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Belkin F5D7010 Wireless 54 Mbps Notebook Card

See it at Amazon.com for $10.99

Average Customer Rating
(4.0 out of 5)

Amazon Customer Reviews

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
(1 out of 5)

Linux Users Beware

Mar 8, 2007 - By theblackgecko (Bozeman, MT)

I purchased this card after borrowing a card with an identical product number from a friend. My friend's card worked out of the box with my version of Ubuntu Linux.
When I received my card, it simply did not work. After doing some research, I found that I had a card with a different version number, and a different chipset. My friend's card had a chipset made by Atheros, which worked out of the box. The card that I purchased had a Broadcom chipset, which is notorious for being incompatible with Linux. Even after going to the forums, I was unable to make the card work.
Belkin is dishonest, in that it makes changes to the chipset without changing the product number, only the version number, which the consumer is not made aware of. Had I been aware that the card had a different chipset, I would not have ordered it.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
(1 out of 5)

Belkin's downloadable drivers do not function!

Nov 10, 2005 - By J. P. Robinson

I am writing this here for anyone having trouble installing this card using Belkin's drivers from their support website.

Simply they are not the right drivers & will not work!

For a working driver for Win9x/2K/XP copy the following into the address bar: http://www.ralinktech.com/drivers/Windows/IS_STA_2500_D-3.0.3.0_U-2.3.6.0_042505_1.0.2.0.exe

This driver is from the actual chipmaker and works fine :-)

Ralink's name for the product is 11g-RT2500 and downloads for other OS's including Mac can be found here: http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm

I hope this helps to shortcut somebody's efforts to get this card working...

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
(2 out of 5)

Incompatible with Mac OS X - Error on Belkin's Website

May 1, 2006 - By Venkat Iyer (San Diego, CA)

I bought Ver. 5000 of this card to use with my Pismo PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.3.9. Despite the claims on Belkin's website, this card is incompatible with Macs. Belkin does not even provide Mac drivers for this 'Mac-Compatible' card !!! A quick call to Tech Support confirmed this.

Older versions of this card (ver. 2000 and 3000) used the Broadcom chipset and are Mac compatible. Newer versions use the Atheros (?) chipset, which does not work in Macs.

I returned this card and bought the F5D7011 Ver. 1101, which runs natively in Mac OS X 10.3.9 and Mac OS X 10.4.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
(5 out of 5)

I Am So Impressed!!!

Dec 17, 2004 - By mtck01 (Queens, NY)

This is a great card. I will admit that I purchased it because I got it for $5 after rebates but I am amazed at the quality. I set this card up in less then 10 minutes and I have been successfully using it for over a week now. Not a single negative thing to say so far but I do live in a small apartment in Queens, NY. I sent over 5GB of data through my network and I still received a 2718/620 speed test using Verizon DSL and a Westell 327 router.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
(5 out of 5)

Works with OS X 10.2, 10.3, but 10.4-Tiger requires driver-READ!!!

Jul 26, 2005 - By Music Lover (CA, USA)

Hi Folks,

I have purchased many of these cards and just received 3 more for client Apple powerbook upgrades. Was ready to return thinking they didn't work with Tiger after reading reviews. GOOD NEWS is I have downloaded the OS X 10.4 Tiger driver from Ralink, the chip maker for Belkin.

Download here for Tiger driver:
http://www.ralinktech.com/drivers/Mac/STA_2500CardBus_10.4.X_2005_06_21.zip

It is now plug 'n Play after restart. Does not utilize Airport SW as in previous OS X versions, but I also installed my D-Link DWL-650X card software and Belkin's card utilizes it. Go to the D-Link site and download their card installer. The D-Link utility appears at the bottom of "System Preferences". So, now you can see your signal and use the save site functions in the D-Link software.

Here's the D-Link download link: ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/dwlg650X/Drivers/dwlg650X_driver_100.zip

So, bottom-line is install the Ralink driver and it is plug 'n play. To see your signal reception and other goodies, install the D-link DWL-G650x driver.

No SW needed for OS X 10.2 or 10.3. These previous OS X versions use Airport SW

Works just fine!!! No complaints and you can't best the price, compared to my $60 plus for my D-Link.