"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very unresponsive,
mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing 100%
signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the router!) - and
(only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Thanks for any advice / experience

This sounds like a driver issue to me.

First, uninstall the drivers and then get them back off the manufacturer's
disk - sometimes windows screws up if it installs "generic" drivers (or
fails to install them properly) and then you use a disk to install new ones
over the top.

Second, if that doesn't improve things, use the "search for the best driver
on the internet" function to see if that can find more up to date drivers.

Third, search for your hardware (using the part number as ID) on the
internet and see if updated drivers are available or if there are any
comments from others having similar problems.

For the record, I use wireless (in a built up area) successfully, so it is
possible - do not give up at the first hurdle.