Are all wireless nic's lousy?

[tdean]

i was leaning toward the netgear 311 wireless g card or the linksys WMP54GS. pretty much every card ive looked at gets bad reviews from people. i have a 3 floor house and would like to set it up wireless. can anyone recommend a decent card?

Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait, not me, you.

 

[folken]

Wireless isn't perfect as you could imagine but it isn't terrible. I have several linksys wireless devices and I have had NO problems with them at all. I have a linksys WAP54G access point in my house and it has worked perfectly with my IBM thinkpad's a/b/g wireless, my mom's laptop's linksys WPC11 card, and a linksys WUSB11 adaptor on another machine.
When I'm in range of the access point I always get nice speed and no connection drops. The connection gets to weak to keep a steady connection when I'm about 100ft away through about 5 walls at my neighbors house.

In short, I'd go with the linksys card lol.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[kwebb]

Unfortunately your dealing with very low priced wireless gear and you may get a bundle of the exact same card that give different performance values. Also, people who are unhappy tend to post review while those that are satisfied do not. You also have to consider that many of the problems people have is due to ignorance. They have unrealistic expectations so when it doesn't work like the box says (which is ALWAYS bs btw), then they go on rants about how poorly the cards perform. I'm not suggesting all user reviews should be discarded but you used the term "people" in your post. I'd try to find reviews done by un-biased websites and individuals with experience dealing with this hardware. Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, HardOCP and so on. Some 13 year old who is pissed off because his new laptop doesn't get a signal from his friends back yard definitely should be discarded. The problem with general user reviews is they are not normally thorough enough to make that kind of distinction.