Linksys (WGA600N) Pre-802.11n Wireless Adapter
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- Interface Compatibility: Ethernet
- WLAN Standards: IEEE 802.11a IEEE 802.11b IEEE 802.11n IEEE 802.11g
- Form Factor: External Adapter
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Infant product.....if you can make it work it works very well
Pros
DUAL BAND N standard support, no drivers, works on any gaming system and pcs
Cons
Infant product, needs lots of work yet, few firmware updates.
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
If you have the technical ability or are just dogged enough to fight with it then you will be rewarded with a good working product, setup is a nightmare usually.
The picture epinions has for this gadget is incorrect. It's also classified as a "gaming adapter." Linksys aims this product at gaming systems such as the xbox, xbox360, wii, ps3 etc., but in truth this is a very diverse little toy that not only works on gaming systems you can use this for many other applications as well. Any device that can use an ethernet connection can use this device since all the settings are internal, the only drawback is that if you wanted to carry it someplace with a different network name you'd need a pc to access the setup and connect it to a different network. Its even possible to hook this little guy up to a switch and have more than one device connected to it simultaneously! The unit has its own power adapter, which I think they could have made it better by having both an ac adapter and possibly a USB port for those applications where it could possibly be powered by the usb bus.
The latest firmware for this unit as of this writing is december 2007 so when you read this keep in mind that if it's a bit in the future there could be firmware updates that fix some of the issues. The big reason this unit is so special is that it supports the newest wireless N standard that uses both 2.4ghz and 5 ghz radios. The advantage to 5 ghz. band is there is less interference from such items as the microwave and the neighbors wireless access points (bet you didn't know they can interfere with each other, well they can!).
There are only one or two wireless access point/routers out on the market right now that support the new dual radio N standard, one is the Netgear dual band N and I believe linksys has a product out too. In my case I have the netgear unit. Netgear released their product too early too, all they have available is their usb dongle and it's a real miserable piece of junk that's going back to the store tonight, I was hoping this would replace it.
What's in the box:
gaming adapter
ac adapter
ethernet cable
setup disk, very basic printed instructions
setup:
The first one of these I had I plugged it into an empty wired port on my router the software saw it, detected the network and I set it up, when I connected it to my xbox 360 it didn't work. Linksys doesn't include a manual setup button in their software and they don't include an advanced configuration manual on their disk either that I can find--they should do this I may have avoided at least one hour on the tech support line if I knew how to get into it manually. I took the first one back because I thought it was bad but had even less luck with the second one.
Three hours on the phone with tech support:
I spent probably three hours on the phone with their tech support, would just get talking to a tech and the call would drop or get disconnected......aggg. Their online chat system is more dependable and I got served faster. The online chat tech insisted I pull out another computer and hook it into that so I had to put it on my kvm switch and go back and forth as I chatted from main system (yeah not all of us have a second box sitting on the floor that runs there guys). It got to be 1 am and I had to sign off with the chat guy but we at least managed to get my gaming pc connecting to the internet through the gadget. Manual setup is accessed by 192.168.1.250 ip address in browser window, password is admin by default (change it once you get inside). If for some reason you cannot access the setup this way you will need to setup a static IP address on your computer....hopefully you won't need to do that.
Manual setup, stuff you need to turn off:
There are two settings in this gadget that you most likely need to turn off, WISH and wifi protected setup, these are both in the setup and you just uncheck the box. From most posts I'm reading about this unit, don't count on being able to use any security, I don't use any myself and Linksys is apparently telling folks it won't work if they want security at least as of this writing.
Setting it for your network:
Just type the ssid for your network in the box provided in the setup and leave the STATIC IP box alone (every time I try turning on DHCP it all goes south and I have to reset it to get it going agian), I think there may also be a way to detect and choose networks but it's easier just to type the name properly and it'll say connected elsewhere in the setup. Look in your router controls for what channels are being used for G and N networks you'll need to try to match those in the gadget setup if you can. I found that I had to play with the setting regarding the types of radios in use, leaving it at default it would not work with my xbox 360 in the back of the house, in order to get it working there I had to change the radio type from default to "mixed 802.11N, 802.11a, 802.11g."
