Linksys HPN200 HomeLink Phoneline 10M Network Card

Average customer rating: 4.0

Secure alternative to wireless
Watch out!
Blue Screen Of Death
Poor customer support.
Works Fine-- Some Problems With Win 95 Driver

Linksys HPN200 HomeLink Phoneline 10M Network Card

Manufacturer: Linksys
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B00004SB94

Related Categories:

Audio & Video Accessories

Phone Line Networking

Desktop Adapters

Phone Line Networking

Desktop Adapters

PowerLine Devices

All Wired

Product Description

Now you can connect multiple Pentium PCs in your home or office to share files, printers, Internet connections, and more. Best of all, you don't need anything more than what's in the box! You won't be required to buy any cables or hubs to get your network started. This exciting new technology is being offered in compliance with the standards of the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA). The Linksys HomeLink Phoneline Network Card offers instant connectivity to multiple PC's over a home's existing telephone lines. You can network any PCI-equipped computer by connecting it to any telephone line. There's no need for a switch, a hub, or even any RJ-45 Ethernet cabling - the network runs on standard home-grade telephone cables. Simply install the card, plug the provided telephone cable into the wall, run the installation software, and go. The technology makes networking PCs at home easier than ever. Plus, there's a 10BaseT port on-board -- use it whenever you want to upgrade to a 10Mbps Ethernet.The HomeLink Phoneline Network Card utilizes Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) PCnet-Home technology which allows phone lines to carry data at a 1Mbps transfer rate without interrupting regular telephone voice service (POTS) or feeds from a cable modem or Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (xADSL). You can talk on the telephone, download files from the Internet, and share resources over a network all at the same time. Every standard telephone jack in the home is capable of hosting a PC. You can connect up to 25 devices on any given phone number. With the HomeLink Phoneline Network Card, you will instantly transform the home's telephone wiring into an easily expandable network.

Amazon.com Product Description

The Linksys HomeLink Phoneline 10M network card is the second-generation network card of the Linksys HomeLink series. Now able to transfer data at the same speed as a standard Ethernet network, this network card is a simple way to build a network in your home or small office. Share your Internet connection over multiple PCs, connect directly to your first-generation HomeLink or home phone-line network, print from any PC to any printer, and play multiplayer games at top speeds without installing a switch, a hub, or network cables.

By allocating certain frequencies for certain types of data transfer, the Linksys HomeLink Phoneline 10M network card allows your phone line to carry computer data simultaneously with your voice. You can talk on the telephone, download files from the Internet, and share data between PCs--all at the same time if you are using a cable or DSL modem. Every standard telephone jack in the home is capable of hosting a PC, allowing you to transform your telephone wiring into an expandable network. A telephone cable is included with the HomeLink Phoneline 10M network card.

Customer Reviews:

Secure alternative to wireless.......2004-01-07

Easy install, very reliable. Most of the wireless networks I've encountered are absolutely insecure. They don't have to be, but the users stop short of implementing encryption and MAC address filtering. For those people, this is a safer alternative. Almost as convenient as wireless but without the risk. Phoneline networking doesn't suffer from interference of walls, ceilings, wiring, etc. either. I've used both wireless and phoneline. If I can't have Cat-5 cabling, give me a phoneline network. You can use these cards with the Linksys HPNA router, which serves the HPNA network as well as conventional 10/100 Ethernet concurrently.

Watch out!.......2003-11-28

This card is really great...if you know what it can and can't do.

I used to be pretty (...)at these, but then fiddled with the phone wires and (for reasons that continue to elude my comprehension) all of a sudden they're basically 100% reliable.

My beef with these things is no longer reliability (which was horrible until the fiddling mentioned above), but compatability. I haven't done any definitive research on this particular subject, but these use the same technology as DSL, so it could either not work or have to share bandwidth with the connection. That's one thing (I'm sure they've got some sort of compromise), but my real issue is with lack of OS support. I'm screwed with Linux, and that's something I hope to get more involved in the house-hold. (it's really great, search for Red Hat Linux 9, (...))

In summary, for a Windows-only network without DSL (do your research if you've got it, I guess) it's ok, but check out PowerLine networking instead. Linksys has got some PowerLine stuff, and, other than the issues with this particular product, I think Linksys is a really good company.

Blue Screen Of Death.......2002-05-16

I picked up a pair of these to run a simple network to another floor in our house. I already have a multi-tiered fast ethernet network, and this was just to put one computer in one room on the uppermost floor. I installed one in the computer to go upstairs and it worked like a charm with ethernet-like speeds (actually HPNA 10M cards can push 15-20 Mbps in good conditions, so I'm not suprised). The one I put in the ICS (internet connection sharing) computer to allow the upstairs computer to use the file server and print server downstairs would blue screen the ICS machine within five minuite of bootup, every time. Removing the card resolved the issue, even though the drivers were still installed.

Trying to isolate the issue, realizing that placing the card in a different machine would do the same thing, it was resolved by placing it in a different computer wired to the ethernet infrastructure, but it would bluescreen after every day or two (running Windows 2000). Rats, no dice, so I had to return the card.

Before returning it, however, I did call up Linksys technical support and after explaining that I am qualified on NT and 2000 Server operating systems, they sent me to the right person right away. As it turns out, there is an issue with this card running on i8xx series of chipsets with Windows NT, 2000 or XP. Since these are 80% of the computers with Celeron or Pentium III processors, it would get one star. For working as well as it did when it was working, however, it gets two.

To sum it up, be careful and check the return policy when you purchase these. While I would purchase them again if I needed them and I was pretty sure they would work with no issue, currently there are too buggy. Go purchase someone else's HPNA 10M cards, they all use the same Broadcom chipset and so the performance is exactly the same. Now excuse me while I purchase a 3com.

Poor customer support........2001-06-23

Hi, I have one card installed in a gateway machine, and another USB homelink phoneline connected to the laptop. I was able to get this working in an hour. After a few months, the card connected to the gateway stoped responding, and it seems it had a hardware problem. I called up the linksys customer service about 5 times now, and they were not able to issue me a RMI number to get this card replaced. I later got another card for a cheaper rate to use until I get this replaced if possible. If you buy this, you are on your own.. dont expect any customer support.

Works Fine-- Some Problems With Win 95 Driver.......2001-05-27

Small office, 3 machines linked on one phone line (which is also fax line), 2 Win98s, 1 Win95. Hardest to set up with Win95. For some reason driver did not seem to want to load. I had to completely uninstall network components and reinstall, then install driver manually. Worked after that. Think it was a comflict with a Bios setting but never confirmed it.

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