SUMMARY: Gigabyte is making a lot of noise at the moment with their new range of wireless networking equipment. Their new range has just made it into Australia and we've taken a look at their new goods. They sent us a wireless desktop router, wireless access point capable of A/B/G standards and a Gigabit Ethernet Adapter which uses the PCI Express bus for optimal speeds. We’re feeling all networky, so read on and learn more about the new products from Gigabyte.
Now we move onto Gigabyte’s latest Wireless Access Point with upgradeable Tri standards. The package is pretty simple - a user manual, CD and power adapter is all that are needed and supplied.
The unit itself looks similar to the GN-49B router that we reviewed a while ago, however, only 1 LAN port is included and a power port. On the top on the unit are four LED’s - one for the power, one for LAN activity on the LAN port, WLAN for activity on the Wireless LAN 1 port and WLAN2, which we will go into that part in next.
The GN-A17GU is an 802.11g with Turbo/Super option. With the 11g standard comes support for a maximum of 54mbps transfer rate across the wireless network. When you enable the Turbo/Super mode you’ll be able to enable 108mbps transfer rates.
As mentioned earlier, one can upgrade the A17GU to support 802.11a protocols. On the top of the unit is a small cover, this is then removed opening up to reveal a PCMCIA slot. You can purchase the Gigabyte GN-WLMA-102 PCMCIA network card which has support for 802.11a/b/g all in one. When connected to the PCMCIA slot the internal interface shuts down and uses the CPU and controller chip in the PCMCIA card to tell the AP what it is required to do. Once the card is installed you simply place the cover back on and let the unit start up normally. The only difference is there is the 802.11a option in the setup menu.
Transfer Rate Tests
Here you can see that in Wireless-G mode the speeds are up to what we have come to expect from 802.11g. When swapping over to Super-G mode, we found that the speed was not quite as fast at wired, but much better than plain Wireless-G.
In our Super/Turbo-G test we compared the transfer rate of the 108mbps Wireless to the 100mbps wired network.
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