D-LinkDWA-552 Extreme-N Wireless PCI Adapter

I just had to write this review after reading all the terrible commentary on this great network adapter, so here's one that gives this product 5-Stars across the board.I have been using the DWA-552 for more than 2 months in my i7 920-'Nehalem' Quad Core CPU powered home-built PC, and I've got nothing but Kudos to say about connectivity, reliability, speedy transmission, and plug and play goodness that this card offers. When I built my PC I was worried about this adapter, since it was the ONLY PCI adapter available at the time that wasn't some off-brand gadget, and the reviews were so awful about it!Well, no more because I've been pleased as an October pumpkin with the fantastic performance and connectivity of this adapter in Vista Ultimate 64-bit with the new PC. In fact I've never had a bad or insurmountable problem or issue with this network adapter in 2 months of 24/7 use with the new PC.Installation is nothing at all, easy as pie: just simply install the network adapter with your PC powered down, and off, button it up, reboot, insert the CD ROM that came in the kit with drivers and control panel for the device, install the drivers/control panel, reboot, and BAM! Instant connectivity!I have been using the device with a "Gemtech" N-series Router, better known as the NewerTechnology N-Series Router, The MAXPower Router, and the two co-exist perfectly. I never had a dropped connection, never had any connection issues at all with the D-Link DWA-552 device in the two months that I've had it online with the new PC.I don't know what all the trouble and terrible problems are about with the other reviews of this network adapter, but I've got to give it 5-stars across the board in my use of it the past two months. I mean I have ZERO to complain about, because the adapter performs as advertised, with or without the D-Link Control Panel installed.To be honest, I never even bothered to remove or uninstall the D-Link Control Panel, as it never got in the way of my Vista network controls, just sat there kind of passive while I worked with Windows network protocols to acquire a network, and once connected, no problems at all with the D-Link DWA-552 PCI adapter, none at all!After I installed the adapter and had it working 100%, I went to the D-Link web site and found, and downloaded the most current control panel and driver for Vista 64-bit and installed that package, but that isn't to say that the OEM/stock CD ROM drivers and control panel doesn't work. All that I mean is that if you want this adapter to work seamlessly with your system, download the latest and greatest driver/control panel package from[...], and you'll be that much better off for doing it.I can't think of a single negative thing to write about this network adapter, as I had no bad experiences at all with it. It is just that simple, and good, an xlnt product by D-Link! I am going to buy its brother, the DWA-556 adapter, which is PCI-Express not PCI like this one, because I have a need for the PCI-E type of adapter now that I've added twin EVGA GTX-285 video cards to my rig...as that eliminated the PCI slot (it's covered by the 2nd twin-lane video board) for all intents and purposes, and I have faith that the DWA-556 is just as good as this adapter here has been...After having the DWA-552 for a couple months I tend to think that D-Link has its act together for network cards/adapters, and I have confidence that the DWA-556 is just as high quality of an item as this one has been for me.Don't be afraid of this adapter because of a bunch of crappy reviews from folks who have other problems, which are compounded by this adapter it seems, and then they write a bad review of a good product...that just isn't even fair or equitable for such a great product as this one.Wavey Davey gives the D-Link DWA-552 PCI XTreme N Network Adapter 5 stars across the board, and you can take it from me, this thing works PERFECT in Vista 64-bit Ultimate OS!You can take that to the bank!Wavey Davey June 25, 2009

OS: Win7 64bit.I have been using a D-Link DWA-556 for years now, and it has been 100% reliable. But it uses one of my two PCIe slots. I needed that slot for something else, so I figured I would get the DWA-552 (it is the same but PCI instead), since my computer never had an issue with the drivers for the 556.Like many others have suggested, don't use the software that comes with it. The instructions inside even say you can use the built-in Win7 controls to manage your wireless network with this card.So I disabled (without removing) my 556, and installed the 552. Win7 recognized it but couldn't find the drivers. Obviously without internet access, I could not go on the net to find them. I used the drivers off the CD instead which were newer than those available on the D-Link support page which I downloaded prior.The drivers installed apparently fine and the computer found the card and accessed my wifi network. About 2 minutes later, it lost the connection. Sometimes it would log back in, other times it would just sit there and stare at me. This would occur multiple times per hour. I did find a setting buried in the device manager that you can uncheck that stops the computer from "turning off" the device. This did nothing. I would be in the middle of watching a youtube video, and the small Task Manager in the bottom right corner would automatically open up and alert me that I have lost internet connection.I let it sit by itself, on, for 2 hours and came back and the Task Manager said it was still connected, but I didn't trust it. I went and checked the router log and found that it disconnected and reconnected 8 times while I was away. They were not spaced uniformly, like every 20 minutes or every 45 minutes. It was completely random.When it was working, I would enable/disable the two cards and test out the connection speeds. They were essentially the same as they should be.The product I was using for the new PCIe slot failed miserably so that was being returned. Because of this, I decided to reinstall my PCIe card and return the PCI card.Guess what?Now my 100% reliable PCIe card was taking random dumps, even after properly "uninstalling" the drivers for the 552 in the device manager prior to removing it.I guess some of the files are the same between the two cards because the driver version for my 556 was now changed. I know this because fortunately I wrote down the driver version and notes ahead of time in a txt file so I could compare.I remember when I rebuilt my system from XP to Win7 that I did not need the drivers, the PC went online and found drivers much newer than those found on the D-Link support site or on the CD. I told Windows to update the driver and use the ones on the internet. Windows found those same drivers and installed them. The problem went away and I spent several hours licking my wounds from this experience.If I wanted to play around with this card for a few days longer, I probably would have tried telling the computer to find the drivers for the 552 automatically online. I have a feeling this would have worked better and I could have kept my PCIe port freed up seeing that I have 4 PCI ports and none of them are used.In the end, to completely make sure none of this driver BS remained in my computer, I did a system restore to 2 days prior.I'm going to go ahead and give this 3 stars for the speed consistency. If you can get it to work reliably, you will enjoy it. I would also suggest people avoid all the D-Link drivers and go with the MS certified ones off their servers. You will obviously have to get the card up and running first in order to access the internet to get those better drivers.Of note, there are two versions of this card. One has the 3 antennae spaced out like in the product photo, the other has the 3 antennae close coupled all clustered next to each other. Not sure of the difference in performance but the one I received was the close coupled version.Lastly, I would like to add that of the 3 D-Link products I have owned/tested, only one hasn't given me issues. That is the DWA-556. My DGL-4500 router failed, the 552 was a failure right out of the box, and it tried to make my 556 fail. Not cool D-Link! Not cool at all!I will stick with Netgear and Asus if I can in the future.

Great find. Works awesome on my son's computer