Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys PCMPC100 EtherFast 10/100 PC Card

This 10/100 ethernet card is really a bargain, when compared with the other ethernet cards such as 3com. The connection, and download ability is tremendous, and makes surfing the net a breeze. I liked it so much, I want to buy two.

This card is, simply put, the best value for the money for this type of product. I have a premium Xircom combo card that I was using until I saw this offered here. I decided to try it out, thinking I would save it as a backup to my "better" card.

As it turns out, this card outperforms the more expensive card by far - it does do true full duplex 100baseT, and the more expensive card doesn't really, even though it claims to (in fact, this card proved it to me). It also had an easier setup procedure. I did not hesitate to box the Xircom up and declare this my favorite card, instead.

The dongle is less pretty than the other card, but the lights are better at giving the status of the Ethernet connection. Don't be afraid of the dongle's reputation as being a weak link - I've had this card for probably 6 months, and I finally *just tonight* broke the cable adapter by letting my laptop fall off my bed. However, until today, the dongle worked great after squishing the cable in my bag, or even leaving it connected to my laptop and sticking my laptop in my bag (not that you should ever do this, but everyone forgets and does it anyhow) and banging my bag around on road trips. It certainly appears no weaker than the other card's. At the time of my writing, Amazon doesn't carry replacement dongles, but another vendor has them for only $11 each before shipping. That makes them "disposable" in my mind.

This card is one of the best bargains I have found on Amazon. It outperforms a top-of-the-line card at under half the price. If you don't break the dongle, it's totally hassle free. What are you waiting for? Buy it!

The card works great until the dongle (the black cord that connects cable to card) breaks, and it breaks pretty easily, i have had two and neither lasted more than 4 months without breaking.

I love the price, but it is very frustrating after I found out that the driver is not compatible with Win 2k even if the box is written "Win 2000 Ready". I actually called the Linksys technical support and they said the MIS engineers messed up. Well, Win 2k recognizes the card but it requires a file named "pc100nd5.sys" which does not exist. Without this file, the driver will not be installed correctly. Linksys said they will fix it ASAP and post the new driver on the web soon. (Yeah right)

.

I can't believe how cheap this card is. Just a year ago this was selling for aorund $160. The high rating was for price and preformance.

I will make one caution. This product has a dongle--a cable to connect the card to a network Cat 5 patch cable. These things can get damaged easily if you are not gentle with them.

A better designed card, sticks out of the laptop a half and inch and connects directly to a Cat 5 cable. This will cost you a lot more, but it is more robest and you don't have to keep track of the dongle.

Even better is a wireless connection to your network--that will cost a lot more, and will not allow to to connect to someone else's network if they don't have a transceiver on their network.

At this price I would purchase this product since I have a 10/100 hub and love Linksys products. At the present my slower 10BaseT network card is still functional, so I will hold off a while yet.

The price is the more important factor, and the speed is second.

A steal of a price.