D-Link DWA-552 32-bit PCI Xtreme Desktop Adapter

Comment:
Stay away from this adapter if you plan on using your PC for any audio. Every minute or so it causes the audio to drop out or distort. Also, you'll need a very fast processor as this card eats up resources! On mine it would spike to 100%! All this on a new build and I was blaming ATI or motherboard drivers. If you go to Dlink's site and check out the forum you'll see this problem has been going on for almost a year and after a couple of software updates, there's still a problem. I wasn't looking forward to trying to reinstall Vista a sixth time and something guided over to Dlink. Disabled the driver and problem solved. Sorry ATI, just a habit to blame you..

Comment:
The pci adapter works great for almost everything. The only thing i can't do is stream 1080p content wirelessly. Other than that, i have no connection dropouts or anything like that. 85% connection with dir-655 which is 15ft away through 1 floor.

Comment:
This card is good, with third party antennas. The stock antennas must be subpar 2dbi antennas, as the router was only seperated from the computer by a floor. The most reception I ever got (with the computer huddled inside a computer desk) was 2-3 bars in Vista x64. After ordering a couple of 5dbi antennas from an outside source however, the signal strength went through the roof. Additionally, this card has relatively good driver support, the most obvious test of which would be x64 support (the main reason why I turned away from Linksys products).3 Stars only for the absolutely terrible antennas, which is a huge strike against it due to the annoying necessity of buying third-party antennas, especially if your computer's in a hutch of sorts.

Comment:
Originally I purchased the DWA-556 PCI-E wireless card and it showed a connection of 54 Mbps instead of 300 and it also gave me problems with my SLI 8800 GTS video cards. I also bought the DIR-655 to go with it so the 54 Mbps wasn't going to cut it. So I returned it and bought this Wireless card (DWA-552) and I found it MUCH better than the PCI-e version. Not only does it not affect my graphics in video games (SLI), but it also showed a 300 Mbps connection and a 94% connection with my router, which is in the basement and my computer is all the way up stairs! Much better product in my opinion. I read all the mixed reviews, but decided to go with it and I am happy I did. Only problem I found was that I couldn't put the screw into the card to hold it into my computer motherboard...

Comment:
i'm fairly happy with this card. i had to get drivers from the dlink site (nothing bad, i always like using the latest drivers), installation had no problems at all. the only downside i find is that the antennas are bolted right on the back of the card. with all the cables at the back of my desktop, it's hard to position the antennas and it makes getting a good signal hard at times because of the interference. if you get a bad signal with this card, i strongly suggest getting stronger antennas or an antenna base so you have more freedom in antenna positioning. overall, it's a great product.

Comment:
This adapter is not WinXP 64-bit compliant. Should of read the specs before I bought. Drivers that came with adapter do not work. Contacted D-Link and they send Vista drivers; no dice. After some research, found Atheros AR5008 (adapter chipset) drivers that are x64 compliant. Adapter was still semi-unstable, but it works.Best x64 drivers that seem to work best is Atheros ar5xxx 760126-760224. There are newer drivers, but this one seems to keep my adapter happy in x64 world.I would not recommend this card for WinXP x64. I heard Vista is not much better either.Card works (knock on wood) and am reasonably happy.I would give it a 7 out of 10.

Comment:
I regret buying this. I bought it and then i installed it and I installed the driver and then my PC kept crashing every five minutes. I went to the support page and found out that the disk only contains XP drivers and so i downloaded the vista 64 one. I installed it and it still kept crashing. Then i called Dlink support which is the worst thing ever. They told me to download another driver and that it should work. I did it then i managed to connect to my wireless network and then my computer crashed again... And know it doesn't even boot!!!

Comment:
this product is ok if ur computer is close to ur router. i have a linksys wireless-n router and this adapter. i get up to 300mb/s but low singal. it should of came with better a software and better antennas. its not worth the 80 bucks if u want a good wireless-n adapter go with the linksys WMP300N network adapter 10 bucks less and better quality and range.

Comment:
So overall the product itself is great but it may not work out of the box for vista 64bit users. So you may have to fiddle around with the drivers. Also after I downloaded the driver file from dlink's website (i used a usb stick) it did take some time for the driver to actually get a connection for the card

Comment:
The antennae are on the back of the card and the performance is poor without the external antenna. The leads are too short for anything more that just putting it on top of the PC. This allowed it to find the network, but still couldnt make a useful connection. I bought extension cables and it found and connected to my Dlink DIR-655. After spending $150 for this setup, it worked well for about 5 months and died. That put me into the nightmare that Dlink calls Customer Support. Tech support is a fruitless time sink and the RMA dept is worse. The new card was DOA and I had to pay for shipping it back! $200 and about 20 hours and I still dont have a working card and or any patience left. I have several Dlink routers and adapters, but will buy no more.