Problems?:
Yeah lots of them. Their setup software is too simplistic, not even a manual setup button like belkin gives you. Their firmware apparently needs a LOT of work, either that or they're having a lot of quality control problems. Linky sys tech support is typically staffed by the non-english speaker and they are sometimes hard to understand and I got cut off repeatedly, the chat system is much better and seems faster than sitting on hold. I have one pc that can connect through this perfectly while another cannot, I'm still working on that issue. The motherboards and chipsets are different which may be a part of the issue.
What I think of this?
If you are dogged enough to sit there and fight with this thing you will be rewarded with a product that works pretty well. If you're not up to the hassles or don't have the technical understanding or willingness to learn then it should currently be avoided. I like the idea of hooking a switch up to this and serving both my xbox and my media machine in the back of the house at the same time (of course it's the media machine that currently isn't speaking to it). The unit has dhcp built into it and it's deactivated by default, I'm not an expert in networking but I thought that was how ip addresses are assigned and when the xbox was telling me it could not lease an ip address I was convinced that it was because dhcp was not turned on in the gadget (i.e. I don't get how the device is getting an IP with that turned off unless the router is handling that...don't know).
To close:
Linksys released this too soon or they released it knowing it wasn't ready and figured they'd use us as their unpaid beta testers to straighten out the firmware. They're not the only company doing that these days but it's still annoying to lay out a hundred dollars for something and have to fight with it for days to make it work the way it's supposed to right out of the box.
update: the media machine that would not communicate with this is fixed, it just needed a driver update and now it uses this device to connect to the internet. I have not had a chance to really stress this out by trying to play an online game with it or go online with the xbox, I did download a couple of large game updates and the download speed was pretty acceptable. From posts in the linksys forums folks say they see lots of connection hiccups and lag, I haven't seen that yet but I haven't really stressed it yet either. I play a lot of city of heros had a chance to boot that up for a couple of minutes last night and it didn't seem too laggy at all but all I did was fly around the city too, I didn't try getting into any battles with tons of explosions and fancy effects going on either. A game such as hellgate london should also be a pretty good test for the pc. A game such as halo three or gears of war online should also be a great test on the xbox. The xbox doesn't offer a throughput meter anyplace I can find and when this is connected to a pc you also don't get any indication of connection speed other than the speed of your ethernet card/hardware (i.e. 100 meg per second or 1 gig per second if you've got gigabit ports on your card or motherboard). I am looking into getting a switch so I can hook up both the xbox and the media server at the same time, that's my next project (switch is different from a hub, you want a switch not a hub.
update: BOOTED up one day no connection, all appears working and settings didn't change but no go. Perhaps a windows update hosed it? Could ping the unit and enter the setup but no connection, xbox telling me no dns servers.... I had bought a netgear switch to put in to use both computer and xbox without changing cables, didn't work if that was removed either. Fiddled with settings and rebooted, changed wifi quality setting to off in device. Suddenly started working again, it did list reception at only 30 percent I suppose that could have had something to do with the problem too. Looked for a new firmware there isn't one since the december one yet. I hope linksys takes the time to straighten this out, this is a decent product they just needed more testing before they put it in the wild.
