Linksys WMP54G (v2) 54Mbps PCI Wireless Network Card

Linksys WMP54G PCI 54MbpsWireless Network Card

Background:

The NIC (Network Interface Card) is built around the Broadcom BCM4306KF8 54g™ Chipset. It has a RPSMA removeable antenna.

Broadcom is the first vendor to ship 802.11g technology in both 2.4 GHz single-band and 5 GHz/2.4 GHz dual-band products.

54g™ is Broadcom's 54 Mbps implementation of the draft specification for IEEE 802.11g wireless networks. It is 802.11b-compliant, Wi-Fi certifiable, and provides laptops, handheld computers and other devices with wireless connectivity at nearly five times the speed of technologies operating in the 2.4 GHz radio frequency range(802.11b), while providing backwards compatibility to the base of more than 30 million installed Wi-Fi (802.11b) devices.

Broadcom's offering is a two-chip, all CMOS solution that employs a direct conversion architecture and is the most integrated, highest performing 2.4 GHz solution available in the industry. The new Broadcom® BCM4306 baseband/MAC (media access controller) chip combines with the BCM2050 2.4 GHz radio to enable 54 Mbps connectivity in the 2.4 GHz radio frequency band.

The BCM4306 also includes a V.92 voice band modem and a glueless interface that connects to Broadcom's family of Bluetooth™ products and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) mobile communications products.

Testimonial

I bought this card on ebay very cheaply, no drivers and with the description: "I couldnt get this card to detect in my computer - it may be faulty so bear that in mind when you bid"

I know some new cards need the PCI2.2 standard, so older mainboards may be at only 2.1. I bought the card hoping this was the case and I suspect it was.

I took the sheild off to see what the chipset was and took some photos. Replaced the sheild.

I installed the card into my WindowsXP computer and it was detected straight away. I let windows go to the web and install whatever drivers it wanted. They worked flawlessly. I set my laptop to AP mode and the card associated. Data transfers were very quick.

For linux, you may still have to use NDIS(Network Driver Interface Specification) wrappers. This is basically using the windows drivers in linux, but with no support for advanced features like rfmon mode, it may not be very useful.

FreeBSD users read THIS for using the card, and setting up wifi in general.