| D-Link DWL-G520 Wireless PCI Adapter, 802.11g, 108Mbps |
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Model: DWL-G520
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 81
Operating system: Windows XP Professional Edition
Form factor: Plug-in card
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, 802.11 Super G
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| Features: |
Up to 108Mbps with AirPlus Xtreme G products
802.11b compatible
Enhanced wireless security with 802.1x and Wi-Fi Protected Access
Great for video streaming
3-year warranty |
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| Description: |
| D-LINK DWL-G520 - Wireless technology pioneer D-LINK leads the way again with its AirPlus XtremeG series of high speed devices with transfer rates up to 54Mbps. The DWL-G520 is an advanced wireless PCI adapter featuring WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and 802.1x for wireless user authentication. Together these technologies provide unprecedented wireless networking security. 3 year warranty |
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| User Reviews (81 total): |
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50% of population have freezing problem with DWL-G520, February 24, 2005
By Ran into the dlink nightmare
Ok... let's face it. I've read a ton of forums (because DLink knowledge base suck, and offer almost no support). My conclusion is that 50% of people who bought this card have their computer freezing each 5-60 seconds for no reasons while their computer was working at lightning speed before installing that card. The other 50% say that it's a very good card.
So it mean that if you buy it, 50% of chances that you just thrown out your money by the window because it won't work correctly.
Think about it... Just save some money & a lot of time. Just buy some other stuff... there's plenty of good companies doing very professionnal stuff for not much more $ than DLink. I won't suggest any of them... but think about it.
- No support (like i said, everything is going fine before you install this card. Then everything is going wrong when you install it. Then you call tech support and you get into the "update your xyz driver, then update the other driver abc, then the other one, then get back to the old one, then change your DWL card from a PCI slot to another one. Put it closer to the case, put it far from the video card, put it... In your ass finally. That's what i call no support.)
- 50% of products should be in the garbage...
the decision is your.
I've been bad lucky... i'm in the 50% who have freezing problem. I've just burned another 75$.
Good products = Plug it, and it work. If you have to go thru all the steps that tech support will ask you to do, that mean that someone have not done his job at DLink, and DLink even if they are aware, have absolutely no clue of what's going on, and won't put people on this case.... because they have other Wireless card to sell, newer, maybe better... maybe not... "maybe"... it's what describe DLink very well.
For those who are putting that on your shelves to sell computer stuff, you should be ashamed. You contribute to this situation. If DLink can't sell their stuff anymore, believe me, they will solve their problems first, build themselve a name, then push some new stuff and they would be more carefull.
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Wireless isn't easy, no matter whose card you buy, November 22, 2004
By A regular Amazon Customer (USA)
OK. This card would get a 5 star rating, but for the fact that no card/wireless system deserves it. First, every company designs their own products only to work with their own company's proprietary devices -- This, in spite of their all using the same IEEE 802.11 configuration standards. VERY annoying. But, OK, every company wants you to buy EVERYTHING just in their brand. Secondly, to set up a wireless network takes more than just plug and play skill -- There are basics that the consumer just has to know when setting up, and then INEVITABLY troubleshooting when the network goes down. (All networks go down from time to time, no matter who supplies the hardware). So, then, what about D-Link? The signal is strong, travels well through insulated, and sound-proofed walls, communicates very well with the 624 router and affords extremely fast data transfer rates. I am VERY happy with D-Link; it has lived up to its other consumer reviews, as found in PC Magazine, and other sources. Just read carefully BEFORE installing, just as you will have to do before installing ANY wireless network system.
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manual gives wrong instructions for configuring card, October 2, 2004
By Big Boss (Columbia, SC)
The card by itseld is good and drivers work. However, do not trust D-Link software & manual for configuring the card. I could get it working only with windows XP's network management options. To the contrary, the manual Explicitly asks us to disable options saying "let windows manage my wireless network".
It took customer support 2 hrs to get it all working and had to call 3 times and talk with 4 experts.
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Great card ..., September 26, 2004
By aktavio (Vancouver Canada)
Its an excellent card and working fine if you know how to configure the it. And as always Dlink is an excellent producer of network hardware did not disapoint me this time as well.
Card works great on the Linux 2.6.8 kernel with the MadWifi driver.
Works good with FreeBSD -current as well.
(thats for the Bozos in the review section who are on Windows XP; blame the windows XP for the problem NOT the card, and look at those who have written the driver not at the card manufacturers..)
easy control with wicontrol and configuration.
Excellent card.
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Ya Got A Fifty-Fifty Chance, September 13, 2004
By R. Mitchem (Honolulu, HI USA)
Read all the magazine reviews and articles...thought this card was the way to go.
So I bought two, plus a DI-624 router.
My first install went great - my Compaq was up and wireless in less than 15 minutes (30 if you count install time).
