Why I buy this one ?
- The Duo technology in the DWA-160 supports selectable dualband (2.4GHz or 5GHz) wireless signals.
- The DWA-160 utilizes MediaBand (5GHz), which is the best technology available for wirelessly streaming HD videos across your network
- D-Linkâ¿¿s Quick Adapter Setup Wizard guides you step-by-step through the installation process
- Delivers up to 14x faster speeds* and 6x farther range* than 802.11g
- Xtreme N Duo is the latest addition to the award-winning Xtreme N product family

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What our customer's say!

"Great Adapter", I bought this adapter (Rev. B1) because I was only getting 65 Mbps on my Acer 8930 laptop (Vista Home Premium 64 bit) with my Intel 5100 Wireless Card a/g/n via my Netgear WNR2000 N Router. Installation was simple and only took a few minutes. I discarded the CD and loaded firmware 2.2 from D-Links site. I then was prompted to insert the adapter into a USB port. After a couple of minutes, I was prompted to enter my SSID and Password. Bingo. Now I get a consistent 270 Mbps, with a very strong signal.

D-Link would like you to think that you only get the fastest wireless speeds if you use this adapter with one of their Routers. But I found that this adapter works great with my Netgear WNR2000 Router.

Make sure you get the Rev. B1 model (not Rev. A1)

"DWA-160 didn't work for me with XP ", Very few electronic products that I buy make me regret purchasing the item once I start using them. This DWA-160 is one of them though. I am returning this beast to the Circuit City today.

My computer that I am using it on is a Windows XP, when I called support with my issues they attempted to get me straigthened out, but either due to software issues or something else this unit didn't work well for me. I had been happily using my DWL-G132 Super G usb adapter but I wanted to match my new DIR-655 wireless n router up with a new 'N' usb device. I didn't have a problem one with the DWL-G132 which I've been using for a couple years faithfully now.


My problem hinged around after I got the DWA-160 connected using WPA, when I logged off and then my Mrs. signed on to her account on our Win XP SP2 machine, it would cause the DWA-160 to search for a connection, and broke my connection as well. I tried 5 hours of trouble shooting every configuration I could think of and two service calls to Dlink and threw in the towel. I uninstalled the DWA-160 and reboxed it, and then reinstalled my DWL-g132 super g usb and within a couple minutes was back up and running with no problems using my DIR-655 N Router, this DWA-160 didn't work at all for me.

"Unusual Design But Works OK", I received this adapter with a DLINK N router. I found it to work fairly well, although I could not test the speed due to my laptop limitations. Note that you should use this with the DLINK routers, since the "N" wireless standard is not yet, well, standardized. Also, this adapter has special speed capabilities when paired with a corresponding DLINK router.

The adapter has a very unusual configuration. It comes with a USB cable that terminates in what looks like a wireless transmitter, but in fact is the base station for the actuall transmitter (which is pictured here). I suppose this allows one to get better reception, but it looks strange. The "antenna" portion has a removable cap, which is the black part pictured above.

The instructions said to run the install wizard, which I did. This is not unusual. However, these wizards usually just install the drivers, and then Windows (I'm using XP) recognizes the adaptor when it is inserted. Instead, the wizard said to connect the adapter about 1/2 way through the install process. It then connected to my home network, including my typing in the security codes. The only problem is that once the wizard was finished, I had no connectivity. I rebooted my machine and used the Windows XP connection manager to scan for and connect to my network. After that it worked fine.

I had my laptop only about 20 feet from the base station, and I only had 4 bars reception, so I'm not sure how well this adaptor will fulfill the long range requirement.

For newer laptops with USB 2.0, this adaptor may work pretty well, but the unusual base station requires a lot of room in the laptop case. A PC-Card is much slimmer and easier to fit into that case. So I think that this adapter is best reserved for those with lots of room in their laptop case, or for desktop users who have the corresponding DLINK router.

"High capacity only within short range/line-in-sight", Out of the box the DWA-160 isn't a nice experience.
I can only get decent speeds (50 Mbit/s or so) if I have the router (DIR-855) within direct sight and is less than 6 metres from it.
The router measures 98 Mbit/s out its switch sockets so I have ample WAM/LAN capacity.
Farther distance or the slightest obstruction of view the speed drops to G speeds (20 Mbit/s) and the whole point of an expensive upgrade to Wireless-N is lost.

