BELKIN F5D7050 Wireless 802.11g USB Network Adapter

10 Review to this product

• 

  ichor
  June 6th, 2010 on 12:48 pm

  Rating

  Just got this in a local store (would’ve gone through Amazon – much cheaper, but it was needed immediately.)

  Using a laptop with WinXP SP2 + all the patches, this thing works great. My laptop has 3 USB ports (all of which are USB 1.1) – contrary to other reviews, this little USB plug DOES work in each USB port without any problems. After you install the software and plug it into the initial USB port, Windows will automatically install the driver for each additional port – but it works flawlessly in each.

  I was going to get the PC card version (PCMCIA), but from the specs on the box, this one has twice the range. I’ll probably use this in my home computer after vacation since it’s incredibly easy to setup and use, and have had no problems whatsoever.

  Would recommend to anyone looking for a USB wireless Network Adapter!
• 

  eee
  June 7th, 2010 on 3:04 am

  Rating

  -I have this Belkin F5D7050 for over 1 year; I purchased it at one of those holiday double rebate sales. I paid $9.99 plus sales taxes from the big “computer store in USA”.
  
  -It is working while on top of my refrigerator connected to a an old Celeron 433 (on the floor) with Win2000Pro in the kitchen to allow internet use while spending time cooking. Unwatched pots boil faster.
  
  -I feed it a signal from my Belkin F5D7231-4 router hooked to my OptimumOnline cable internet.
  
  - Using [...] as a speed test, the Belkin wireless signal downloads in excess of 3.5 Mbits/sec and uploads in excess of 600 kbits/sec. That is on the old Celeron 433. Try it with your rigs.
  
  - I have never tried it with WinXP, sorry but with Win2000 it works great for the price I paid.
• 

  James V. Shrode
  June 7th, 2010 on 7:49 am

  Rating

  I am baffled by all of the bad reviews this has gotten. It was simple to set up and work with once you downloaded the need USB Controller Program. I have a white iBook 500 dual USB and this works great! People kept telling me to buy the Airport Card but for $20, I picked this up. I use it with a wireless router and get great reception in my bedroom. Works great in WiFi zones. I am baffled. I have had it for well over 2 months and no complaint. I wonder if half the people on here even know how to work the equipment they buy.
• 

  YO
  June 7th, 2010 on 4:20 pm

  Rating

  ON WINDOWS XP:
  
  =============

  When you install the Software from the Installation CD of BELKIN F5D7050 Wireless 802.11g USB Network Adapter when it finishes, indicates us to Plug the Adapter. The Windows XP detects it and tells us to install the Driver.

  HERE IS THE PROBLEM!!!!

  The Windows XP, search for the newest driver for that Adapter on the machine, and selects his own driver “PrismaXP.sys”, that in theory is the best, but it has the problem that it doesn’t work.

  When we have finished the Belkin software installation, and had closed all windows, we continue and PLUG the adapter, the Windows XP will detect it, but when it ask to install the software, take the option to select manually the driver, and select the driver located on the Driver’s folder on the CD.

  The Adapter wil be succesfully installed with 100% functionality.The fact, is that I’m sending that message through it.

  I hope that will help you with that problem. see you.

  |========================================|

  ON LINUX:
  
  ========

  The problem in Linux is only that there aren’t linux specific drivers for that adapter. Well, if there aren’t drivers on linux, we will emulate the windows drivers, je je je!!!

  There are 2 posibilities to do that:

  1.- The LINUXANT

  Paying a License of about 25 $, you have the a 100% functionality and an easily WEB configuration (Tested with The 30 day free trial license)

  2.- The NDISWRAPPER

  That is a free sourcecode project, but it is a bit uncomfortable than the LINUXANT. It is a command line program and there is an available manual on English in the LINK:

  http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

  with tha instructions to make the installation. When it finishes, to use the Adapter is as easy as write:

  ndiswrapper wlan0

  Or another wlan if you have more than 1 wireless adapter.
• 

  April D. Watson
  June 7th, 2010 on 4:31 pm

  Rating

  I have an old clamshell G3 without an airport card using OS X.4. My computer tech told me it would be impossible to get wireless internet without spending $60 or more on an airport card from another clamshell computer. He was wrong. This is a viable option. I installed a driver from the support page of Belkin’s website (I used the one for 10.3), and bam! I had a wireless connection to the internet. I’m so glad I found this!
• 

  Joseph A. Gumbosky
  June 7th, 2010 on 8:14 pm

  Rating

  Works great with Slackware 12.1 . I’m using it with WEP. The only thing that threw me for a few minutes is that it is seen as eth1, not wlan0 or ra0. Just use the regular CL tools and you’re up and going.
• 

  SoleilVert
  June 8th, 2010 on 6:36 pm

  Rating

  I’m on a G3 ibook and never thought I could get in on the wifi fun w/o spending a fortune on an airport card. This little gadget has solved all my problems and it only took 10 minutes to set up. If you’re on OSX panther or tiger, refer to the review “Attention mac users” for complete and easy set-up instructions. Don’t bother reading the enclosed instructions or inserting the setup CD. Just download the driver and voila, you’ll be up and running in no time. I have not encountered one single problem in the 2 weeks that I’ve used this product. My only complaint is that I had to go to the Amazon review page to figure out how to make it work on my mac. So I’d have to say that Belkin tech support is pretty awful. They don’t even mention the fact that their product works on a mac.

