Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First, let me say I'm no tech, so my comments are more observational than technical. I bought this unit and the matching Belkin N wireless router because of the range touted by N wireless. I installed the router in the basement of my home to service a desktop which is located on the second floor, at the opposite end of the house from the router. The Belkin N wireless adapter gives me a 4/5 signal strength and moves data at about 78 mbps, even though the signal passes through 3 floors and multiple walls. So, it lives up to the claim of excellent range.
On the downside, once installed, the Belkin program manager was unable to "see" the router, even though the Vista network manager could see it and reported the signal as good to strong. I could not connect to the router using the Vista network manager because of a conflict between the Belkin program manager and Vista. Every time I attempted to connect with the Vista network manager, I got the "blue screen of death" and the computer shutdown. Therefore, if you are using Vista with this product, you must go to the Belkin website and download the driver for Vista and install it. In attempting to resolve this problem, I called Belkin support. That effort proved fruitless as the Belkin support team was unaware that a Vista driver was necessary and that Belkin had such a driver available on the Belkin website. So, Belkin technical support was not helpful in resolving the issue. Thankfully, a call to Dell Support pointed me in the right direction.
Once I loaded the driver, however, the Belkin program manager would not recognize the router. The good news is that the driver removed the conflict and the Vista network manager now allows me to connect to the router and surf the internet.
Bottom line is that the hardware works well but the Belkin program manager was for me at best useless and at worst, a source of trouble.
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Belkin F5D8053 N Wireless USB AdapterThe N Wireless USB Adapter connects your desktop or notebook computer to a wireless network. Providing greater range and faster speeds, N offers an excellent solution for sending large files such as video, music, photos, and documents among the networked computers in your home. Based on the 802.11n draft, N Wireless enables multiple receivers and transmitters to send and receive data using Intelligent MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) spatial multiplexing techniques which greatly increases speed, coverage, and the reliability of the wireless network.
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