My second computer`s install dragged on for days.... The card appeared to install smoothly, with great signal strength and was an sight to behold - for about 3 minutes. Then it locked up my computer...everytime.
NO solution, from bios upgrades to new drivers, went untried. But after a week I gave it up, went back to wired and returned the card.
Something between the on-board sound and NIC cards caused a conflict - which froze the system within minutes of every reboot. My first PC didn`t have on-board components - which may have been the saver.
You really take your chances with this card.
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Easy to Use, Great Performance, August 27, 2004
By T. Tian (Madison, CT)
I bought DI-624 router and G-520 PCI last week to replace my existing wired router. The install/configuration is a no-brainer. Last evening, it took me 5 minutes to hook/unhook the routers, maybe 20 minutes to physically install the PCI, and 5 minutes to setup.
Now I have two PCs wired to DI-624 in the first floor, and one wirelessly connected to the DI-624 in the second floor.
The performance is awesome. I tested the Internet speed from all of my PCs, they were all 3.3 mps. File transfers from on PC to another is fast, as a matter of fact, you cannot tell that you have a wireless connection.
I like these products.
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Terrific speeds...but very difficult installation., August 18, 2004
By robotzero (New York)
Like others, I purchased this card to work with the DI-624 router which had stellar reviews for wireless throughput. The installation of the DI-624 was simple, but installing the DWL-G520 was very difficult.
Almost immediately after installing the drivers and rebooting, my computer began locking up. Since I was installing the card into an older machine, I began to think that maybe it was my computer that was the problem. After hours of reformatting, swapping hard drives, switching and reinstalling operating systems, I finally checked online for a solution. And apparently, many others have had similar experiences to mine (even those with newer faster performance XP systems). It seems that this card does not work well with sound cards and/or AMD systems and/or other PCI devices. I finally got it working after disabling my sound devices.
And I was impressed with the wireless throughput. My landline gets 2750 kbps download and 350 kbps upload. With the wireless connection, I was getting an amazing 2650/333 kbps at 70% signal (on the next floor up through 2 walls with the door closed - apprx 40 feet). It annoys me that I can't enable my sound card, and I'm still debating whether to keep this silent setup with terrific speeds or perhaps going with another card.
I do not recommend this card for the novice computer user. Only buy this card if you're comfortable playing around with your system setup.
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BUYER BEWARE!!!, June 28, 2004
By unknown
Bought the DWL-G520 from another internet merchant along with the DI-624. The DI-624 works great, but this PCI card is the worst product I've ever bought. Running on Win2K SP4, it locks up my computer after 5 minutes of use everytime!After talking to clueless Level 1 Support several times and jumping their hoops (upgrade bios, upgrade sound card drivers, upgrade video card drivers, upgrade chipset drivers, upgrade OS service pack, use newest driver, revert to old driver, move the card to a different PCI slot...), I was finally able to have the card RMA'd. But the same symptom happened with the replacement card they sent me. In all my years, this is the worst POS I've ever come across and D-Link Level 1 Support is worst and most clueless support technicians I have ever encountered, EVER. Avoid this card if you value your time and money and if you ever need their support, skip to Level 2 support!
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Never worked for me..., June 16, 2004
By R. Lanthier (Vienna, VA United States)
I bought this PCI card and companion router (the DI-624) upon reading reviews from several respected sources. To be blunt these components just never worked. In fact the DI520 card froze my desktop computer every time it was on! Not a great way to be wireless... Switched to Linksys and everything is great, fantastic, not a single call to tech support (compared to about 8 hours over five days with d-link). In short, I doubt that this is a bad product, but it certainly is a one star rating for my experience. Finally, be sure you buy from a dealer that will allow easy returns because if you find yourself in a situation similar to mine, you will want to launch it and try something else.
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Good luck if you buy this product, June 16, 2004
By unknown
This product caused my PC (HP 8660C with Windows 98 SE) to freeze every time after 5-60 minutes of use. Installing the latest drivers on the PC and the D-Link router, as well as two calls to customer service, did not resolve the problem. Reading the other reviews, clearly this adapter works on some PC configurations and not others. You might be lucky, or you might spend many frustrating hours trying to get it working. I returned it and bought a Linksys router and adapter with speedbooster, which work great. The only reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1 star was the customer service, which was based in the US instead of India, and at least tried to solve the problem.
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Do nut buy this card, June 3, 2004
By coffeelover (Walnut Creek, CA United States)
I bought this card because I previously got the DI-624 router from costco and thought it would be a good idea getting everything from the same manufacturer. That was wishful thinking.The card never worked correctly. It installs fine, and the signal is always very strong, but the connection lasts 5 minutes at best. Eventually it will drop and neve reconnect, even though the signal indicator is still at 3 bars. First I thought it was my old Windows 2000. So I upgraded to XP Pro. Same thing. Then I got a completely new mainboard, CPU, BIOS etc and thought that would do the trick. No avail. Even worse, the new PC started to have spurious hiccups, freezes and jittery games. All this stops when I disable the wireless card.
