Linksys's support came to the conclusion that the PCMCIA slots in my notebook are bad (both of them). Toshiba blames Linksys for the problem.

The final analysis: Don't buy this card for a Toshiba laptop! If you don't believe me look at Toshiba's online service forum and do a search for WPC11. Many people have had the same problem. Linksys and Toshiba products don't work well together.

DON'T BUY THE 3.0, LOOK FOR THE 2.5 VERSION!! I am not sure what the "upgrades" are but if the card doesn't work, why does it matter???

A wireless LAN excursion

I bought my WPC11 along with the Linksys BEFW11S4. The WPC11 is a PCMCIA card for your laptop that enables wireless local area networking. The BEFW11S4 is a wireless access point, DSL router, and 4-port switch combo. Both devices use the increasing popular 802.11b wireless networking standard. Wireless networking in general is a fast moving field with a number of competing standards and a whole new set of technical terms. However, in the interests of brevity, I will save a discussion of the ins and outs of wireless networking for my forthcoming review of the BEFW11S4.

We're all the same on the inside...

The guts of the WPC11 were designed by Intersil Corporation and use their second-generation PRISM chip set. The PRISM II is pretty much the industry standard and is used in products by Linksys, D-Link, SMC, Cisco, and others. There is actually not much fault I can find with the PRISM II. Rather, there is one major implementation flaw in the WPC11 that severely handicaps it in comparison with its competition.

Let's talk about the not so bad first

First, let me cover the good features of the WPC11. Overall, the build quality of the card is sound. The card itself is sturdy and solid and gives off an impression of durability. When inserted into a PC Card slot on a laptop, there is about a one-inch long portion of the card that remains exposed. There are two indication lights on portion. One is amber and indicates signal quality. A solid light means a solid signal. A flashing light means a lost signal. The other light is green and flashes during network activity. Having two separate indicators is a nice convenience. I find a single indicator light to be of marginal use.

The WPC11 comes with drivers for all flavors of Windows. Installation is simple and painless. You run the setup executable, wait for it to complete, restart your computer, and voila, you are good to go. Actually, you are almost good to go. You also need to install the configuration software. The config software is well done, in my opinion. The software runs in the background and can be accessed via a task tray icon. The icon changes depending on signal strength, so a quick glance into the lower corner of your screen can tell you if you're connected or not. Clicking on the icon opens a window that allows you to quickly configure the WPC11. You can set up your network properties and encryption. The WPC11 allows for both 40-bit and 128-bit WEP encryption. The menus read 64-bit, but its actually 40-bit encryption; its just a difference in convention. The configuration utility also has measures real-time link quality and signal strength, making it easy to test the range of your wireless network.

And now comes the ugly...

This is where the WPC11 really falters. The range of the WPC11 is very very poor. It is by far the worst of any wireless LAN card that I have had experience with. Other reviews have mentioned a poor antenna design and I am inclined to believe this is true. As I stated earlier, a number of manufacturers use Intersil's PRISM chip set. The only real variation from manufacturer to manufacturer is in the build quality and the antenna. And apparently, Linksys chose to use a very poor antenna design that severely cripples the range of the card. A friend of mine has a laptop with a built-in wireless LAN card based off of a first-generation chip set that has easily twice the range of my WPC11.

Be a smart shopper

The glaring lack of range is the only real fault I find with the WPC11, but it is a very severe handicap. A quick scan of the prices of various wireless networking cards shows all the major brands to be within $10 of each other. So buying the WPC11 was basically me purchasing a lesser product for the same price as a better product. If you're looking to set up a wireless network, look past the Linksys WPC11. Though I haven't tried it myself, I've heard particularly good things about Lucent Technologies' WaveLAN PC Card. Regardless, there are at least a half dozen alternatives to the WPC11, a sad reminder to myself to do my homework and stay away from impulse purchases.

The desktop running XP was able to handle all the drivers and installation process just fine. No problems there. However, I could not for the life of me make my Win 98 SE laptop handle the home network setup process. My laptop wasn't being recognized by the network and wasn't recognizing the network. I even took back the PC Card to the place I purchased it from and exchanged it for another card of the same product, hoping that this card was malfunctioning. No luck. My next-door neighbor, a whiz with computers since he's a techie for a career, couldn't fix things either.

I upgraded my little laptop to Win XP Home, tried to set up the network again, and HOORAY! Everything works. I adore the network I've created using the Linksys products. The speed Linksys provides is awesome, and signal strength is great as well.

I give this product three stars because of the difficulty I had attempting to use it with Win 98 SE. This product is supposedly compatible with Win 98 SE, which is why I'm cranky that it wouldn't work as promised. However, for those of us with Win XP Home as our operating system, I give this product five stars.

Highly recommended!

Set-up was a pain, and range of the card is a problem. It took me over 4 hours to set it up and get everything working. Also, about 4 months after I got the card, it suddenly couldn't connect to my Linksys router. I tried re-installing the driver, the configuration tool, calling tech-support, and even trying to use it with multiple computers (with win98 and win2000). None of the work-arounds worked. Finally, I had to send the card in to get a replacement. The replacement work for about 4 months before it too gave out in the exact same way.

I don't recommend this product to anyone, except probably your worst enemy. I do recommend another brand. My SMC Networks wireless card and SMC router (for a different home network) both work flawlessly and the software setup was a breeze. It took me less than 30 minutes to get everything setup and working. I've been using the SMC wireless PC Card for over a year now, and it works perfectly, with both the SMC Router, and the Linksys Router.

All I can say is that Linksys should have spent some more money on the development of this card, because as-it-is, it's next to useless.