Hardware Abit Airpace WiFi PCI-E card

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...i_pci-e_card/1

We grab Abit's Airpace WiFi card and take it through the motions to see if it can make wireless networking any less of a headache.

[Kipman725]

there are no health risks from wi-fi, just people who want to scare monger for money/power.
The intro is just scare monegering for interest, this is bad journalism and should be removed.

[Krikkit]

I've had one of these for a couple of months now, and I love it even more every day - it just works, period, even over long distances the provided aerial is good, although you can soon upgrade it for something with more power if needs be.

The only quibble I have is it's not quite low-profile enough to fit under the VF700 on my graphics card to use the PCI-e 1x slot just between the two 16x slots on my mobo, but that's hardly a major gripe!

[coniferous]

Cute card, its about time we saw some more pcie1x cards, its really about time to move away from the pci standard.

On that note, why are there not more cd drives that are sata?

[Krikkit]

Originally Posted by coniferous

Cute card, its about time we saw some more pcie1x cards, its really about time to move away from the pci standard.

On that note, why are there not more cd drives that are sata?

Because, for now at least, the SATA controller's are quite expensive on the drives, making them a lot more expensive than the typical IDE 16x/18x burner, and while there are still IDE ports, I'll still use my IDE burners.

[atanum141]

Originally Posted by Krikkit

I've had one of these for a couple of months now, and I love it even more every day - it just works, period, even over long distances the provided aerial is good, although you can soon upgrade it for something with more power if needs be.

The only quibble I have is it's not quite low-profile enough to fit under the VF700 on my graphics card to use the PCI-e 1x slot just between the two 16x slots on my mobo, but that's hardly a major gripe!

Where did you get yours from buddy?

I might give up my pci card that i have as the reception is piss poor. is it worth my £27 pounds? Will i get good reception?

[Krikkit]

I got mine from Microdirect - I just went in looking for a network adapter, saw PCI-e, external aerial, and HAD to have it. Was only about £23 too, although you'll need delivery on top.

Deffo worth it imho, lovely, slim little card with some decent, unintrusive software too.

[edit]I'm also surprised that the card didn't get a "Recommended" from the BiT chaps, you didn't find anything wrong with it, did you? (Could've missed something) [/edit]

[Tim S]

In AP mode, I was standing about 35m away in the car park when I got DCed from this on my ThinkPad. It was great through brick and mortar at up to about 25m, I'd say, which isn't too bad in my book.

[Buzzons]

what standards does it support? encryption types?

plus wireless is still worse than wired as it is shared b/w with all clients, unlike in a fully switched wired network that has dedicated b/w to each host....

[Krikkit]

It does WEP and WPA, just for the record.

For proper data transfer, granted, wireless sucks, but as a roaming, cable-free internet-browsing etc device is freaking awesome. Especially for laptops.

[kliend]

how come you didn't mention its compatibility/performance in vista? why don't you guys do that yet? People looking to build new boxes are looking to vista.

[Tim S]

Not all of our testing has moved to Vista yet... but there are Vista drivers available: http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/multi...RODINFO=Driver

Also, the only real way to test something like a WiFi card is to use it every day over a prolonged period of time because that is where you're going to encounter problems. We haven't moved our office to Vista yet though, but I'll install the card in a Vista system tomorrow to "test" the drivers for you. I'd do it now, but I'm literally just about to head home from the office for the night (yes, it's 2:45am here).

[atanum141]

Originally Posted by Tim S

Not all of our testing has moved to Vista yet... but there are Vista drivers available: http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/multi...RODINFO=Driver

Also, the only real way to test something like a WiFi card is to use it every day over a prolonged period of time because that is where you're going to encounter problems. We haven't moved our office to Vista yet though, but I'll install the card in a Vista system tomorrow to "test" the drivers for you. I'd do it now, but I'm literally just about to head home from the office for the night (yes, it's 2:45am here).

I feel sorry for your missus.
Either way Keep up the good work Timbo.