D-Link tech support is clueless and suggest nonsense such as as 'it could be interference with your cordless phone'. My Dell notebook with a dell wireless card works flawlessly in the entire house. So much to tech support.
Summary: If you want to avoid trouble, buy someting else. Just look at ebay how many 'refurbished' ones are for sale. That tells enough.
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Took a bit of TWEAKING to make the DWL-G520 work!!!, May 24, 2004
By davetheadventurer (Los Angeles, CA USA)
Using a D-Link DI-624 as the wireless router/access point for my home network, I got my laptop linked up fairly easily but connecting to the net with a second desktop using this wireless adapter took some trial and error. I followed the manual's instructions (with latest drivers/firmwares) and got WIRELESS CONNECTION on the PC BUT CAN'T ACCESS the INTERNET!
Here's what I finally did to make it work (the wireless linked PC is a Dell 8200 running WinXP):
Removed the wireless adapter from a PCI slot close to the fax/modem.
Uninstalled first software install. Rebooted. Reinstalled DWL-G520 software. Shut off PC.
Reinstalled wireless adapter in an empty PCI slot farther away from the fax/modem.
Turn on PC, hardware detected. Install the NEWEST driver that was downloaded previously via ethernet on my new Dell 8300.
MAKE SURE the ROUTER DI-624 is properly configured!!! I had enabled WEP (write down the KEY!) and used the MAC filter (only the MACs of my router and ethernet/wireless adapters CAN access my network). I also disabled SSID broadcast (I can detect several of my neighbors' SSIDs with WEP disabled).
MOST Importantly the DHCP server was enabled with just enough starting to ending IP addresses for the number of computers in my network.
NOW enter ALL necessary info of the network using the DWL-G520 config. utility. Click the WinXP network icon for wireless networks avail. Check your network, enter the WEP key and........FINALLY, access to the internet!!!
It took some time to dial in my preferences but now my downstairs wireless PC is 3712/407 kbps down/up with a LOW (38%)signal.
Good Luck!
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Works great once AOL was gone, May 3, 2004
By DVD King (Great Mills, MD United States)
My friend and I set up the wireless connection between our 2 homes. He has the DI-624 and I have the DWL-G520. At first it didn't work at all on my DELL running XP home. My other friend came over with his lap top using an other card, typed in the key and he was surfing at a fast speed. That let me know the DI-624 was working. So I did everything to get it to work, called D-Link support (and yes they suck), down loaded patches, and even upgraded to XP Pro and nothing helped. SO then I desided to uninstal AOL, and then the magic happened. After it worked I've been very happy with it. I'm a good 30 yards from the router in a different house and I get 30% to 40% signal. Thus if yours isn't work check the other software running on your machine such as AOL or firewalls.
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************ Avoid D-Link Products ********************, April 19, 2004
By Fred Sanders (Austin, TX)
The product may perform up to your expectations but I only hope you never have to interact with D-Link's support organization. After dealing with conflicting, contradictory and completely erroneous information from their support organization, I have come to the conclusion that I don't care to do business with D-Link again.I hope that if you do buy a D-Link product it works flawlessly (which mine did not), and you never have to call their tech support organization.
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Make sure u have the latest revision - read for more info..., April 14, 2004
By Ali Mohamad (Issaquah, WA USA)
First, you must know that D-Link has the annoying and unprofessional habit of releasing unfinished, not so ready hardware to market. It seems that their engineering team is under pressure from marketing (typical) to deliver products before they are completely tested and ready. There are several revisions (internal designs) of this and other D-Link products. As of this writing (April 2004), the DWL-G650 has 7 of them, A1, B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, and C2 each representing a correction to a "Oops" of some sort! The DWL-G520 has 2, A and B, while the DI-624 router has 3, A, B, and C. The latest revision is what you should look for, it is usually on the sticker on the back of the box - just below the serial number.OK, so I had the DI-614+ router, DWL-650+ PC Card, and DWL-520+ PCI card, and they worked great. I just needed the higher speed to stream music and video from my server upstairs, and wanted to use the more secure WPA protocol (not yet supported on the DWL-520+ *stupid D-Link*), so I upgraded to the DI-624 router (rev. C), DWL-G650 PC Card (rev. B4), and DWL-G520 PCI Card (rev. B). I upgraded the firmware on the router right away to 2.42 and the driver for the G650 to 2.48. The router seemed to work fine, but the card was not seeing it. My older 802.11B card (DWL-650+) was able to see and connect to the new router, but not the new card. I tried many things to no avail. I then installed the older driver 2.42 and the card started seeing the router but had trouble keeping the connection..I played with many settings and nothing helped. I tried two other laptops (different brands) and experienced the same symptoms.
