Installation
The installation of the DWL-120 was quite painless. Once the necessary software was installed from the CD, the USB device was plugged into a free USB port and BAM... the sucker worked like a charm.

The installation of the DWL-500, however, was a different story in itself. Following the Quick Install Guide that came with the package exactly, I managed to get it working properly; however, as soon as I decided to physically remove my other 10BaseT network card that I had in the test system (for running benchmarks), Windows would spit out a BSOD every time I tried to launch D-Link's configuration program. A quick check in the Windows Device Manager showed that it was conflicting at IRQ 0 with my Direct Memory Controller. Great! I tried moving the DWL-500 around to another slot, then moving it back, to no avail. I finally had to insert back my other 10BaseT network card that, when I removed it, was causing all these problems to get it to work again-very strange.

Configuration
Configuration of both the DWL-120 and the DWL-500 was very quick and easy to do. Once they're installed properly into Windows, D-Link has included a nice little configuration/debug program with each device. Although users can use the devices right off the bat without even touching the D-Link configuration software, I figure it wise to at least go and change some critical fields, such as the SSID and maybe even some encryption settings for extra security, since ignoring to do so will allow others in the area, if they also have an IEEE 802.11b wireless adapter to access your private network--that would be a big no-no. The D-Link configuration software also gives you a snapshot of how strong of a connection your adapter has with the rest of the wireless network.

Wireless Baby!
Once everything is set up, all that was necessary was to go into Window's Network settings and configure the TCP/IP settings(and maybe others) just like one would for any other network card. After that, the computer is connected to the network--wireless! Woohoo! Once you have everything set up and all the bugs worked out, it's simply a pleasure to be able to plug either the DWL-650 or DWL-120 into your PC or laptop and be able to access your network just like that, no wires!

One last cool thing to note before we move onto some performance charts: the PCMCIA to PCI adapter that is included with the DWL-500 will also work with most other PC Card devices that you may have! This is an added bonus if you also own a laptop with other "extras" in the form of PC Cards since with it you can share those devices between your PC and laptop with ease!

On to: Performance