I've been trying to get a wireless adapter for my Windows 7 64bit operating system for a few weeks, but none of them had drivers that worked with my PC. And then I stumbled upon this little beauty and it worked as soon as I plugged it in - the drivers installed automatically (I didn't even have to use the drive mini-CD that came with the device). External Antenna USB WiFi Wireless IEEE 802.11G/B WLAN 54Mbps Network Adapter USB2.0 Wireless Lan USB Adapter for Laptop Noteook Desktop PC Suport Vista/Windows 7(32bit & 64bit)/Linux
I purchased two of these for my wife and myself because we like to sit out back on nicer evenings and wear down our laptop batteries together.
I have installed the drivers on XP, Vista, Windows 7 and tonight on Ubuntu 10.10. In order of ease-of-install I go with Win7, Vista, Ubuntu and XP. Win7 and Vista both installed the drivers without the disk, Ubuntu seemed trickier but not really. I plugged it in, ran update manager and rebooted (Ubuntu does a full reboot on my netbook in under a minute and a half.) XP was a nightmare of picking through the mis-labeled folders on the disk, giving up and finding the drivers online.
As far as performance is concerned, I saw little signal boost on XP (went from 1 bar without to 2 bars with.) Win7 and Vista both showed a steady two bar increase (1 without to 3 with) but the most impressive was Ubuntu. On Ubuntu I went from barely 1 bar without the dongle to full signal with a rare fluctuation down to 3 bars if someone stands directly in the signal path.
I've read the other reviews and they seem pretty mixed but my opinion is that this is hands-down the best purchase under $20 I've ever made.
I'm writing this review from my back patio with my Ubuntu powered Ideapad s10-3t and wireless dongle.
"A computer is like an air conditioner, it works great until you open Windows."
Ok, I read the reviews and bought this anyway.
I'm a computer guy and I figured this can't be THAT difficult.
Well ... the instructions sheet might as well have been blank for all of its use and there is no model number anywhere on the box or instructions.
THE GOOD NEWS ... I got it to work.
If you run the program from the following folder on the disk they provide (F:\WiFi Card\RT2070,RT3070,RT2770,RT3072,RT3572,RT3370\windows) you can then install the driver or the driver and a utility for this card that works under XP (I'm using it right now).
I chose just the driver and am using Windows to control my network card but its up to you ... chances are if the driver works the utility will to, I just don't happen to like the utilities I have had with other cards.
One other note ... if they happen to ship different models of cards in these little boxes and the above application does not work, try the other dirctories ... the other "LONG" application name file isby the same company and installs a driver for a differnt model card. You can also drill down into the other folder on the disk and find the setup.exe that is referenced in the instruction sheet they provide.
I hope this helps ... and I hope that little antenna makes this card work better than my old one.
For the price, if you have the patience to make it work then I give it a 4 ... it appears to be good hard ware but the instructions REALLY need some work.
I realize I paid less than six bucks for this thing, but it sure made me work for the savings. Contrary to what some other reviewers have said, this thing did not install easily. Not only did it not auto-install the driver, I had to jump through all kinds of hoops to install it from the disk. The Windows installation wizard couldn't find the correct driver on the disk. The disk has at least five "setup.exe" files for a number of different devices. Of course the adapter gives you no indication of what model it might be, so I ended up installing them all, one by one, until I got to the one that worked. On top of everything, I had to disable my antivirus in order to get the drivers to install. After about two hours I did finally get the thing to work. I don't recommend this unit for the technically challenged, or for anyone with a low frustration threshold.
Bought this to see if I could get it working under gentoo. For you linux users here's the important bit you'll want to know before purchasing.
lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 148f:2070 Ralink Technology, Corp.
To get it working in gentoo you should follow this:
Kernel Config:
[*] Enable loadable module support --->
[*] Networking support --->
-*- Wireless --->
<*> cfg80211 - wireless configuration API
[*] cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility
[*] Wireless extensions sysfs files
<*> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
[*] Device Drivers --->
[*] Network device support --->
[*] Wireless LAN --->
#Disable Ralink here
< > Ralink driver support --->
[*] Staging drivers --->
<M> Ralink 2870/3070 wireless support
source: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-848390-start-0.html
You can get the firmware by following the above link or you can download it from here (what I did):
[...]
Choose "Firmware RT28XX/RT30XX USB series (RT2870/RT2770/RT3572/RT3070)"
once you untar it:
sudo cp rt2870.bin /lib/firmware/rt3070.bin
Make sure you rename it or else your kernel won't find it.
Just follow this to get networking working:
[...]
for wpa_supplicant, you can put -Dwext for the driver. wext just means generic linux driver.
Last, but not least. I've been using wicd to connect. It works great. Haven't tested network manager.
Anyway that's my guide. Hopefully it helps someone.
Reply if you need help. - Usb Network Adapters - Wi-fi - Wireless Adapter - Win7'
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