Comment:
I pair it with DIR 625 and then DIR655. it works fine overall. with DIR 625, the connection has dropped a couple of time. wirh DIR 655, is more reliable. I guess is the strengh of the signal....

Comment:
had similar problems (drop off, cable discounted, dead card. Uninstalled all d-link drivers / software. Take card out of pc. reboot pc let the OS boot up completely then turn off. Put wireless card back into pc. turn on pc when asked to install drivers DONT cancel both install drivers. Install drivers from the d-link disk. Install Network magic and all should work well for you. I had problems out the noise and I found this to work well for me. Good Luck and hope all goes well for you.

Comment:
I recently got one of these cards along with the matching Xtreme N router (DIR-655). To replace my current WiFi-G setup.Overall I must say the move to N has been a mixed bag. My laptop with an N-Card has definately seen a big boost from the upgrade to the N-Router, but my desktop which is using this D-Link card has been erratic at best.With the laptop I get a constant connection, with high fluctuations in speed (dont know if its the laptop or the router) but my connection is always there and never cuts out.The desktop with this card has been causing problems. First off, WPA2 is non existant, when I connect using it I get sub-b transfer speeds, with a 10meg file taking upwards of 15 minutes to transfer. With WPA, WEP, or unprotected wireless, the card works fine, and runs fast.I would have expected issues such as these from a draft-n product if I were mixing manufacturers, but this is a matched set here, a DLink Xtreme N card, and Xtreme N router and I cant get half the features work. This compared to my dell laptop which works fine, doesn't make sense.Personally if you have a 54g network already, hold off until the n-standard gets certified, its too buggy at the moment to recommend if you already have a 54g-network that works. If DLink can't get their own products working properly together, I can't recommend buying this card.As for the 6x range, 14x speed hype. I get about a 10% higher signal than my 54g router, and when it works the speed is about 2x faster. (Without WPA2 of course, Using WPA2 criples this card).I'm giving this a Satisfactory because it works decent with WPA, but I can't give it higher than that because it just doesn't do what is advertised on the box. 11b speeds from a card like this if I'm using WPA2 is just plain unsatisfactory.

Comment:
Ok so yeah, I got this cause it is a wireless N card and I thought it would work good. I also have the D-Link DIR-655 Extreme wireless router. the distance between the two is maybe 15 feet if you are lucky and still I get intermittent connection loss. I also tried a Belkin wireless N router and got the same issue. I have given up on fixing it cause it comes and goes but works more often that it doesn't and I can pick up wireless networks from 2 blocks away. For all I know the routers could be at fault. Other than that it is a great card and I am on my second one due to selling the computer the first one was in.

Comment:
I haven't had a problem with the connection yet except when my internet is down then i just use my neighbors. I would recommended to all of my friends.

Comment:
The software is good but is a real drain on the CPU since it stalls my Dual Core sometimes (right now as I am writing this) because it needs to find the internet connection .. it is good to find other internet but not good for your own..>?

Comment:
For the price, speed, and range it is worth it. It is the best product on the market in my opinion. To those that complain about D-link support. If you can't figure out how to use this than you shouldn't be using wireless. By far on of the easier components to install. This review was modfied by poster @ 10-02-07 04:12 AM

Comment:
What can I say but that D-Link let me down. Every router and adapter I've purchased has been a D-Link product. Even after several firmware and driver updates, and even after trying the DIR-655 router / DWA-552 adapter combination on every possible setting (n-only, n,g,b and others) I still get better real world throughput using my old DI-784 router/DWL-AG530 adapter combination running in 802.11a. The DWA-552 drops the connection when I am trying to stream video and/or music, whether I have it set to n or g. Stay away and save your money!

Comment:
The wireless connection was non-existant, and the computer that it was in kept on blue screening, on a brand new computer, fresh install. As soon as I disabled this card, or took it out, the computer was fine and ran perfect. I upgraded the drivers which did nothing. Returning this card tomorrow.

Comment:
UNINSTAL THE OLD CARD AND SOFTWARE REBOOT AND THEN LOAD THE CDROM BEFORE PUTTING NEW CARD INTO COMPUTER!!!!!! also if you got it run a registry cleaner. the quick install guide says put the card in first, don't do it... uninstall old card and software then install new software then shut off again and install card. card will find router easily. i live in an area with 10 active networks and this card with a dir 655 is rock stable and super fast..