Finally, I went to the a store and purchased another DWL-G650 and made sure it was the newer rev. C2 (the latest). Guess what, it worked right away and kept the connection solid. I tried FTP between the server (wired to the router) and the wireless laptop and got a transfer throughput of about 2400KBytes/sec... This is while using WPA-PSK with Super G enabled and using a short preamble. The same results were obtained with the PCI version of the card (DWL-G520).
I returned the bad PC Card (rev. B4) back to the store and kept the new one! So, just make sure that you have the latest version of the hardware. One more thing, if you compare the signal quality/strength between DWL-650+ and DWL-G650 or between DWL-520+ and DWL-G520 you'll find that the new cards have a much lower number (worst). For example, my old 650+ used to get around 70% quality compared to 36% for the G650 at the same exact spot/direction. The difference is identical when comparing the 520+ to the G520. I have not experienced any performance issues though, the TxRate is typically at 72Mbps (not 108Mbps)! I think the new AirPlus XtremeG utility calculates the quality number differently and hence the difference, and future driver updates may further enhance the signal measurement. D-Link's release of faulty hardware is wrong and must be stopped. The problem is that their competition are not much better. So go for what works, and buy from a place that has a good return policy. Someday another vendor will make better products and offer better support, and I will abandon D-Link :)
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Freeze problems, March 24, 2004
By keeper_of_the_wolf (Pottstown, PA United States)
I purchased a D-LINK G520 card for my PC running Windows XP Pro on an AMD processor. I am using is in conjunction with a D-LINK DI-624 wireless access point. I have downloaded and installed the latest drivers from the D-LINK website. I followed the installation instructions to the letter. The connection works fine, for anywhere from five minutes to an hour.After that, my computer freezes completely, every time. If I remove the D-LINK card and enable and plug in my regular LAN card, I have no problems. This is the only time XP has ever frozen for me, after over one year of use. I am in the process of testing the card under Linux, but as far as I know the only available drivers are in pre-production form. I am not certain what makes my PC different from that of the other reviewers, but if you search through you will note that several other reviewers have had the same problem. If the issue is solved, I will write another review explaining the fix. Until then, I recommend that you do not purchase this Wireless card.
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BUY THIS CARD!!!, January 2, 2004
By Dr. Weird (Atlanta, GA USA)
The guy who wrote the bad review below must work for Microsoft, because as everyone else has said, this card is great. I had TONS of issues with my first card (Linksys WMP54g, see my review for details) and when I popped in the DLink all of my headaches went away. Works great and with the firmware is lightning fast. Dont waste your money on any other product.
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Easy installation; Fast, December 24, 2003
By Eldho Thomas (Saint Louis, MO USA)
I am using this card on a home network with a Netgear Wireless-G access point. On the same wireless network, I have a Linksys Wireless USB Adapter (WUSB54G) and a Netgear PC card (WG511).Installation and set up of this card was easy. I installed it on a Windows 2000 desktop and the instructions were not very clear for Win2K, but I was able to figure it out without much sweat. Considering that almost everyone has Windows XP these days, this may not be a problem. The speed and performance is good - as good as it can get. On my network (at the same distance from the access point), this card and the WG511 are equally fast. With my ISP, my download speed is about 1.2mbps and upstream speed is 200kbps. The WUSB54G is pretty slow (must be because it is USB) - I get only < 300 mbps downstream.
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Yes Download new Firmware TODAY!, October 17, 2003
By Aaron
The new 108Mbps firmware helps with everything. I get better speeds obviously. In fact file transferring is twice as fast now. Security is still good, connection stability is still great, and signal strength is a little higher now.Overall the new firmware only improved what was already a good product. This adapter just sits in the back of my PC and I have zero problems with it or my wireless connection. Installation was quick and easy. The software that comes with it is pretty much invisible and takes little know-how to actually make work. In fact if you plug in your new access point and this card in your PC they practically connect to each other automatically. Very nice feature for newbies.
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New 108Mbps Firmware Works!, October 15, 2003
By Jackie
I just downloaded and installed the new firmware released by D-Link @ support.dlink.com for my G520, G650 and DI-624. This new firmware and drivers upgrades my speeds to more than double. I can now transfer MP3s or ZIP files across my network wirelessly in less than half the time as I did 2 days ago. All for FREE as well.The signal strength and quality is just the same as before, but now when I lock it down in Turbo mode I get way fast speeds. I am simply amazed that this is all free and doesn't take any new hardware to do. The adapter itself has been running flawlessly for a month now and I sometimes forget my PC is wireless. In fact if there wasn't a small icon in my system tray I don't think I could tell the difference.
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