D-Link DWA-160 Xtreme N Duo Dual Band Draft 802.11n USB Adapter

10 Review to this product

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  N. Phelps II
  June 7th, 2010 on 9:18 pm

  Rating

  Don’t listen to the negative reviews, this item took me all of 10 mins to setup and connect to my network. Keep in mind that this 10 minute time frame included the time that it took to open the box and unpack the item. This item was easy to install and once it was installed it quickly found my network. If you are worried about speed, worry no longer, I have a 20Mbps wireless network in my home and my computer is all the way on the other side of my house, in the basement no less and I still was able to get 19.8Mbps internet speed after running a speed-test. Don’t listen to the doubters, this item is a home run, and if you are having trouble installing it or getting it to connect to your network, call someone for help since you must not know what you are doing.
  
  Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that is just the truth.
• 

  J. Tu
  June 9th, 2010 on 6:09 am

  Rating

  See my review for DWA-140. I compared DWA-160 with DWA-160, DWA-552, and WUSB300N. The result is DWA-160 > WUSB300N > DWA-140 > DWA-552. Though, the price, close to $70, is a bit high.
• 

  Andrew M. Christopher
  June 10th, 2010 on 4:20 am

  Rating

  I originally bought the xtreme wireless n desktop card, and then I read a butt load of negative reviews saying that it was going to crash my vista. I just got a brand new gateway fx computer so I wasn’t going to take any chances. I returned it before installing it and picked this up. So far it works great with my new machine. I didn’t even need to download any special drivers. Just the install disk worked fine. If you go to the vista compatibility website, they confirm it is vista compatible. Now I’m surfing in style. Next test: see how well I can play battlefield 2 online with this sucker.
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  Greybeard
  June 10th, 2010 on 10:16 am

  Rating

  Ran the product with the CD, and got excellent service wherever I went in the house with the dual-band router that I purchased. I have been using it regularly over a month now without problems. It is very reliable, very easy to use.
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  Walter L. Williams
  June 11th, 2010 on 1:47 am

  Rating

  I was unhappy with by Linksys adapter, I just purchase a extended warrenty on the adapter and I call tech support. They wouldn’t help me; stating my router is out of warrenty. I decided to purchase all D-link products; Dir-825 router with the D-Link DWA-160 Xtreme N Duo Dual Band. Tech support was easy to reach and the tech directed me to the manual setting of the router, once there I had a idea from my research what to do and mention it to him. We followed the direction I got from [...] to the letter. I was only getting 130 Mbps with my adapter. I’m using Rev. A from Amazon.com with XP Professional. The only thing I did differently from the instruction I’m going to provide was to rename my network name by putting a “1″ on the previous name so I would be sure to connected too the changed network. I’m running a total of three computer at the same time on the network and getting a very strong signal; the wireless connections are on the second floor of my house. You also would be safe to retype your password while in your manual setup. The instructions are as follows:

  300Mbps Connection Requirements! Please Read!
  
  « on: April 28, 2008, 11:21:08 AM »

  ——————————————————————————–

  To have your Draft N wireless network connect at 300Mbps as it should, ensure that the following requirements are met.

  1) The router and adapter are both D-Link 802.11N products and are using the latest firmeware/drivers. Ensure that the 802.11 Mode of the router has a 802.11N mode selected. Also if you have issues with mixed mode, try locking the 802.11Mode to either 802.11N Only or 802.11G/N.

  2) If you are using encryption the router must be configured to use AES cipher. In some firmware versions/models, the only way to get the AES cipher is to run WPA2. If you can not select the Cipher, selecting WPA2 only will force this cipher type.

  3) The channel width needs to be set to 20/40Auto, if it is not, the adapter will report a connection speed of 130Mbps. This is a feature that was added for compatibility with Intel 802.11N adapters, as they only operate on a channel width of 20.

  D-Link reccomends that you use the D-Link Wireless utility, however the Windows Zero Config will also work.

  Assuming you have met all of these conditions, you should see a 300Mbps connection speed with either the D-Link Utility or WZC.

  Note: Not all Intel adapters are the same as D-Link’s N line. Some Intel adapters do not support the broader 40 Channel Width option. This (by design) limits their connection speed to 130. Check the specifications of your Intel adapter to ensure that it is capable of bonding on the 40Mhz range to achieve the full 300Mbps.
  
• 

  E. Heskew
  June 11th, 2010 on 10:36 pm

  Rating

  Great product. I have a HTPC running Wingows Vista Ultimate 64-bit that I needed a wireless network connection. You can forget about finding any internal wireless adapter cards that will work with the 64-bit versions of Windows. This USB adapter works great. It has no conflicts with the 64-bit operating system and is fast enough to run DVD quality video from my main computer and plays streaming video from Netflix with no problems.

  To get the fast speed of the 802.11n band you must also have an 802.11n band wireless router. My router is the D-Link DIR-655.

  My HTPC has an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor with 4GB RAM.
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  Jeffrey Liss
  June 13th, 2010 on 2:17 am

  Rating

  I bought this adapter (Rev. B1) because I was only getting 65 Mbps on my Acer 8930 laptop (Vista Home Premium 64 bit) with my Intel 5100 Wireless Card a/g/n via my Netgear WNR2000 N Router. Installation was simple and only took a few minutes. I discarded the CD and loaded firmware 2.2 from D-Links site. I then was prompted to insert the adapter into a USB port. After a couple of minutes, I was prompted to enter my SSID and Password. Bingo. Now I get a consistent 270 Mbps, with a very strong signal.

  D-Link would like you to think that you only get the fastest wireless speeds if you use this adapter with one of their Routers. But I found that this adapter works great with my Netgear WNR2000 Router.

  Make sure you get the Rev. B1 model (not Rev. A1)
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  Niels B. Schaumann
  June 13th, 2010 on 2:44 am

  Rating

  I’ve had this for a few weeks now, and have had no trouble at all with it. I recommend using dlink’s proprietary connection manager, although I haven’t tried it without. Connects every time, quick, no problems. Nice item.
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  hyytekk
  June 13th, 2010 on 7:13 am

  Rating

  Like most DIYers and pseudo-geeks, I’ve learned that all “quick upgrades” are really Trojan horses; nervous breakdowns in a box. Days later and exhausted on the floor from error messages, tech guys with foreign accents saying that rebooting will fix everything after a 2 hour wait on a telephone cue before your call gets cut off mysteriously. So I usually take a week off, put on a sweat band and have sedatives in reach. I did due diligence and found this product to have relatively good reviews so picked it up. (Sorry Amazon, this one time Best Buy actually had a better price!) My home network connects a Tivo, SlingBox, Vista Laptop, voip telephone, all-in-one printer via an Apple Airport Extreme hub. This D-Link was to try to cut the wires on my XP desktop to distance the spaghetti of wires from external hard drives etc. and a tethered printer. OK, those details aside, I installed the drivers via the supplied CD, chose the “manual” installation choice, typed in the name of my network and security password…..”great Scott, Marty”….it was on line in an instant! OK, this should be the norm in installing things. But we all know when it does happen, shock and awe wash over us like the “08″ Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. My chin is back off the floor and life is returning to normal. What to do with all the time I cleared to do this? Maybe go to the beach. Oh wait, hurricane Ike will be here tomorrow. Well, I’ll savor the moment and hope my house doesn’t blow away and take my network with it. Highly recommended.
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  Justin J. Barnthouse
  June 14th, 2010 on 5:22 am

  Rating

  When I use it at home with my N gigabit connection works great. At work there is only a G connection and my internal card works just as well if not better sometimes. Thats my only complaint, everything else works great. I bought the refurb, so it was a great price.