[CardJoe]

Originally Posted by Kipman725

there are no health risks from wi-fi, just people who want to scare monger for money/power.
The intro is just scare monegering for interest, this is bad journalism and should be removed.

I agree with you actually about the probable no health risks, though no study has yet been done to prove it. I simply included it's mention in the intro as a tongue in cheek reference to the stupidity of others, hence the superhero reference.

Besides, bit-tech readers are more than smart enough about computers to understand the issue fully.

[spartan777]

it would be nice to get an idea of what the experience is like on Linux; something that varies much more than on windows, driver-wise. you guys don't need to test every distro, just find a computer w/ ubuntu on it, see if the built-in drivers work, if not, just do a cursory check on google to see if there is a good solution. Right now i have a pos WUSB54GR i got for $55 (american!), and it was hell setting it up for ubuntu. it's even worse on windows though, it doesn't get much worse than freezing your system up several times daily.

anyways, a little more coverage on linux compatibility would be nice. It doesn't have to be much.

[Kipman725]

Originally Posted by CardJoe

I agree with you actually about the probable no health risks, though no study has yet been done to prove it. I simply included it's mention in the intro as a tongue in cheek reference to the stupidity of others, hence the superhero reference.

Besides, bit-tech readers are more than smart enough about computers to understand the issue fully.

oh cool then, I guess I'm just a little too sensitive about such things :P

[specofdust]

Originally Posted by Kipman725

there are no health risks from wi-fi, just people who want to scare monger for money/power.
The intro is just scare monegering for interest, this is bad journalism and should be removed.

I basicly agree with this. Just because the reprobates are making a fuss about wifi cancer doesn't mean they have to be given attention. Regardless of the tongue-in-cheek nature of it, I still don't reckon stuff like that should be given airtime. It just gives extra legitimacy to stupidity.

edit: Good to finally read a review on this little card though, I'd been eyeing one up for a while wondering how they actually performed, and it seems they do fine.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Originally Posted by Article

The WiFi SoftAP software is one of the best things about the WiFi card actually as it offers very in-depth information and a whole host of options, which is handy if you want to tinker with settings like encryption (WEP or WPA) or data transfer rate (802.11b/g) and get information on things like MAC addresses and Tx Rates. It even has a power-saving mode, which is great for all those green-aware gamers.

So nothing like the Intel Wifi drivers/software, then, that also do all of that?

Question; how many processes does this create when installed and functioning, and how much memory does it chew up? I'm using Windows XP SP2 rather than the Intel software at the minute for wifi, as the new Intel software makes so much stuff run in the background that boot time goes up by about 50 seconds.

And... eh, yeah, I guess WLAN is killing cabled networks, but even with the highest levels of WLAN security, a hardline is better.

[Spaceraver]

I pick hard lines over wireless any day.. Too unthrustworthy and who is listening?

[Krikkit]

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter

So nothing like the Intel Wifi drivers/software, then, that also do all of that?

Question; how many processes does this create when installed and functioning, and how much memory does it chew up? I'm using Windows XP SP2 rather than the Intel software at the minute for wifi, as the new Intel software makes so much stuff run in the background that boot time goes up by about 50 seconds.

And... eh, yeah, I guess WLAN is killing cabled networks, but even with the highest levels of WLAN security, a hardline is better.

The Intel/Wifi drivers are a pain in the ass, the software Abit has just seems to be better. It makes 1 process when running, and I think the mem usage is about 15MB at most, although atm it's using 8MB. I don't use it all the time, you don't need to!

WLAN might not be as secure as a wired connection, but do you honestly transmit data sensitive enough for someone to actually want to sit around in your wireless area with an AP trying to crack it? Given its convenience for when you have a few computers distributed away from places where you can run Cat5 (in houses for example), it's a perfect solution.

Another thing I don't understand why people don't trust it... It's not exactly a cake-walk to break a 64-bit WPA connection anyway... :\