TRENDnet Wireless N PC Card TEW-641PC Review

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(More customer reviews)I have a Trendnet Wireless-N Router, it works perfectly and is quicker and more straight-forward to setup than my previous Linksys Wireless Super-G model. When my cable provider switched out my cable modem, my wireless setup "broke" and I couldn't connnect either to the router using a network cable, and had no internet access at all. Prior to my cable company swapping out my old modem (because it wouldn't support a higher download speed (which they were charging me for but I wasn't getting), my wireless connectivity using the Linksys router worked fine but wasn't very smooth. I was completely unable to get my Linksys router to recognize an internet connection using the cable company's RCA modem, so I thought I'd give another router a chance. Went to Fry's and spotted a Trendnet Wireless-N router on sale for $25 so it came with me back home.
At first, I was unable to get it to talk to my modem either, and I inadvertently reconfigured it with a new password, which it then refused to recognize. A quick call to Trendnet's tech support quickly straighten me out on how to reset the router back to the factory defaults, and after going through the Trendnet user's manual, instead of using the quick setup guide, it became apparent to me the problem was the default subnet settting was at 255.255.255.0 while my cable provider had a different subnet value. No problem in changing the subnet setting in the router software to the correct value,and I had internet connectivity, both wired and wireless. I was thrilled with the Trendnet router, and it was much faster even using my built-in Wireless-G card in my laptop than before when I was using the Linksys (which refused to accept a new subnet value when I tried to modify the settings).
So, now I was quite curious to get a wireless-N adapter for my laptop to bump up my overall speed. After reading a ton of reviews of usb and pcmcia adapters from various manufacturers, I thought what the heck I'll try a Trendnet card even though some of the other reviews I found weren't that complimentary. So bought one for $26 including shipping through an Amazon seller, and in 2 days I had the card. Followed the instructions, installed the software, plugged in the card, and with a very small amount of configuration it worked, but at a transfer rate no faster than Wireless-G (54kbps). I checked my router settings and it was set to a mixed signal (to accept WirelessB/G/N connections). I changed the value to only N connections, and the connection speed jumped up from 54kbps to 64kbps. This was with the laptop within 2-3 feet of the router. I then carried my laptop across the house, about 25 feet into another room (and didn't turn it off). Plugged the laptop back into an AC-powered outlet, and tried logging onto CNN. Took about 20 seconds and the connection worked, and then I checked the speed. The connection was "good" but the speed had dropped down to 6kbps. Whoah...!! That was bad, very bad.
Moved the laptop back to within a few feet of the router, back to 64kbps. Now, the card and Wireless-N is supposed to support up to 300kbps, and here I was about 25 feet away getting 6kbps. That was that, shut down the laptop, pulled the pcmcia card, put it back in it's box, and requested an RMA for a return. I hope this discourse helps you decide NOT to buy this card.
However, Trendnet does have my total recommendation for their low-cost wireless-N router, it's much better than the Linksys Wireless Super-G router I had previously...

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TRENDnet TEW-641PC Wireless N PC Card TEW-641PC Network Adapters - Wireless

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