D-Link DWL-520 poor performance?

I have a *cheap* home network... Right now it consists of an SMC AP, a
Belkin USB wireless NIC, and a D-Link DWL-520.

The DWL-520 doesn't seem to want to work at all. It's some 30' from the
AP, through 2 walls and a floor. It sends signals fine, but doesn't seem
to receive at all. (DHCP requests are received by the server, but the
response is not received by the NIC.)

When I tested this card, it worked fine birectionally - sitting 2' from
the AP.

The Belkin USB NIC doesn't seem to have any of those problems. Sitting
right next to the DWL-520, it gets a throughput of 400KB/sec, about max
for an 11 MB/sec network I'd think, and good signal strength.

So, is the DWL-520 just junk? Or do I have a defective card/antenna?
FWIW, I have the 520C1, the one with the ADMtek 8211 chipset. I've
emailed tech support, but I'd like to know what I'm dealing with here. Is
a card swap likely to do nothing or fix the problem?

-Dondo

"Captain Dondo" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> The Belkin USB NIC doesn't seem to have any of those problems. Sitting
> right next to the DWL-520, it gets a throughput of 400KB/sec, about max
> for an 11 MB/sec network I'd think, and good signal strength.

I have read somewhere that USB wireless NICs generally have bigger and
better oriented antennas than PCMCIA cards, so they suffer less from range
problems. It could be nothing more than a range issue.

John Allen

--

John and Catherine Allen
Bofferdange, Luxembourg
(E-Mail Removed)
http://www.homepages.lu/allen

On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 23:10:44 +0000, D. Stussy wrote:

> On Sun, 6 Jul 2003, John Allen wrote:
>> "Captain Dondo" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> > The Belkin USB NIC doesn't seem to have any of those problems.
>> > Sitting right next to the DWL-520, it gets a throughput of 400KB/sec,
>> > about max for an 11 MB/sec network I'd think, and good signal
>> > strength.
>>
>> I have read somewhere that USB wireless NICs generally have bigger and
>> better oriented antennas than PCMCIA cards, so they suffer less from
>> range problems. It could be nothing more than a range issue.
>
> Whether that's true, how does that help here? The DWL-520 is a PCI WLAN
> card, not PCMCIA.

I suspect there's a grain of truth in there though - the DWL-520 has a
single tiny antenna, the Blekin has two. By nature of its location, the
PCI card antenna is closer to a big hunk of metal, which generates RF
intereference to boot. I'd get a pigtail, but it costs as much as one of
the Belkin USB wireless NICs.

Anyway, I heard back from DLink tech support. I'm hoping they have their
second string working over the weekend - tech support claims that the
reason the card doesn't receive well is because of the PCI bus or
motherboard in the machine.... I hope someone who understands wireless
comes in tomorrow....

-Dondo

"D. Stussy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
> On Sun, 6 Jul 2003, John Allen wrote:
> > I have read somewhere that USB wireless NICs generally have bigger and
> > better oriented antennas than PCMCIA cards, so they suffer less from
range
> > problems. It could be nothing more than a range issue.
>
> Whether that's true, how does that help here? The DWL-520 is a PCI WLAN
card,
> not PCMCIA.
You're quite right, I missed that.
John

I had incompatibility issues with 2 different brands- D-link and comp usa
brand. I went with d-link only and have done better. It sounds like you may
have activated or de-activated wep.
Joe
"John Allen" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:3f09d033$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "D. Stussy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
> > On Sun, 6 Jul 2003, John Allen wrote:
> > > I have read somewhere that USB wireless NICs generally have bigger and
> > > better oriented antennas than PCMCIA cards, so they suffer less from
> range
> > > problems. It could be nothing more than a range issue.
> >
> > Whether that's true, how does that help here? The DWL-520 is a PCI WLAN
> card,
> > not PCMCIA.
> You're quite right, I missed that.
> John
>
>