Cisco-Linksys PCM200 EtherFast 10/100 32-Bit Integrated CardBus PC Card

Cisco-Linksys PCM200 review This product was purchased from "Worldwide Distribution" through Amazon.com and they get 5 stars out of 5 for prompt shipping and quality of product. I received the item well before the 14 day estimated shipping time. I purchased the item for an older Compaq laptop that had a dead R45 jack (lan) and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it worked with Windows and with Linux. I have not had any bad experiences with the product, it does what they say it will and is reasonably priced. I highly recommended this product, and buying it through Amazon, to a good friend who had an older laptop that had no R45 jack at all and I cannot think of a better recommendation for a product than that. Rating: 5 (Cisco-Linksys PCM200 EtherFast 10/100 32-Bit Integrated CardBus PC Card customer review by sixshots, 2010-07-21)

Works with Linux I don't normally review products on Amazon, but I feel this is important. I have an old Linux laptop running as my firewall (IPCop if it matters). I needed a second NIC. There is not much information about the PCM200 and Linux compatibility. I can report this product works perfectly with no modification. The computer is running Linux kernel 2.4.36 with an unmodified IPCop 1.4.21 installation. Rating: 5 (Cisco-Linksys PCM200 EtherFast 10/100 32-Bit Integrated CardBus PC Card customer review by J. Gilbert, 2009-11-20)

Wired to the Internet This product was easy to install and works great. It is getting more difficult to find "wired" hardware in this era of "wireless". Rating: 5 (Cisco-Linksys PCM200 EtherFast 10/100 32-Bit Integrated CardBus PC Card customer review by Thomas R. Fiorey, 2007-01-04)

3 1/2 Please Read This If Driver Problem for Linksys 200 I can verify what others have said here: The Linksys "Etherfast Integrated Ultra-Fast 32-bit PC Card" (also known as model PCM200, v.2), works well once installed, but there can be major problems with installing the associated "driver," and technical support was not satifactory. (The Linksys PCM 200 won't work without the driver.) THE DRIVER PROBLEM Linksys includes a floppy disk (the one that goes into your "A" drive) that is supposed to automatically install the driver. This worked fine on the first laptop computer I worked on (operating system, Windows 98) but the disk would not work on a second laptop (OS=Windows 2000). According to the included installation manual, it should work with both Windows 98 and 2000. When I inserted the disk on the second computer, all I got was a whirring sound and periodic noises--nothing was ever installed. TECH SUPPORT When calling SBC Yahoo to make sure that this was not a compatibility problem (actually, in an earlier call to SBC they recommended the PCM200), they helpfully recommended that I call Linksys Tech Support. Unfortunately, the Linksys Tech. Support person seemed impatient and did not explain things clearly. She had me go through the floppy method 2 or 3 times AFTER I had already explained that it didn't work. This was a waste of time; tension was high. I can only hope that other tech, support personnel have better training. THE SOLUTION! I finally asked if there was some other way to install the driver without the obviously malfunctioning floppy. After being put on hold, she returned and told me I could download the driver for free from the following website: http://linksys.com/download The download is easy. You select the product you want to download (driver for PCM200 integrated), and your operating system. I recommend downloading to your C drive; it was easier for me to find it later. After downloading it, I plugged the PCM 200 back into the laptop, and when the installer instructions "asked" if it should look for the driver or if I wanted to tell it where to go, I chose the latter, and typed in the C drive as the location (C://). Finally, it worked, and in the few days I've been trying out DSL I've had no problems with the product so far. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION The product itself works well, but driver installation is buggy and (at least in my one experience, although others here have complained as well) tech. support was inefficient and not consumer-friendly. Later, it occurred to me: Why wasn't I told sooner that I could simply download the driver? And, what if I did not have a working dial-up internet connection--would I have had to wait for them to mail me another floppy? In contrast to the helpful and knowledgeable tech. support at SBC Yahoo, this was not a good experience. It would be best if you have a friend nearby who has changed from dial-up to DSL to help you with installation (or who can recommend a different company's product). And, remember the URL for the free Linksys download: http://linksys.com/download. Hopefully, competition will increase in the future and buyers can choose a more reliable product. Rating: 3 (Cisco-Linksys PCM200 EtherFast 10/100 32-Bit Integrated CardBus PC Card customer review by M. Allen Greenbaum, 2004-10-29)

Good product, painful installation The Linksys PCM200 is a good card. However, users with SystemSoft on their laptops should read the extra installation steps required to install the card available from Linksys' Knowledge Base.I'm running a Pentium 233 MHz with Win95b and SystemSoft (a 3rd party utility for managing PCMCIA cards). Before successfully installing the card, the PC would not recognize the drivers and crash. Customer Support (although helpful), could not rectify the situation. I stumbled on the KB article and it solved everything. Rating: 3 (Cisco-Linksys PCM200 EtherFast 10/100 32-Bit Integrated CardBus PC Card customer review by Anonymous, 2003-08-25)