server connections, SSH took much time to recover from). Some times I would have to refresh 5 times in an hour.

On top of this, the connection speed was never 11mbps for long. It would fluctuate early on, and end up betweene 1 and 2 mbps before it would finally stop data transfer - and this while the link signal was between 90 and 100%.

When I finally replaced both PCCARD and AP with Linksys, all my worries and irritation with Wireless went away. Allthough it's a faster model (G) than my old Dlink, it now holds at least 48mbps connections up and going at all times. Big difference - I don't loose my connection any more. It also helped, that I now can see other AccessPoints so I could set it up to avoid conflicts. The Linksys accesspoint allows me to log, WEP128 works straight out of the box, the website is up and has no errors on it. I even have more security control on who and where this access point works - and if I ever wanted to get the accesspoint as part of a larger network, there are options to tell it about it's neighbors so it will work as one large virtual network. DLINK has a long way to come to even get close to all this nice functionality.

I would recommend Linksys to anyone starting out on Wireless anytime. Don't go through what I did to just save a couple of bucks.

I had hoped to put the access point in the basement with the router and modem, but the signal strength was poor (operable, but poor), so I had to move the AP to the main floor.

Sure beats running CAT-5 cabling all over the house!

That being said, it doesn't seem to have the range that some of the "more professional" systems do, but then, it is also a fraction of the price. I think that this system is the best "SOHO" catagory Access Point available.

I do have a couple of gripes, though. There should be a better "locking" mechanism for the power cord. It knocks out too easily, and brings the network down. It is kind of funny because they provide you with mounting screws, and suggest you mount it high, which leave the power cable dangling precariously. That said, I think that this is a "nit", and can be worked around by mounting it in a low traffic area.