The card installed fine--my Windows XP system detected it easily. But then I tried to install the drivers--which were not Microsoft certified, a red flag--and everything went haywire.

I briefly got a wireless connection, but then the card locked up my system. When I turned off the power and rebooted, it locked up again during the windows screen, a clear sign of a hardware conflict. I had to log on in safe mode, and I called a tech guy. This was the beginning of a long ordeal.

The tech people were in the Phillipines, and they were quite nice, but as others have noted they were not terribly knowledgeable. Over a span of many hours and many calls, we tried out a long list of supposed fixes, including reinstalling the card in each of my 5 PCI slots. Nothing worked. I had to do a system restore twice during this time because of the lockups.

Finally, at 2 am, I gave up. The next day, I returned the card in favor of a wireless ethernet bridge--which also caused me heartache and did not work.

The moral of this sad story: Stick to wires unless you absolutely need wireless, or try another brand. Linksys is not ready for prime time, a lesson I learned the hard way.

I have a system running Windows XP that I wanted to install the PCI card in. After following the instructions, the system booted and detected the card. When it went to automatically install the driver for the card from the CD, I was told that no driver was found. I copied the drivers to the hard drive and tried again, same problem.

I then completely rebuilt the system with a fresh install of XP and I removed all other cards except for the video card, same problem.

I called Linksys technical support and after 45 minutes on hold I got a "tech" on the phone. After going through everything that I had already done again for him, the drivers still would not load. I told him that a PCI scan on the card revealed a device number of 4306 and that this number was not in the driver INF file, only 4320. He asked me for my email address and said he was going to send me some BETA drivers. After putting me on hold again, I noticed that the hold music reverted back to the main hold line and not his line. So, he basically dropped me. After another 30 minutes on hold I hung up and promptly returned everything I purchased.

I still do not know what the problem was, but at this point I don't care and won't buy another Linksys product. Their customer service is atrocious.

The documentation that comes with the card isn't correct, the Linksys website is no help and Linksys Tech Support is staffed with unqualified technicians who can't do anything but read canned responses off a checklist.

Run away. Try a different product from a different company.

In my case, I am using an Apple Airport Base Station for my two Apple computers. I recently added a Windows PC using XP. I initially had hesitations in wireless network compatibility for the "G" standard properly commuicating with my "B" standard Base Station. I finally decided on buying the Linksys and found that there was no compatibility issue at all.

The signal strength is excellent. I never had any problems with my network status and online surfing experience.

My only complaint is the unattractive long, generic-looking antenna. Compare this with other products like D-Link, Netgear and SMC Networks that have a short (flat/square design) antenna.

Why did I settle on the Linksys brand despite the ugly antenna design? For one, I have great experience with their wireless router (BEFW11S4) which I purchased years ago during it's initial release and have not had any problem with it. Second, Linksys is the current leader in wireless technology. I am hoping that they will be able to provide excellent drivers should compatibility problems arise with the latest operating systems. Third, Linksys is owned by another leader in the networking industry, Cisco Systems. These factors should be enough to assure a sturdier product.

But before you purchase on any product, do your own research for your specific system compatibility.

no differance in speed...50 feet away and going through 3 walls on the same level...

I have had no disconnects or problems at all, the PCI 54g Router is in another room about 30 feet away.

I do not have any 802.11b cards to support, this makes a big difference since the current firmware implementation drops to the 11 Mbps speed if you run in "compatibility mode" and it may not work that great even then with 11b cards. But if your setting up a completely 54g based network, this works great and with the default setting this is a breeze to install.

I also have a 2.4 GHz WaveCom transmitter right next to the Wireless Router and have had no interference problems between them (the WaveCom sends high quality NTSC Video/Stereo into the next room).

I do not have any other 2.4 gig devices in my house so I had no trouble, but a friend of mine disconnects everytime he picks up his cordless phone.

This card does what it advertises, works great.. I know have 3 machines sharing my internet.. now I just need to get my XBOX up and running..

The installation took place in one room. The router was to sit in the room with the desktop, but I also installed the laptop in that room because it was easier than walking around.

The first issue was that a neighbor had the same system (or 802.11b) and failed to secure he network so I accidentially picked his up and was a little confused until I realized what happened.

Now the desktop has XP, the laptop has Win2k.

Either the linksys desktop software (Which is different from the laptop software. Why????) or the PCI card itself had problems because the wireless connection would drop all the time, and to reconnect you needed to go through this whole process (about 3 clicks every 5 minutes as it dropped). It would not reconnect automatically even when I set the network as the default network to connect to, and it would repeatedly pick up the neighbors network even though I kept deleting it (you'd think it'd be able to detect the same MAC address and once I reject it once, it never brings it up again...).

During this time the laptop's PCMIA card worked fine.

We ended up hard wiring the desktop to the router, because they were in the same room anyways (the laptop of course would be used to wander the house).

Can I recommend this card then? No. It didn't work. Do I recommend the PCMIA card and the router? Yes.

Additionally the laptop software was much more intuitive than the desktop stuff.