The GN-WMA01 Receiver

It's all well and good to have the Super-G router, but without a device that supports Super-G or Turbo G, you are simply going to be relegated back to 54mbps. Gigabyte supplies PCI, PCMCIA, Mini-PCI and USB2.0 adapters that support the Super-G standard, today we have the PCMCIA WMA01 Wireless adapter to take a closer look at.

The adapter comes in a small box; no fuss is made, as simply it's hard to provide any extras with a NIC. The unit comes with a user manual explaining the Gigabyte utility that you can use to replace the Windows Wireless Configuration utility if you wish to use it as well as a driver CD. Due to the Super-G environment not being a full standard, Windows XP does not have any baseline drivers for the card, unlike plain 802.11g cards we have tested. Once the driver is installed you can select if you want to us the Gigabyte utility or the default Windows Wireless config program to run the show. When using Windows wireless, you have no control over the Super-G aspect. So if your router has it turned on you will be connected at 108mbps. With the Gigabyte utility you can tell the card to ignore the Super-G setup and go to plain 54mbps. It's good to see that the 108mbps is accepted so easy by Windows XP - we expected more fuss.

The card itself is a Type II, 32bit Cardbus type unit. This unit is small form factor, so you don't have to worry about giving up the extra card bus slot like some require you to do. The unit is simple with only two LED's, the bottom one on the picture above is to indicate that a link is established. The top one lights up when the card is connected to the PCMCIA slot and the PC has recognised its there.

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