Linksys WUSB54G: hardware may be OK, but the software's a disaster

(...)

I don't have any particular recommendations for W98SE USB radios. I've used DLink DWL-G120 and DWL-122 USB radios without much difficult on Windoze ME laptops.

I agree with your comments about the WUSB54G software and drivers. I've experienced the monitor and driver crashes. However, I find that the few other USB devices that I've tried, do much the same thing. However, I can offer a clue. I had Netgear WG111 that was driving me nuts on an old Dell something laptop running Windoze 98SE. It had a USB 1.1 port so the WG111 was running at 802.11b speeds. Just for fun, I shoved in a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card and installed the WG111 there. No lockups, no crashes, and everything worked as expected.

I also had a similar experience with trying to run the wireless card through a USB 2.0 hub on a different machine. This was a W2K IBM A31 laptop with a DWL-G120 radio. Totally unreliable. Initial connections often claimed that it couldn't get a DHCP address. If I managed to connect, it would eventually hang or disconnect. Removing the USB hub solved the problem. However, the IBM MiniPCI wireless card arrived a few days later, and I didn't have time to do additional testing.

Now, back to the original problem. Have you considered going to fiber optic lightning isolation? 100baseTX to 100baseFX Fiber optic media converters are not that expensive and far more reliable than wireless. If you can live with 10Mbits/sec, the older 10baseTX devices are really cheap. Many ethernet switches have plug in modules for fiber. How's $12/ea for 10baseT to 10baseFX:

formatting link

I bought a Linksys WUSB54G (ver. 4) to use on an old Win98SE machine that I use in conjunction with my Amateur Radio station. It was working fine with the wired connection, but the network cable was violating my lightning-protected safety zone. And yes, I know that Win98SE is old, but all the software I need to run works fine with it, and the Linksys WUSB54G claims to work with it. The wireless AP to which this is intended to connect is a Linksys WRT54G that works fine with the WPC54G in a notebook running WinXPProSP2.

The WUSB54G connection is flaky. The signal strength runs around 60%, and most of the time it connects to the AP but often says it cannot find the Internet. But what is most annoying is that the monitor program will often crash when I try to change any settings and will have to be terminated or will even lock the machine solid so that the only thing that works is the power switch.

I looked on the Linksys Web site and found the latest and greatest software pack that claims to have fixed crashes with Win98SE and problems when the SSID is not being broadcast (as is the case here). I downloaded it, only to find that it's the same as the version I already have.

I read somebody's recommendation that the Boingo software works better, but AFAICS I still need to use the Linksys software for basic configuration.

Any ideas?

BTW: I decided against using a wireless PCI card because the USB-connected one allows me to locate the antenna in a better location.

"Perce" (aka Alan NV8A)