 [Larger view] | Linksys HPN200 HomeLink Phoneline 10M Network Card
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Average user rating:  | |
 Secure alternative to wireless | |
| Easy install, very reliable. Most of the wireless networks I've encountered are absolutely insecure. They don't have to be, but the users stop short of implementing encryption and MAC address filtering. For those people, this is a safer alternative. Almost as convenient as wireless but without the risk. Phoneline networking doesn't suffer from interference of walls, ceilings, wiring, etc. either. I've used both wireless and phoneline. If I can't have Cat-5 cabling, give me a phoneline network. You can use these cards with the Linksys HPNA router, which serves the HPNA network as well as conventional 10/100 Ethernet concurrently. | |
 Watch out! | |
| This card is really great...if you know what it can and can't do. I used to be pretty (...)at these, but then fiddled with the phone wires and (for reasons that continue to elude my comprehension) all of a sudden they're basically 100% reliable. My beef with these things is no longer reliability (which was horrible until the fiddling mentioned above), but compatability. I haven't done any definitive research on this particular subject, but these use the same technology as DSL, so it could either not work or have to share bandwidth with the connection. That's one thing (I'm sure they've got some sort of compromise), but my real issue is with lack of OS support. I'm screwed with Linux, and that's something I hope to get more involved in the house-hold. (it's really great, search for Red Hat Linux 9, (...)) In summary, for a Windows-only network without DSL (do your research if you've got it, I guess) it's ok, but check out PowerLine networking instead. Linksys has got some PowerLine stuff, and, other than the issues with this particular product, I think Linksys is a really good company. | |
 Blue Screen Of Death | |
| I picked up a pair of these to run a simple network to another floor in our house. I already have a multi-tiered fast ethernet network, and this was just to put one computer in one room on the uppermost floor. I installed one in the computer to go upstairs and it worked like a charm with ethernet-like speeds (actually HPNA 10M cards can push 15-20 Mbps in good conditions, so I'm not suprised). The one I put in the ICS (internet connection sharing) computer to allow the upstairs computer to use the file server and print server downstairs would blue screen the ICS machine within five minuite of bootup, every time. Removing the card resolved the issue, even though the drivers were still installed. Trying to isolate the issue, realizing that placing the card in a different machine would do the same thing, it was resolved by placing it in a different computer wired to the ethernet infrastructure, but it would bluescreen after every day or two (running Windows 2000). Rats, no dice, so I had to return the card. Before returning it, however, I did call up Linksys technical support and after explaining that I am qualified on NT and 2000 Server operating systems, they sent me to the right person right away. As it turns out, there is an issue with this card running on i8xx series of chipsets with Windows NT, 2000 or XP. Since these are 80% of the computers with Celeron or Pentium III processors, it would get one star. For working as well as it did when it was working, however, it gets two. To sum it up, be careful and check the return policy when you purchase these. While I would purchase them again if I needed them and I was pretty sure they would work with no issue, currently there are too buggy. Go purchase someone else's HPNA 10M cards, they all use the same Broadcom chipset and so the performance is exactly the same. Now excuse me while I purchase a 3com. |
