I have an old desktop at home that is used as a second PC (a sort of backup), for example if someone is using the newer PC, or its running a virus scan or something. Anyway, this desktop was connected into my network's router by about 30 feet of Cat5 cable, which was then hooked into the PC with the use of an ethernet-to-USB converter (it has no ethernet port).

We decided to move this desktop elsewhere, which meant the cable would no longer be of use to connect it with. Despite the age of the PC (around 7 or 8 years old) I decided to make wireless, so that no matter where we decided to move it to in the future, I wouldn't need to run cables everywhere. The product I chose for this purpose was the Linksys WMP54G - a PCI card that has a Wi-Fi aerial. It has received mixed reviews on the 'net - some claim it works brilliantly, while others say it doesn't do anything at all.

The card is provided along with a CD. Now, this CD is useless - it was blank! The CD containing the drivers and Linksys's own connection software was sent to me completely blank. Luckily Linksys provide a complete download of the software on their site. The installation of the software was easy - just click through until it tells you to turn the PC off and insert the card.

The PCI card was in an anti-static bag and fairly easy to install. If you weren't used to adding components to PCs they provide very little information to help you. Also, the connector on the card seemed a little thicker than usual and required a fair amount of force to insert it into a PCI slot. Again, this could put off unexperienced people.

Once the PC was rebooted and logged in, the Linksys software detected my network and asked for password required to connect. It stores the password and will automatically connect each time you boot the PC. Signal strength is quite good - 77% around 10 feet away and through one wall. Personally I say ignore the bad reviews of this product, it works perfectly for me and is one of the cheapest around. I would highly recommend it to anyone in need of making their PC wireless.

thanks for the review, glad it worked for ya! Linksys is pretty funny with packaging drivers etc. When i used to be a pc tech, we used to sell a linksys pci ethernet card that had the drivers on a floppy. This was like 2006. Many of the computers at that time lacked floppy drives, which I thought was rather inconvenient. Luckily our tech bench pc had a floppy!

woops~ A revival of a very old topic, but since only 1 other person has said that this is a great review, I'll say, great review, and extensive too.
(hey, it rhymed)

what hardware are you using now?

On that desktop, still exactly the same hardware Well, we changed the hard drive a while ago as the motor burned out on the original one, but apart from that it is the same. I've also put Linux on it (Kubuntu) rather than XP. The wireless card works perfectly under Linux, perhaps even better than it did in Windows!