update, 12-2008: I've used this quite awhile now, have had no more issues with it at least on internet connections since I leave it powered all the time...still using the box to split the connection for the xbox and the pc. Sometime in the past year something happened that my desktop in the living room can no longer "see" the bedroom machine on the network, usually one or the other works....either the bedroom can see the living room or the living room can see the bedroom (never could get both going at once); neither working now at all. I suspect MS released a patch that hosed my network, however, these machines are running diff OS and that could also be part of it.... but it "used" to work and that's what's annoying. The living room box runs xp 64 bit while the bedroom box runs 32 bit xp..perhaps I'll try upgrading both to the same os to see if that fixes the problem...just aggravating. I've checked the linksys site a few times for firmware updates but haven't seen any yet. I did find a firmware update for my netgear in the living room but still can't seem to get the networking going again (and yes I tried shutting off firewalls). The new wireless N dual band hardware is really coming out slowly...not sure why unless everyone is happy with their G and just aren't buying them. I notice that linksys has a pcmcia or the other new laptop interface card(don't remember what it's called right now) card for the wireless N dual band. I still think this was a good purchase it's just disappointing the problems I'm having with the networking right now.
The latest firmware for this unit as of this writing is december 2007 so when you read this keep in mind that if it's a bit in the future there could be firmware updates that fix some of the issues. The big reason this unit is so special is that it supports the newest wireless N standard that uses both 2.4ghz and 5 ghz radios. The advantage to 5 ghz. band is there is less interference from such items as the microwave and the neighbors wireless access points (bet you didn't know they can interfere with each other, well they can!).
There are only one or two wireless access point/routers out on the market right now that support the new dual radio N standard, one is the Netgear dual band N and I believe linksys has a product out too. In my case I have the netgear unit. Netgear released their product too early too, all they have available is their usb dongle and it's a real miserable piece of junk that's going back to the store tonight, I was hoping this would replace it.
What's in the box:
gaming adapter
ac adapter
ethernet cable
setup disk, very basic printed instructions
setup:
The first one of these I had I plugged it into an empty wired port on my router the software saw it, detected the network and I set it up, when I connected it to my xbox 360 it didn't work. Linksys doesn't include a manual setup button in their software and they don't include an advanced configuration manual on their disk either that I can find--they should do this I may have avoided at least one hour on the tech support line if I knew how to get into it manually. I took the first one back because I thought it was bad but had even less luck with the second one.
Three hours on the phone with tech support:
I spent probably three hours on the phone with their tech support, would just get talking to a tech and the call would drop or get disconnected......aggg. Their online chat system is more dependable and I got served faster. The online chat tech insisted I pull out another computer and hook it into that so I had to put it on my kvm switch and go back and forth as I chatted from main system (yeah not all of us have a second box sitting on the floor that runs there guys). It got to be 1 am and I had to sign off with the chat guy but we at least managed to get my gaming pc connecting to the internet through the gadget. Manual setup is accessed by 192.168.1.250 ip address in browser window, password is admin by default (change it once you get inside). If for some reason you cannot access the setup this way you will need to setup a static IP address on your computer....hopefully you won't need to do that.
Manual setup, stuff you need to turn off:
There are two settings in this gadget that you most likely need to turn off, WISH and wifi protected setup, these are both in the setup and you just uncheck the box. From most posts I'm reading about this unit, don't count on being able to use any security, I don't use any myself and Linksys is apparently telling folks it won't work if they want security at least as of this writing.
Setting it for your network:
Just type the ssid for your network in the box provided in the setup and leave the STATIC IP box alone (every time I try turning on DHCP it all goes south and I have to reset it to get it going agian), I think there may also be a way to detect and choose networks but it's easier just to type the name properly and it'll say connected elsewhere in the setup. Look in your router controls for what channels are being used for G and N networks you'll need to try to match those in the gadget setup if you can. I found that I had to play with the setting regarding the types of radios in use, leaving it at default it would not work with my xbox 360 in the back of the house, in order to get it working there I had to change the radio type from default to "mixed 802.11N, 802.11a, 802.11g."
Problems?:
Yeah lots of them. Their setup software is too simplistic, not even a manual setup button like belkin gives you. Their firmware apparently needs a LOT of work, either that or they're having a lot of quality control problems. Linky sys tech support is typically staffed by the non-english speaker and they are sometimes hard to understand and I got cut off repeatedly, the chat system is much better and seems faster than sitting on hold. I have one pc that can connect through this perfectly while another cannot, I'm still working on that issue. The motherboards and chipsets are different which may be a part of the issue.
