Thinkpads Forum

Currently we are staying in a motel, until we have found a more permanent residence.
The motel has wifi in their office, using only 64-bit WEP, and they gave me their network-password.
We are roughly 70-80 meters away, in a separate cottage.

I have with me my trusted T23, with internal Intel 2915ABG, but only under-keyboard antennas. Reception was non-existing.

So I inserted an SMC2835W 54mbps PCMCIA card. Reception was 1-2 bars, using the XP utility. Usable but still very slow.
(bought 2nd-hand for $5.- at a flea-market, got card below free) )
Then I tried an even older D-Link AirPlus DWL-650+ 22mbps PCMCIA card. (came for free with the above SMC card)
Reception the full 5 bars and my T23 is flying!
I know it's a crappy old card, but it's amazing how well it works here!

My daughter's laptop uses a new NetGear WG511v2 card, but her reception is also only about 1-2 bars.

Just thought I'd let you know.

I also bought the SMC 2835W awhile back to use with a 600E that I had given to my daughter. Performance and reception was not that good. I later upgraded to a Netgear card which does work better, but still there is room for improvement. I don't remember the model number of the Netgear card, but it was different than yours.

I had/have a D-Link PCMCIA, (model unknown), but otherwise was using all Linksys B. I'll have to say, I was giving serious thought of changing over to D-Link because of how good that card worked. Alas, I've switched to Linksys G and am quite happy, (but the D-Link still impressed me).

I have a Dlink pcmcia card which has excellent reception. I believe the model is DWL-M650. It uses an Atheros chipset.

As your daughter's connection is poor have you thought about sharing the DLink's wi-fi access with your daughter using the built in adapter? In effect turning your computer into an access point? Depending on how long you'll be there, it might be worth the effort.

As a consultant, I rely on my laptop for work and communication. It is a constant fear that one of these days something will break while I am in a strange country. That is why I always carry a set of backups, USB hard drive, PCMCIA cards for ethernet and wifi connections. My wifi backup is also an old D-Link DWL-650. So far, I have not have to use it yet (touch wood). All these backups do not take a lot of space, but they sure let me sleep a lot better at night.

I'll have to check those D-Link cards out. My only experience so far has been with 3Com's XJACK wifi cards and Motorola's WN825G (both pretty good cards, though driver installation on the WN825G leaves something to be desired.) I bought the WN825G mainly because my PowerBook recognized it as an AirPort Extreme card (same chipset manufacturer.)

I'm using a Ubiquiti SRC pcmcia card when the internal wifi card of my thinkpad R50p fails the signal is always very good but I have to say it has no built in antennas so I am using two 9dbi antennas with 3foot cable aprox 1metre. this is becaus it sends at 300mW which is quite powerfull and even forbidden in my country so I've to use such a long cable...