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Mobile
Manager
Mobile manager basically is the one stop shop for all your network connections.
It displays all the connections you have and lets you modify them where
necessary.
Site Monitor
Site monitor shows all the local WiFi networks nearby and shows a detailed
view of them.
As you can see even the signal strength is shown, allowing you to select
the network that works best for you.
Ralink drivers and utilities
Ralink has its own flavor of the drivers and utilities for the wireless
adapter.
I’ll quickly go through them to show you what it’s like.
The Ralink wireless utility is a program shown in the system tray, double
clicking it will open the screen as shown above.
Here you can scan and monitor the wireless networks in your area and connect
to them, or add them to the profile you want.
Press the connect button to quickly connect to the wireless network or
click add to profile to connect to the wireless network
more permanently.
The profile tab will allow you to store the wireless networks you want
to connect to immediately.
Pressing the add button will allow you to store the network connection
properties more permanently; automatically connecting it
to the wireless network each time.
The link status will show you the status of the wireless connection you
have running.
The site survey was the first tab it showed when opening the program,
scroll back to see that.
Next comes the statistics tab, showing all the statistics available for
the wireless connection.
The advanced tab will allow you to adjust more advanced settings of the
wireless adapter.
The last tab, the about tab, will show you the about information as well
as the driver version information.
Windows XP x64
RaLink
has released 64-bits drivers for the device. (These are
the same as found on the ASUS site.) These
drivers work for most of the adapters based on the chipset.
I
have tested the drivers on Windows XP x64 and they installed
properly. The only problem I encountered was
when I setup the Wireless router and tried to connect in
that it
caused the machine to reboot as soon as it tried to connect.
After
turning off during the reboot after a blue screen of death,
it showed that the driver was at fault with an error that
showed: “DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL…”
In
the Microsoft knowledge base this was said to be caused
by bad drivers, and one should upgrade to WHQL drivers as
soon as possible.
Now
I have read some forum posts on several sites on various
other brands using this driver and working.
So
it doesn’t mean the drivers don’t work at all, just the
ASUS devices seem to cause this problem, as far as I know.
I
guess we’ll have to wait until RaLink has updated their
driver section for better support for ASUS.
Conclusion
The
3DVelocity 'Dual Conclusions Concept' Explained: After discussing
this concept with users as well as companies and vendors
we work with, 3DVelocity have decided that where necessary
we shall aim to introduce our 'Dual Conclusions Concept'
to sum up our thoughts and impressions on the hardware we
review. As the needs of the more experienced users and enthusiasts
have increased, it has become more difficult to factor in
all the aspects that such a user would find important, while
also being fair to products that may lack these high end
"bonus" capabilities but which still represent
a very good buy for the more traditional and more prevalent
mainstream user. The two catergories we've used are:
The
Mainstream User ~ The mainstream user is likely to put
price, stock performance, value for money, reliability and/or
warranty terms ahead of the need for hardware that operates
beyond its design specifications. The mainstream user may
be a PC novice or may be an experienced user, however their
needs are clearly very different to those of the enthusiast,
in that they want to buy products that operate efficiently
and reliably within their advertised parameters.
The
Enthusiast ~ The enthusiast cares about all the things
that the mainstream user cares about but is more likely
to accept a weakness in one or more of these things in exchange
for some measure of performance or functionality beyond
its design brief. For example, a high priced motherboard
may be tolerated in exchange for unusually high levels of
overclocking ability or alternatively an unusually large
heat sink with a very poor fixing mechanism may be considered
acceptable if it offers significantly superior cooling in
return.
Summary:::...
The
design is simple yet effective, no fancy stuff just sleek
a WiFi USB adapter. Of
course this isn’t the first WiFi adapter on the market,
so it wouldn’t be fair to call this very innovative.
Quality
like the performance is excellent; I’ve had little to no
trouble with this unit.
Pricing
is not too high, but it could be a little lower.
The
software section is a little meagre, but will do for a basis.
The
Mainstream User ~
The
mainstream user will like the adapter, because it’s very
simple to install and use.
Everything
you need is added, within several minutes of installing
the device, you are connected.
It’s
very affordable and also very stable.
The
Enthusiast ~
This
adapter will do for all your WiFi connecting needs.
The
only gripe I would have as enthusiast is the lacking software,
it works for the basic needs.
I
had downloaded the drivers and software at the RaLink site
and that was better then ASUS had to offer.
Aside
from that, it’s cheap and stable and already has support
for Windows XP x64, albeit limited yet.
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