I installed the wireless card in my laptop PC and configured it to connect to my company lan, (Linksys WAP11) and to the above router in my home lan. Everything was easy to setup but I noticed right away the Linksys PC card was reporting poor signal when other employees with Lucent Silver wireless PC cards were full scale on signal. I experienced trouble using the Linksys wireless PC card at home also, there were places where I lost my connection only 20 feet from the access point!

Bottom line, I returned the Linksys WPC11 PC card and purchased a Lucent Silver PC card, (for less money!), and now I have full signal at work and at home, both connecting to Linksys wireless access points!

The Lucent wireless PC card has a proprietary client manager that graphs the wireless connection. This is meant to be used with their access points. The function is greyed out when I try it on the company lan, (WAP11), but works on the newer WEBW11S4 on my home lan. I now see lots of info on the signal quality, data speed and packet loss, (none!), while I'm connected to the home access point.

Best of both worlds, Five Stars each for the Linksys cable router/access point combined with the Lucent wireless PC card....

When you click the Help button in their software, it brings up boxes that say 'Paste the help text here.' Don't you just love paying for unfinished software?

Get another brand, I'd say. There is a paucity of support information on the Linksys site, and what is there is only really readable by engineers. When you call their tech support, they are brusque and say they'll have someone call you back. Ha!

I recommend it.

It installed on ME in less than 5 minutes, and worked great with reliable 11Mbps connectino to my WAP in the same location where the Linksys card was unable to connect at all.

The Linksys WAP is great, but don't buy the Linksys PC card. The Lucent one is great!

First the installation problem: the drivers it ships with don't work with Windows ME. Neither do the ones that you can download from the Linksys web site. I managed to get a copy of the ME drivers from Alex ...who wrote an earlier review of this product and had similar problems -- somehow he managed to get them to me faster than Linksys.

With the drivers from Alex, the product installed and worked correctly -- provided it was within line of sight of my BEFW11S4. The signal degradation got really bad after that and since I wanted to use the card to use my computer in my bedroom (50 feet and 2 "stick and drywall" wall away) the 20% signal strength did not cut it.

I returned it and ordered a Lucent Orinoco card. I bet it will work better and install more easily.

At first I was reluctant - I'd never set up a network before. Even though my cable company partnered with LinkSys, there was all sorts of caveats, and warnings, and I just wasn't sure it would work - not to mention if I could even figure out where to plug what in. But I knew I had to have something, so I placed the order. When my card came in, I slapped it in my laptop, powered up, and I was surfing without having to configure a single thing (I installed the LinkSys Network Access Point prior to use).

To test out the range, I took the laptop upstairs, into a bedroom, and closed the door. I connected to Atom Films.com and was watching a high-resolution streaming video without a single hiccup for over 20 minutes. Then another video, and another. Man this wireless thing ROCKS!

Bottom line is that if you have a LinkSys connection point, you'll be hard pressed to beat both the value and quality of this card.

The bad: This card has some issues with Windows ME. In most cases it can be installed without glitches. In some cases, however, it fails to bind to the TCP/IP stack. Linksys is already familiar with this issue and has a new driver for it. The problem is: Try to request it. I was in Truckee, CA, far away from PC civilization as we know it working for a client. Linksys promised to e-mail me the driver within hours. After 2 days of waiting and many, many calls to an unresponsive and sometimes arrogant tech support department, I had to drive 1 hour and go to Reno, NV to get a different card. It was after 8 days and a threat to report the issue to PC Magazine that I received the driver within 2 hours.

Summary: The wireless card as well as many other Linksys products like routers, switches, print servers, etc. are GREAT. But pray that you won't have to call Linksys for assistance.

All in all, I got the network set up in under five minutes, WAP and card configuration combined.

The drawback (and the reason why the fifth star wasn't earned) was due to the dropoff in transfer rate. I can go through a couple walls through my apartment, but it definitely falls off quite rapidly.

Anyone have experience getting this card to work under Linux?

Installation: The documentation is not up-to-date. Files on the CD are not where they say they are and the actual procedures you have to perform are not well ordered or explained.

Be sure you install the (somewhat hidden) configuration software on the pc-card side. Otherwise things just won't work.

Performance: Once you get it working, it works pretty good. I don't think the range is as good as advertized but it does work throughout my house and I get full bit-rate in the next room (though, not upstairs at a distance of about 40 feet from transmitter.).

Beware that the PCI card is just an adaptor and will not work without the PCcard plugged in.

Nonetheless, turns out the card has issues under Windows ME (even though the manual clearly has Windows ME installation instructions?) so I wouldn't recommend it unless you are using another operating system. I purchased a D-Link DWL-650 and it works like a charm under ME.

I have been very happy with Linksys' product over the past year especially with the Linksys BEFSR41 4-Port Etherfast Cable/DSL Router. With 2 PCs and 2 Laptops, I figured it was time for me to upgrade it to another Linksys, Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless Access Point & Cable/DSL Router w/4 Port Switch. When it came to the Wireless PC Card, WPC11 was my first choice due to my past experience with Linksys, best bang for the buck and simply the idea of using same company's products in the network. I was, however, worried a little with reviews stating issues with performance and installation of drivers.

I got it over the weekend and it took me about 15 to 20 minutes to install it and get it running on my Win2000 Pro laptop. The CD and installation manual contained worked as it should. The instruction included Win 2000 information that some reviewers stated were missing (it's probably due to the time difference). The drivers loaded on my first try. BTW, I definitely recommend using the configuration utility. It's simple to install and works great...makes life a little simpler. As for performance/range, I am getting DSL access all over my property of 1/2 acre lot. Now if I can just get Pacific Bell to open a new Central Office closer to my house...I dream. So far I have not had a reason to call the tech support, so I can't provide any feedback on this subject.

On a side note, I will be getting a Cisco Aironet PC Card (AIR-PCM342) from work in few weeks. I will test out the performance between them at that time.

In summary, I have been very satisfied with all the Linksys products so far.

The biggest negative I found was its lack of monitoring software and inadequate documentation. Performance wise I think the unit actually outperforms the D-Link card. I am using a SMC wireless router and had not trouble hooking the card up. I use the D-Link monitoring software with this card and it seems to work fine.

I feel that I can recommend this product with little reservation. The only thing any of us usually have to fear with Linksys is there notoriously poor customer support and documentation. If you can deal with these two things this might be an economical choice for a wireless LAN.