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D-Link DWL-122 802.11b USB Adapter Review, Page 2
August 10th, 2003
Updated Sept. 12th, 2003

DWL-122 Mac Solution
Next was our testing on the Mac platform. The D-Link DWL-122 requires that you have Mac OS X 10.2.6 installed; the specifications do not allow for OS 9.x operation. You obviously must also have a Mac with a USB 1.1 specification port.

The two most obvious uses for the DWL-122 are older Rev A through D iMacs or early G3 PowerBooks, which do not have internal Apple Airport Card capabilities. We wished that D-Link had looked at market segment information from researchers such as IDC, Gartner or others; because most users of these older systems are actually running OS X 10.1.x (less than 12% of Mac users have upgraded to 10.2.x) because OS X Jaguar 10.2.x is too slow for these lower powered Macs.

We chose a recent 14” 700MHz iBook and a Rev D Blueberry G3 iMac to test the DWL-122. While the iBook has internal Apple Airport card capabilities, we removed the Airport card and the Blueberry iMac is one of those prime candidates for the DWL-122. We later also tested on a G3 400MHz Blue/White PowerMac, another likely candidate for this solutrion.

There was a Problem, Irvine –
The instructions call for the installation of the Mac OS 10.2.6 drivers first and the installation went smoothly. We rebooted the iMac as instructed and then plugged the DWL-122 into the USB port. The systems OS immediately Halted (crashed) and the error message said to reboot. Even after several tries, including reinstalling the drivers we were never able to get past the systems fatal Halt. There was no clue as to why this was happening.

To be sure that nothing installed on the computer could be a cause of the problem, we put in a new hard disk drive into the old Rev D iMac and installed a virgin copy of OS 10.2.6, with all the Apple updates but no other applications. The 333MHz iMac runs painfully slow under 10.2.6, which used to be a pretty snappy performer with OS 10.1.5.

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We experienced the same system Halt failure on the iMac that we saw with the iBook. Another disappointment came when we tried to uninstall the D-Link software with their script, which you have to enter(type in) via Terminal Mode. This is a big No-No, something you shouldn’t ever ask any Mac user to do with less than expert experience. An automated uninstaller should be integrated into the installation package as with any other Mac software. No matter how many times we tried, the uninstaller script would not remove the D-Link software and drivers.

D-Link’s very quick fix –
In our experience, D-Link will address unforeseen problems in a product faster than any other network hardware company and they certainly didn’t take long to find a suitable solution for Mac users of this product. D-Links marketing department asked us to work with their product manager to report all the issues and offer Mac user suggestions.

Within a matter of a few weeks D-Link asked us to try two new Mac OS X drivers and a new Automated Uninstall Script. Each new driver was better then the previous, and the latest version OsxUsbDriver1.3.2 completely resolved all our test issues on all our test Macs. Also included in that latest version is a very well written uninstall script that even a Mac “newbie” will have no problems with. Kudos to D-Link, once again!

This is only D-Link’s second product specifically intended for Mac platform use (the DBT-120 for Bluetooth was first) and we hope that they continue to develop more, hopefully also for older USB Macs, which can only use OS 10.1.5 too.

 The Bottom Line –
If you’ve got the need for a ultra compact and hot performing USB 802.11b adapter for your Windows Notebook or Desktop, this is a number choice. With D-Links very prompt resolution of both issues we suggest that if you need a 802.11b solution for an older G3 iMac or G3 “B/W” PowerMac Tower is an excellent choice, especially considering the cost value. For more another permanent desk-bound solution, we suggest you look at the D-Link DWL-810+ Ethernet-to-Wireless Bridge, it also works great.

The Tech-Edge E-zine Tech Lab gives a 5 Thumbs-up rating for the D-Link DWL-122, on both Windows and Macintosh OS X platforms.

(Ratings are on a 1 - 5 scale, 5 is best)



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