Hawking HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter

Hawking HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter
by Hawking Technology

Hawking HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter
Our Price: $174.99
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Category: CE
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Customers in the UK, buy this product at amazon.co.uk for British Pounds

Digital Photo Product Details

Manufacturer: Hawking Technology
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: CD
Platform: Windows
Model: HWU8DD
Color: Black
Product features:
  • Designed to connect your desktop computer or laptop easily to any Wireless-B or Wireless-G network via a USB connection. For Windows users.
  • Hawking's award winning Hi-Gain Antenna technology extends wireless connection distances by up to 300%.
  • Equipped with a new 8dBi Directional Dish antenna that provides more distance and better speeds than other wireless adapters on the market
  • The only wireless adapter to integrate the distance benefits of wireless Dish Technology with WiFi networking
  • The built-in LED signal strength indicators provide network signal information to pinpoint the strongest signal available within your area
Accessories:

Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Hawking HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter

Customer Review: powerful reception and transmission - the best yet!
Summary: 5 Stars

One quick note before I share with you my real world before and after test results. If you are using Vista then you need to visit their web site to download the vista driver, but and here is the important point don't download the driver that says HWU8DD in the list. Despite the manual shipping with the product listing the product model as HWU8DD it is actually HWU8DD rev B. So be sure to download the second driver, HWU8DD rev B. or else Vista will report that it can't find the driver when you specify the exact folder.

Now on to my test results. Before I was running the Linksys WUSB54G Wireless-G USB Adapter and it was frequently dropping connection throughout the day(others report same problem), this despite the excellent signal strenth and lack of interference. So I decided to switch to the Hawking Hi-Gain Wireless-G USB Dish Adapter and it provides much more stability and signal strength than the linksys adapter. My results of the test are below.

Real world signal strengths - 2 competing brands
5 - excellent strength; 1 - poor strength
*actual SSID network names have been anonymized

Linksys - Hawking - Network
------- ------- -------
5 - 5 - WAP1 (my network)
4 - 4 - WAP2
2 - 4 - WAP3
2 - 3 - WAP4
1 - 4 - WAP5
1 - 2 - WAP6
1 - 3 - WAP7
1 - 3 - WAP8
1 - 3 - WAP9
1 - 2 - WAP10
1 - 3 - WAP11
0 - 2 - WAP12
0 - 2 - WAP13

As you can see from the above table, the hawking adapter had double, triple, and even in some cases quadruple the signal strength than the competing linksys adapter. And to top it off it also was able to pull in 2 additional networks that linksys didn't even see due to poor signal strength.

I'm really happy with the performance on this product. I'll provide an updated review in a few weeks so that I get more time to test the hawking card.

*** UPDATE 10/24/2008 - Network drivers for this card for Vista results in frequent crashes (BSOD / Blue Screen of Death). The BSOD crash message varied but was frequently IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. All crash dumps refered to the atheros driver as culprit so it definetly not a RAM or other hardware issue. Used the driver Hawking had available on web site. Called tech support and they directed me to go into Device Manager and click the update driver button. Did that and had a dramatic reduction in number of crashes. Note: I am still getting the occassional crash even with the most recent driver update.

Description of Hawking HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter

The HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter is designed to connect desktop computer or laptop easily to any Wireless-B or Wireless-G network via a USB connection and Hi-Gain Antenna technology extends wireless connection distances by up to 300%. The HWU8DD Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter is equipped with a new 8 dBi Directional Dish antenna that provides more distance and better speeds than other wireless adapters on the market.

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