If you want the best performing wireless card, I've found Lucent Orinoco cards offer superior performance to the Linksys cards in idential environments. However, the Linksys is more affordable, so if you just need a basic card, this one might do the trick.

Even post-install the card works pretty well. However, I have been having a problem with the card occasionally not being able to connect to my LinkSys wireless router. This happens once every 5-6 laptops start-ups/stand-by resumes. Once I go into card properties and change the Transmit Speed, from say 'Full Auto' to '11MB' it finds the router and all is well. But this keeps happening over and over again. It becomes very annoying after a month or two. I am using the card with a Toshiba Tecra 8100 laptop, running Win2k, with all the latest patches, etc. The card driver is the newest available.

With the on-network/off-network problem regularly coming up and annoying me, I would not purchase this card again. However, I don't know whether other brands like D-Link would work any better, but just maybe it would. So try other brands instead, especially if you have a Toshiba Tecra 8100.

While it was working, it's impossible to get better than 40-bit WEP security running on this with a Linksys WAP. They claim it's still a 'beta' feature (over a year after I purchased it).

The overall knowledge level of their support people is very poor, so unless you are extremely savvy, you wouldn't even stand a chance with them.

Try D-Link, their products seem much better.

Being that we are Linksys resellers, I called their Tech to Tech hotline and asked if there were any issues with the WPC11 and Windows XP and was told they knew of no problems what-so-ever with that combination. They told me to re-install Windows XP with the recovery disk that came with the Sony laptop. I reluctantly did this and the reslults were the same. I called the Tech to Tech hotline back and told them that there wasn't any way I could recommend this product to anyone. They then told me if the card worked with Windows 98 to install Windows 98 on my new laptop and try it again!

I bought a new card, the Orinoco Gold. Placed the card into the Sony, it said, "Found new Hardware", "Installing the Driver for your new Hardware". That was it. I am now wireless.

I've never had a problem with any other Linksys product except for the WPC11. I hope Linksys resolves the problem and continues to enhance it's good name.

Range for any wireless card is not great. I live in an old house with thick, plaster walls - I get somewhere around 30 ft of range through multiple walls. I don't know anyone who gets the claimed 100 ft of WiFi range, or even half of that inside of a house. Still, no reason not to set up WEP. That is done through XPs wireless configuration utility as well.

The card has 2 LEDs - one indicates it has power, the other a sync. But I have lost the signal completely and both LEDs still glowed. There is a firmware upgrade, which I have not applied. I am thinking I might leave well enough alone. It works.

Don't expect wired performance. Wireless is great for internet connection sharing, but for file sharing I still prefer wires, for both speed and security.

I have been able to take my laptop outside when the day is a nice one and the signal from the Linksys wireless router even reaches through 2 exterior walls and across about 60 feet to a detached garage apartment.

Linksys' tech support was very helpful when I was trying to decide on this product. I highly suggest you call them.

On the good side, the setup in Windows XP was the easiest of just about any computer peripheral I've ever bought. Setup was basically three steps: 1) turn on computer 2) insert included CD-ROM 3) plug card in. All the drivers installed automatically and I was up and running in about 2 minutes.

On the negative side, the card seems to de-link from my wireless LAN occasionaly and usually for no apparent reason - sometimes I think its interference from my 2.4 ghz cordless phone but other times the phone is nowhere nearby and the problem still occurs. Considering that this is usually happening when the only thing between the card and the access point is 15 feet and one wall, I find this a bit dissapointing. Its especially frusterating that it usually takes several attemps (using the XP control panel to disable and then re-enable the card) to re-establish the link.

On the good side, when the card is working, at least within my relatively small-ish apartment, I never have a problem with the signal strength, though I can never stray much more than around 50 feet from the access point.

The other negative is I bought a Linksys wireless USB adapter for my desktop machine. For some reason, the USB adapter seemed to seriously degrade the signal strength reaching the laptop. Again, since these 802.11b products are supposed to interoperate, even when several are in use on the same LAN and especially (one would think) when they're all made by Linksys anyway, I find this to be a bit dissapointing.

Then I bought a D-Link DWL-650+ at Office Depot for $... more, and, including solving a problem with the drivers being out of date, the very competent D-Link tech support and I got the card running within 1/2 hour.

Anyways, I do not recommend the Linksys Network PC Card v.3 product since it has proven to be quite unreliable to me and many others as reviewed here.

I use the card with a Linksys wireless access point that sits behind at least one wall. While the overall distance from the access point is never huge (a couple of walls at most and maybe 50 feet), I haven't had any problems with link quality.

I did encounter one problem in which the connection to the access point would suddenly terminate. I could only get it back by taking out the card and reinstalling it. It turns out the problem was actually with the access point, not with this card. Specifically, it appears that disabling SSID broadcast on the Linksys access point can cause problems.

My main complain about the product itself is that it doesn't support 256 bit encryption, although the Linksys access point does. Also, the Linksys documentation and website are mediocre at best.