| Article Index |
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| D-Link Wireless-N Networking Products Review |
| 2 - Performance |
| 3 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
We have a look at a range of Wireless Draft-N networking products from D-Link to see if the
claimed 300Mbps transfer rates can finally be a match for a cabled network.
Today we’re going to be looking at 3 different 802.11n (draft) wireless adapters from D-Link’s Wireless N range:
- DWA-140 – USB Adapter (Rangebooster-N Range) - AU$110
- DWA-556 – PCI-Ex1 Desktop Adapter (Xtreme N Range) – AU$120
- DWA-643 – Express Card Notebook Adapter (Xtreme N Range) – AU$125
These 3 adapters will be connecting to a DAP-1353 Access Point (RangeBooster N 650 Range) – AU$280
The DAP-1353 access point offers wireless speeds up to a claimed 300Mbps, although only utilises a 10/100Mbps Ethernet connection for hooking on to the rest of your network, so I don’t know what it plans to do with the remaining 200Mbps of bandwidth, it’d be trying to fit three cars down a one lane road... it’s not going to be pretty.
The DAP-1353 was extremely easy to setup onto our local network, it utilises a very simple and easy to use web interface so all we had to do was setup some security in the form of a WPA2 passkey and it was done, easy as that and took all of about 1 minute.
About the Wireless Cards:
The DWA-140:
The D-Link DWA-140 is a USB2.0 wireless adapter from D-Link’s ‘Rangebooster-N’ range of network adapters. It uses the Draft-802.11n wireless networking standard just like the other 2 adapters and has a claimed maximum throughput of 300Megabits per second. There is no MAC compatibility however, so only Windows 2000/XP/Vista machines will be able to make use of this adapter.
Installation was extremely easy, just run the D-Link CD to install the drivers and then plug in the adapter. There’s no complicated software needed to get the adapter to connect to your network as D-Link recommends sticking with the Windows Zero Configuration (WZC) service, there is however software on the CD if you don’t like using the standard WZC.
Connection and IP address allocation took just a few seconds, but the best connection speed we could get was 130Mbps, even with it just a couple of meters from the access point and clear line of sight. It did however manage to hold this speed when it was taken further away from the AP with a few light obstacles in between.
The DWA-556:
The DWA-556 is part of D-Link’s “Xtreme-N” range of wireless adapters, again using the Draft-802.11n wireless standard with a claimed maximum throughput of 300Megabits per Second. It utilises a PCI-Express slot at x1 speed, so it shouldn’t have a problem running in most computers made in the last couple of years, however the box only lists support for Windows 2000 and XP, no mention of Vista at all. After a little digging we find that Vista will be supported in future driver updates, so right now this one’s off the list for people with Vista systems.
Installation was again a very simple affair, plug it in, turn on the PC and run the install CD. We also chose Windows Zero Configuration instead of the D-Link software, but the choice is yours really.
Again connection to the Access Point and IP address allocation was done in just a few seconds, unlike some other wireless adapters I’ve used in the past which can sit there “connecting” for ages with no obvious reason for the delay. The DWA-556 reported a connection speed at the full 300Mbps, first go.
The DWA-643:
Another member of the “Xtreme-N” family of wireless adapters from D-Link, the DWA-643 uses a notebook PC’s ExpressCard slot for that extra bit of speed over a conventional Cardbus/PCMCIA slot. Installation is just as simple as the other two via the D-Link install CD and Vista is supported out of the box, as are Windows 2000 and XP of course.
Connection to the access point via the Windows Zero Configuration was quick and painless, and managed to connect first go at the full 300Megabits per Second.
Performance:
This review isn’t really an in-depth ‘performance shootout’ as such, so to test the performance of the cards we’ll just be conducting a couple of simple file transfer tests on each adapter. Having setup an FTP server on our server we’ll be transferring a 1.23GB file to and from the server for each card.
To get an idea of how these cards compare to normal wireless networking we’ll be comparing it to the 54Mbps 802.11g wireless adapter from my notebook (an Intel 2915ABG Mini-PCI Adapter) as well as to a standard 100Megabit Ethernet network connection.
By all accounts we should see a big speed increase for the Wireless-N adapters over the old 802.11g adapter, but given the claimed speed capability of these ‘N’ wireless adapters, I’d also expect them to outclass the 100Megabit Ethernet connections as well, which would be a first for me to see for a wireless connection.
Firstly – Transmitting Data:
Well this is quite a surprise. While the D-Link adapters did have a big speed improvement over the old 802.11g adapter, the standard 100Mbps Cat5e cable network adapter has still blown them all away.
The fact that the wireless access point we’re using has a claimed 300Mbps wireless speed, but only 100Mbps Ethernet speed really doesn’t seem to have affected anything, as not one adapter even came close to utilising the full 100Mbps of the access point’s Ethernet connection, far from it in fact.
The best performer of the wireless cards was actually the USB adapter, the DWA-140, which was another surprise, as it only managed a connection speed of 130Mbps, compared to the other two adapters connecting at 300Mbps. But it hardly seemed to matter, as even when connecting at ‘only’ 130Mbps, it didn’t come close to utilising all its available bandwidth.
Next – Receiving Data:
The graph for the cards receiving the 1.23GB file is very similar to the other one, except with the Ethernet connection really maxing out its 100Mbps and the USB adapter gaining quite a bit of speed, able to receive data 36% faster than it’s able to transmit it, now that’s something! The ExpressCard adapter (DWA-643) also had a mild speed increase of around 12%, the remaining two adapters had nearly identical readings.
It’s really quite surprising that not one card comes even remotely close to its claimed potential speed of 300Megabits per second, or even close to a bog-standard 100Mb/s Ethernet adapter. Instead we’ve seen them max out around 50Megabits per second, very disappointing for what is meant to be the next leap forward in wireless networking technology.
Conclusion:
So what we’ve found out here today is that – Yes the 802.11n adapters are much faster than your standard 802.11g adapters, but by how much? That’s where it gets interesting. D-Link (and most other wireless hardware manufacturers) claim the Wireless-N cards are up to 14x faster than a Wireless-G card, but today we’ve seen them run just a mere 3x faster. Still big improvements over the old technology for sure, but nowhere near the claims of the manufacturer.
So in the end what we have here is 3 wireless adapters that do show a big performance boost over a standard 802.11g wireless adapter, so I think they’re certainly worth the money if you’re after a high performance wireless adapter. However I'd recommend not putting too much stock in the speed claims spewed forth by the manufacturers, because it simple doesn’t come close and you’ll only be disappointed.
These products can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au
DWA-556 – PCI-Ex1 Desktop Adapter
