Hello,
A few months ago I bought a Linksys WRT54GS v4 paired with a similarly spec'd WPC54GS pcmcia card, I thought, if anyone is going to get the speed right, it's going to be a Linksys router and a Linksys card... WRONG.
I didn't realize it until recently that the connection started at
54Mbps (what it should be) and then slowly decreased to at least 11Mbps and sometimes even 1Mbps. A few times it dropped the connection, but not very often (or I would have realized and returned the card). If I go to the dining room, 8 feet from the TV room, bam! no signal whatsoever.You could be thinking: check the distance to the router, don't put the router in a bank vault, etc, etc, and at the beginning, w/o any other thing to compare to, I thought that's what it was (even though my TV room is directly below the room where I have the router).
I get this new Dell D810 (with an internal Intel 2200BG) from work and I bring it home, and start using it wirelessly. Normally I wouldn't use my laptop and the one for work at the same time until this past weekend when I realized that I got an excellent and constant signal with the D810 in all the places where my linksys card would drop. So it wasn't the lead casing I put over the router or the concrete wall I encased it in (j/k).
I did the ultimate test, I swapped cards. I put the internal card in my laptop and voila! no dropped signals anywhere.
My question to you all is... does the linksys card completely sux and I just have to bite the bullet and get an Intel 2200?? My laptop is another Dell so no big deal, but I'd rather "fix" the linksys card than having to buy another one.
Thanks for your comments,
Vince