There isn't much to say about a wireless adapter except that it works or it doesn't. This one works well. It is fast and the board and antennae seem to be well constructed. I installed it on a system running 64-bit Windows. The Windows driver would not work with it at all and, in the beginning, neither would the ASUS driver. Device manager found the card but the network could not find it. After a bit of googling, I shut down my Kaspersky firewall and reinstalled the ASUS driver. It started and ran perfectly. I reactivated the firewall and it continued to work properly. I'm not a computer guru so I cannot explain why this would be. However, if you have trouble getting the card to work, try disabling your firewall software. ASUS PCE-N13 - Wireless PCI-Express Adapter - 802.11b/g/n - 2 External Antenna
I had high hopes for this cheap little wonder, and have read great reviews all around the Internet. At first I experienced great speeds, with little to no effort in installing this product. Despite this, a small minority of customers (including me) seem to experience lag while the internet is in use at the same time as a media file is playing (such as a mp3 on itunes or a video on a media player, or even a game). The computer experiences video lag and mouse lag every few seconds, making it extraordinarily annoying to do anything other than surf the net while wireless is enabled. In order to do anything else other than use a browser I have to disable my wireless connectivity to do so. I even moved the hardware further away from my gpu and experienced better performance (still with lagging just not as much).
Now I'm sure not everyone experiences this, but you have been warned.
What makes this little card so valuable is how compatible it is. ASUS is known for making motherboards and many HP's & Dell's use them for their motherboards. Normally when you buy a 3rd party hardware, you run the risk of it not working as well with your system. This is not the case with ASUS as chances are your motherboard is made by them or uses their chips.
It is worth noting that this is a STANDARD Wireless N Card (PCI Express). This means if you have a dual-band (double band) router it will still connect, but you will not get that extra "Boost". Most people use that boost for gaming and if do not see yourself using your PC for gaming, then this will not be a problem.
Although it is listed as N (Draft), which was the pre-release of the N standard... This card really is N standard. ASUS released it using the standard, about 2-3 months before it was officially labeled standard. So you really are getting a TRUE N Card on a budget.
I bought this after I couldn't connect directly to my router, and it gave me a better connection than the last card I tried, a Wireless-G PCI model from Linksys. I haven't tried the utility to make a hotspot, and I didn't even install drivers. Windows 7 found and installed what was necessary, and I'm connected again. I can play mostly lag-free video games, and streaming video from my server connected to the router works as well, even with higher-bitrate files.
Some tips: Avoid installing the driver from the provided disc, go to the website and get it there. Also try to avoid using any bundled utilities that take over from Windows Wireless Manager, as they are completely unnecessary, and you can run into problems. If you run into connectivity issues in your home, find out if any bulky objects are located between the connection points. Things like fireplaces, chimneys, concrete walls, and even appliances like microwave ovens and fridges can affect your signal strength.
I installed this on a new Dell Inspiron 570. It's has an AMD processor with Windows 7. Windows found and installed the adapter upon starting the computer. There was no need to load drivers from the included disk. It works perfectly.
I own 3 of these and they all work great. The connection speed is fast and the two adjustable antennas allow you to adjust them just right to get maximum signal strength. Two of them are used for home theater PCs so they need to be able to handle streaming Netflix. They also work quite well for streaming DVDs across the network from my other computers. Make sure to spend some time adjusting the position of each antenna to get the best possible signal strength. It does make a difference.
We have an HP computer with a pretty small tower. We had to move a few things around on the motherboard to open up a space for this guy, but it fit in the tight quarters just fine. We hooked it up a few rooms over from our router and voila! We get a nice download speed (I clocked 800 M) with no glitches or resets needed so far. I give this adapter 5 stars.
This card is simply okay at best. I bought it so I wouldn't have Ethernet wires running through my living room and kitchen. The signal is some what strong, average of 4 bar at about 20 feet away and through a couple of walls, though i thought it would be even better. This is my first pci wireless card so I can't really compare it with others but I can compare it with the wireless connectivity of other laptops. IMO laptop wireless card definitely outperform this one. My speeds are going always up and down for no apparent reason. And sometimes just browsing the web feels like it's taking much longer then it should be. I'm thinking of just leaving the wires because having a wired connection is 3x then when I'm connected through this card. Overall it's an okay card and does what it's suppose to, I would recommend it if you just Need something that gets the job done or if your looking for something cheap.
Pros: wireless, relatively cheap, small(pcix1), good signal
Cons: slow speeds compared to wired connection and laptops
I just recently assembled my own gaming computer. As right now a wired connection is out of the question, I ended up buying a wireless adapter. I'm not looking for something that will work incredible miracles. I just want a nice wifi adapter that gives me at least a decent connection as my laptop has given me.
(-2 stars for:) Unfortunately I'm going to have to look for another adapter as this one is absolutely dreadful. First I want to add that I purchased other ASUS products (including a motherboard and a monitor) and I was really impressed with the quality and prices. Nevertheless, this little guy really disappointed me. The fastest speed i've achieved with this little guy is 95 mbps (tested connection speed on speedtest dot net as well). It definitely beats my laptop's wifi adapter, which has only given me a max of 65 mbps. However, the asus wifi adapter is very erratic, switching between dramatically slow speeds to significantly faster speeds. One second it'll be at its max and then another second it'll drop down to 5mbps. This is something my laptop does not do. It took 3 minutes for this little guy to download 129 mbs at one point. I don't really mind that it didn't achieve faster speeds, but the fact that it slows down to extreme points really turned me off. I need a reliable adapter, not this.
(-1 star for:) Another issue I had with this card was with the installation. Despite the fact that I installed it to an asus motherboard, it did not fit perfectly into the pci express slot. The problem was that I could not plug this thin in without it jerking the plate inwards towards the desktop and therefore preventing me from screwing it to the desktop and securing it. This is not an issue with my case as every other pci adapter i installed fit perfectly. I had to remove the screws holding the card to the pci plate in order to secure it to the desktop case. - Wireless N - Pci Express - Network Adapter - Wireless'
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