  If you’re looking for an affordable way to get wifi on your ibook, I’d highly recommend this product. Why should we be left out on the fun!
• 

  mrkite123
  June 9th, 2010 on 4:36 pm

  Rating

  I have an older iBook that requires an original Apple Airport card. Unfortunately these are no longer in production. They can still be purchased new online for $150-180 if you look for them, or you can get a used one from eBay for $100-150 or so. Couldn’t see going those routes so I picked up one of these babies and it works flawlessly with OS 10.4. Belkin doesn’t make drivers for it but you can get the driver at the Ralink Technology site (http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm). The Belkin adapter that I received from Amazon is version 3000, and it uses the RT71W driver. It’s the one listed at the very bottom of the list of Macintosh drivers, dated 2006/01/25. When you open the box for this adapter, take the Install CD and the Quickstart Guide and all that other Windows-related stuff and throw them straight in the trash. Download and install the driver mentioned above and it’ll prompt you to restart afterwards. Then go to your Network System Preferences pane and select Ethernet Adapter(en1) as your connection method. Plug the adapter into an available USB port (1.1 or 2.0, either one will work), then launch the Ralink Wireless Utility that you’ll find in your Applications folder. And suddenly – hey yer smokin’! Been connected by cable for over three days now via a wireless Linksys router without a single disconnect. You can do it, too…
• 

  Michael Shaffer
  June 10th, 2010 on 3:18 am

  Rating

  My trusty Mac Mini Intel Duo is now almost 2 years old and has never had a problem. Mysteriously a couple of weeks ago, it started “disconnecting” from my Airport network. The signal strength would drop to zero and then in a few minutes to maybe an hour, the network would show back up on my Airport connections menu. Frustrating! I got a new wireless router…no change. Reinstalled the OS…no change. Moved things around in the house…no change. I changed wireless channels and about a zillion other settings on my router…nothing. Even opened the Mac up and made sure the external antenna was still “good”…nope. So I concluded that the Airport card had somehow died. My Mac was out of warranty and I didn’t want to pay the $100+ for the card and then deal with installation hassles etc… So I started searching and ended up buying this “Windows only” product. What saves us Mac OS X faithful is the fact that the guts of this USB dongle are made by RaLink and my new buddies at RaLink have a Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4 (that’s what I’m on) and 10.5 drivers, ready to go.

  I received my new Belkin in a couple of days, from Tiger Direct via Amazon. On the bottom of the box is a label that says “Version 3002″, I didn’t request anything special but I’ve heard that version 3000 is what you want.

  Then I hopped over to http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Macintosh.html (using my Windows XP laptop of all things!) and downloaded the correct drivers. My understanding is that the 3000 series cards use the RT2500 series chip set, so I dl’d that one. There’s a newer version that includes support for 10.5 (which I think is pretty astounding). Don’t know what the version of the unit you’d need but I’d guess it’d be greater than 3000. I did find one of these at a local Best Buy and it had version 5000 on the box….

  I then ripped out the old internal card from the Mini (actually a fairly simple procedure really…) and ran the RALink installer for the USB device. It’s a simple process of double clicking on the DMG to mount the disk image, and then running installer package. You’ll also have to know your root password. A quick reboot…while it’s rebooting, stuff the actual dongle in it’s little USB cradle as I’m fairly certain that you should do this w/o the device plugged in.

  Open up your System Preferences and hit Network…and you should be prompted that a new Ethernet device has been installed (en1 or greater). Then pop open your Applications folder and find USBWirelessUtility.app, double click him and it was a fairly easy process to set up a new profile, where you enter your WEP/WPA settings (you aren’t running wireless without WEP or WPA are you?) and bang….you’re surfing.

  It’s remained connected hot for a couple of days now (I don’t turn off the Mac) and it wakes up like a charm. My speed is superior to the internal card. Technically 802.11g can get up to 54 Mbps, but according to AP Grapher (http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/apgrapher/) I was only getting about 18 Mbps best case. Unfortunately, I can’t use AP Grapher now with my Belkin (it’s still very cool for all you Airport users!), but according to the USB Wireless Utility, I’m getting 54…max speed. And it’s noticeably faster when looking at trailers on Apple.com or when my daughters goof around and watch youtube junk.

  I’m not a super technical Unix hacker type nor somebody that really gets into ripping apart my computers and rebuilding them for fun. Those days are long gone…but if you’re struggling with your internal Airport card, this could be your ticket. It was for me!!!!

  http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Macintosh.html
• 

  Michael K. Fury
  June 13th, 2010 on 5:59 am

  Rating

  the product, or at least 4 of the 5 versions, work great. the 5000 series does not work with win98.