Product Description

The D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 Cardbus Adapter is a wireless cardbus featuring the very latest in advanced wireless silicon chip technology including enhanced security to shield and protect your wireless communication from intruders. The DWL-G630 also works with 802.11b standard wireless devices and when used with other D-Link AirPlus G products delivers throughput speeds up to 54Mbps, meaning it is capable of handling heavy data payloads. Like all D-Link wireless adapters, the DWL-G630 can be used in ad-hoc mode to connect directly with other cards for peer-to-peer file sharing or in infrastructure mode to connect with a wireless access point or router for access to the Internet in your office or home network.

Product Details

• Color: Silver
• Brand: D-Link
• Model: DWL-G630
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.50" h x 6.50" w x 9.40" l, .55 pounds
• Networking: CardBus

Features

• Up to 54 Mbps
• Compatible with 802.11g and 802.11b
• Increased Wireless Security with 802.1x and WPA
• Great for Video Streaming
• Ad-Hoc mode connects directly with other cards

From the Manufacturer
D-Link, the industry pioneer in wireless networking, introduces another performance breakthrough in wireless connectivity -- the D-Link AirPlus -- G series of high-speed devices.

The D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 Cardbus Adapter is a wireless laptop adapter featuring the very latest in advanced wireless silicon chip technology including enhanced security to shield and protect your wireless communication from intruders. The DWL-G630 wireless laptop adapter also works with 802.11b standard wireless devices and when used with other D-Link AirPlus G products delivers throughput speeds capable of handling heavy data payloads.

The DWL-G630 wireless laptop adapter features WPA and 802.1x for wireless user authentication, providing you a much higher level of security for your data and communications. The D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 also includes a configuration utility to discover available wireless networks and create and save detailed connectivity profiles for those networks most often accessed.

The DWL-G630 is a powerful 32-bit Cardbus Adapter that installs quickly and easily into laptop PCs and when used with other D-Link AirPlus G products automatically connects to the network. Like all D-Link wireless adapters, the DWL-G630 can be used in Ad-Hoc mode to connect directly with other cards for peer-to-peer file sharing or in Infrastructure mode to connect with a wireless access point or router for access to the Internet in your office or home network.

Customer Reviews

Works good, but needs a lot of tweaking
I agree with several other reviews here that the card is bad. But, if you had bought it and don't want to spend money returnig it, some tweaking would make it work good! A good product should be real plug and play but this is not!!

I bought it as a router and pc card (both D-link 802.11g) set to use at home. I have my desktop connected by cable to the router and my laptop connecting wirelessly. Installation was a snap for both the router and the card and they worked fine and I was able to browse and share files between both the computers - all at good speed.

Trouble started when I went to work with my laptop or when I used laptop on its battery. The card took a long time to recognize the network and the computer kept saying 'cound not connect to network drives'.

The other problem was that my battery drained very fast. So fast to the extent that some times just booting up and reading my emails will already have used up 75% battery!!

Minor trouble; the D-link utility does the exact samething that Windows XP wireless connection manager does. However, there is no (easy) way to disable the utility from loading. Even if you use windows XP to configure wireless connections, the D-link utility sits there and does nothing.

Solutions:
1. You can prevent the D-link utility from loading and this improves performance - makes connections quicker actually. Click Start..Run.. ; Type 'msconfig' and click OK. In the window that appears click the 'Startup' tab; You will see a long list of programs that are enabled at start up. Uncheck 'airplus.exe' and 'reg.exe' both of which run from the D-link installation directory.

2. To conserve battery, Right click the wireless connection icon on the tray; click status... click Properties... Click 'configure' right next to the D-link airplus g card's name. Go to the advanced tab and choose 'powersavemode' from the list..choose property 'normal' or 'maximum' to save your battery.

These two actions make a card actually work better than using D-link's utility (Do all tweaking at your own risk! It worked for me, but, cannot guarantee it'll work for you w/o causing any trouble). Good luck!!

Device problems with Windows XP
Although the device appears to operate just fine as far as the network, speed, and range is concerned, the card has a serious problem running on laptops under Windows XP.

I spoke today (April 26, 2004) with D-Link customer service, and they said that the card is "new" and may still have driver issues. Also, they are aware that under Windows XP, the card is unable to wake up after standby/hibernation. This is what I experienced with my Thinkpad laptop. So the card installs OK and operates correctly....but the moment the laptop goes into standby the card will turn off, and then when the rest of the laptop wakes up the card will not. I have to reboot to wake it up. The kind telephone representative I spoke with was hopeful about a driver fix soon. I am not sure if the problem is only for some brands of laptops or all of them under Windows XP. I think I will return my card for another brand with better drivers.

Pretty average - works fine most of the time
Considerably better than D-Link router products. It's amazing, but it did not want to work well with D-Link router (presumebly faulty) but works excellent with Belkin products. Its driver software may be a little annoying. When the computer starts, XP loads its own driver for this card; then the program that comes with this card unloads the XP driver and then then loads it back again. So the connection is established, broken and then again re-established. It works fine otherwise.