I need to find out if there is a way to increase transmit power on the router to accomodate the DWA-160 or if some tweaks can be made in other ways. Else I will be returning this product.

D-Link DWA-160 Xtreme N Duo Dualband Draft 802.11n USB Adapter

I am surprised DLINK have released this product given its apparent reception problem. It risks to endanger the reputation of their DIR- gigabit routers as well which are supposed to be the ideal combo.

"Horrible Product", I brought this adaptor in October and it has been nothing but garbage. I literaly have my router (DIR-855) in next room about 20' away I live in a two bedroom ranch one level and I hardly get signal above 50% (mostly 20 - 30%) on 2.4ghz and 5% or less on 5ghz band. I constantly get disconnected from router because of signal loss. The adaptor just up and died yesterday. I got to admit I have tried Linksys (WRT-610) and D-Link (DIR-855) dual band routers and their performance is highly overrated. I am a proficent pc user/tech. They need to go back to the drawing board and redesign. Save your money if you want a good router get the D-Link (DGL-4500) not a true dual band but works well (had 100 - 98% signal) I had one and returned it figuring it would be great,(not) so I got this pile of heaping garbage. I brought both items here thru Amazon big mistake I am stuck with this garbage and out alot of money. I will be returning the adaptor for a new one to replace dead one.

Patrick

Toms River, NJ

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Super fast network adaptor", Great product. I have a HTPC running Wingows Vista Ultimate 64-bit that I needed a wireless network connection. You can forget about finding any internal wireless adapter cards that will work with the 64-bit versions of Windows. This USB adapter works great. It has no conflicts with the 64-bit operating system and is fast enough to run DVD quality video from my main computer and plays streaming video from Netflix with no problems.

To get the fast speed of the 802.11n band you must also have an 802.11n band wireless router. My router is the D-Link DIR-655.

My HTPC has an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor with 4GB RAM.

"New hardware is Vista Certified, Use Ralink Drivers for Rev B", Ignore the earlier post about this adapter not working well with Vista. Dlink now supplies Rev B hardware which is Vista Certified. I got mine from local store in July and all parts should be Rev B (Ralink chipset) moving forward.

I have a great connection through two walls and quite far from my router. If you have a bad router than this adapter isn't going to fix it.

Make sure you use the drivers from Ralink, they write the drivers and have most up to date code. Uninstall the older Dlink drivers first and download Ralink drivers here: http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support.html

"Complete JUNK", I purchased this adapter to go with my D-Link DGL-4500 (a fabulous router, BTW). The range on this thing is TERRIBLE. If you plan on purchasing this for the use of the 5ghz frequency over 802.11n, save your money and wait for something else to come along. Unfortunately, this is one of the few USB dual-band capable adapters on the market and all of them are equally as weak.

I tried using the 5ghz band and literally after I left the room (probably 20ft from the router), the signal went to 1 bar. In fact, I never could get a full strength signal from this adapter, 5ghz or 2.4ghz. So, D-Link is charging $75 for an item with dual-band capability, yet it's essentially worthless unless you feel it's worth the money to spend on a weak, sub-par 2.4ghz adapter; which is what this is once you take away the 5ghz frequency.

Hopefully somewhere down the road a company like Hawking, who makes by far the best antennas, will make a high-powered dual-band adapter. Until then, save your money.

This is getting returned.

"DWA-160", It's been about a month since I have been using the DWA-160. I am pleased with it's performance. I really like the USB capability. I can run it on my desktop or use it on my laptop. I also like the included USB adapter. It makes placement flexable. Overall a great product.

"Completely Unstable on Vista/ Crashes System", I tried to use this adapter and was lured by its fast speeds, and while it is a great unit while it works, in most cases it only works about 10 minutes before it hangs your applications, forces a restart at which point a extrodinarily long wait ends in a blue screen of death saying "DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE".

This device caused me lots of trouble (including a reinstall of my operating system) and the replacement unit the RMA department sent has the same problem, so it appears to be an issue with the whole product line.

Apparently there is a revision B DWA-160 that may or may not fix the bugs, but I suppose I may never know, since the RMA department replaced my completely unusable revision A unit with another revision A piece of junk.

I went back to my old Netgear wireless G adapter for now, and while the speed is slower, at least it doesn't bring Windows to a literally crashing halt!