What I think of this?
If you are dogged enough to sit there and fight with this thing you will be rewarded with a product that works pretty well. If you're not up to the hassles or don't have the technical understanding or willingness to learn then it should currently be avoided. I like the idea of hooking a switch up to this and serving both my xbox and my media machine in the back of the house at the same time (of course it's the media machine that currently isn't speaking to it). The unit has dhcp built into it and it's deactivated by default, I'm not an expert in networking but I thought that was how ip addresses are assigned and when the xbox was telling me it could not lease an ip address I was convinced that it was because dhcp was not turned on in the gadget (i.e. I don't get how the device is getting an IP with that turned off unless the router is handling that...don't know).
To close:
Linksys released this too soon or they released it knowing it wasn't ready and figured they'd use us as their unpaid beta testers to straighten out the firmware. They're not the only company doing that these days but it's still annoying to lay out a hundred dollars for something and have to fight with it for days to make it work the way it's supposed to right out of the box.
update: the media machine that would not communicate with this is fixed, it just needed a driver update and now it uses this device to connect to the internet. I have not had a chance to really stress this out by trying to play an online game with it or go online with the xbox, I did download a couple of large game updates and the download speed was pretty acceptable. From posts in the linksys forums folks say they see lots of connection hiccups and lag, I haven't seen that yet but I haven't really stressed it yet either. I play a lot of city of heros had a chance to boot that up for a couple of minutes last night and it didn't seem too laggy at all but all I did was fly around the city too, I didn't try getting into any battles with tons of explosions and fancy effects going on either. A game such as hellgate london should also be a pretty good test for the pc. A game such as halo three or gears of war online should also be a great test on the xbox. The xbox doesn't offer a throughput meter anyplace I can find and when this is connected to a pc you also don't get any indication of connection speed other than the speed of your ethernet card/hardware (i.e. 100 meg per second or 1 gig per second if you've got gigabit ports on your card or motherboard). I am looking into getting a switch so I can hook up both the xbox and the media server at the same time, that's my next project (switch is different from a hub, you want a switch not a hub.
update: BOOTED up one day no connection, all appears working and settings didn't change but no go. Perhaps a windows update hosed it? Could ping the unit and enter the setup but no connection, xbox telling me no dns servers.... I had bought a netgear switch to put in to use both computer and xbox without changing cables, didn't work if that was removed either. Fiddled with settings and rebooted, changed wifi quality setting to off in device. Suddenly started working again, it did list reception at only 30 percent I suppose that could have had something to do with the problem too. Looked for a new firmware there isn't one since the december one yet. I hope linksys takes the time to straighten this out, this is a decent product they just needed more testing before they put it in the wild.
update, 12-2008: I've used this quite awhile now, have had no more issues with it at least on internet connections since I leave it powered all the time...still using the box to split the connection for the xbox and the pc. Sometime in the past year something happened that my desktop in the living room can no longer "see" the bedroom machine on the network, usually one or the other works....either the bedroom can see the living room or the living room can see the bedroom (never could get both going at once); neither working now at all. I suspect MS released a patch that hosed my network, however, these machines are running diff OS and that could also be part of it.... but it "used" to work and that's what's annoying. The living room box runs xp 64 bit while the bedroom box runs 32 bit xp..perhaps I'll try upgrading both to the same os to see if that fixes the problem...just aggravating. I've checked the linksys site a few times for firmware updates but haven't seen any yet. I did find a firmware update for my netgear in the living room but still can't seem to get the networking going again (and yes I tried shutting off firewalls). The new wireless N dual band hardware is really coming out slowly...not sure why unless everyone is happy with their G and just aren't buying them. I notice that linksys has a pcmcia or the other new laptop interface card(don't remember what it's called right now) card for the wireless N dual band. I still think this was a good purchase it's just disappointing the problems I'm having with the networking right now.
