TP-LINK TL-WN881ND Wireless N300 PCI Express Adapter, 300Mbps, w/WPS Button, IEEE 802.1b/g/n, 64/128 bit WEP, WPA/WPA2 TP-LINK TL-WN881ND Wireless N300 PCI Express Adapter, 300Mbps, w/WPS Button, IEEE 802.1b/g/n, 64/128 bit WEP, WPA/WPA2

Pros: -fast
-super easy and fast installation
- stable. Never drops connection (thus far)
- Reasonable price
- Small. My motherboard has 4 PCI-E ports: 3 1x ports and one 16x port. Of course, the latter is occupied by my graphics card, so this adapter was perfect.

Cons: The Wireless Network Configuration Utility does not work for this model. I have an external TP-link adapter as well for my laptop, and the program works fine, however with this one it causes it to drop the connection.

It will be working fine, until the Utility icon moves to the "hidden icons" section instead of beside the connection icon. As soon as this happens, the adapter loses connection until you open the utility and reconnect. It also always states the connection speed is "0mbps" while with my external adapter the speed vaires.

Luckily, the adapter works fine without it. Not worth taking off an egg.

Drivers are old, but seem to work fine so.

Other Thoughts: I did not buy from Newegg, but felt a review on this product may be helpful. At the time of writing, this is the only review for this item.

Pros: Works as advertised. Easy installation, easy set up. Played online games with my friends and no latency issues have appeared.

Got mine on a pretty good sale.

Cons: Signal strength doesn't seem to be super great, but that hasn't affected my experience with it at all.

Other Thoughts: If you've got the tech-knowledge, I recommend skipping the installation process that tp-link has on their disk and just using the device manager to search for the driver on the CD... Worked for me and I didn't have to install any additional software.

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Pros: Does the job it was purchased for. Easy installation, good wireless signal on the 2.4 Ghz band, and decent signal on the 5Ghz band which is to be expected being about 80 feet from the router and through a few walls. Stable connection the entire time.

Cons: I've had this weird issue since installation right when I restart my PC for the first 5 minutes or so it keeps taking priority over. I'll be typing/scrolling or whatever on firefox or whatever I have open and it will just randomly lose priority and not be selected. For whatever reason it goes away after about a 5 minute period of this occurring.

Other Thoughts: Hopefully I can find a way to stop the little issue I'm having. If I can is definitely a 4-5 star product.

Pros: Works well on Windows 7

Cons: Won't work on Ubuntu. There is no Linux driver currently available for this card. This will probably change in the next few months but for me now, it was no go.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi CurtC,
We're glad to hear the adapter work on your Windows 7.
Could you please give another chance to this adapter?
Though we don't have official driver for it, the adapter does can work on Linux.

Here's the info that may help you. Many customers use this driver on Linux system.
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k

We really appreciate you taking the time to check out our TP-Link products and we hope that you will be able to check out more in the future.
If you need further info, please feel free to contact me.
howard.he@tp-link.com

Best Regards!

TP-LINK Support Team
support@tp-link.com
(866) 225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: It feels solidly built

Cons: I was never able to get it to work properly. I have a WPA2-PSK network (fairly common) and could not get it to pick up a signal better then one or two bars. I was advised by TP-Link to change my network to TKIP encryption instead of AES, which is honestly a very silly reason for it not to work but whatever, I tried it. Same result. This was installed on a fresh build so there weren't any driver conflicts. And it's not that it's in a bad spot, my laptop has 5 bars and it's sitting right next to the desktop. I'm not saying it's not going to work for everyone, I just didn't have any luck with it. I bought a cheap Netgear USB adapter and it's worked fine right out of the box.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We are sorry that your TL-WN881ND was not performing well, with low signal strength. Usually, when it comes to wireless adapters getting a bad connection, it may sometimes be solved by disabling the Windows Firewall or any other software firewalls that may be installed.


If you would like to speak with our technicians for further troubleshooting, or for a replacement device, please feel free to contact us and we will be glad to assist you!

Best Regards!
marc.elliott@tp-link.com
TP-LINK Support Team
support@tp-link.com
(866) 225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: Inexpensive, easy to install, came in a PCI Express 1x configuration

Cons: Constantly disconnects after a couple hours of use. Over a typical weekend of constant use, I'll have to go into Device Manager and 'disable' then 'enable' at least 3-4 times a day. I find this unacceptable.

The drivers on the website say they are from 2012, but once you install them, the driver properties window states they are from 2010.

I also initially had problems connecting via VPN to my workplace as for some reason an initial install and 2 subsequent reboots prevented IPSEC traffic out of my computer. A 3rd reboot worked.

Further, this card does not like it when you 'sleep' a PC either. Numerous times have I slept my computer only to wake it and the card will not connect to any network. Again a 'disable' and 'enable' procedure fixes this issue.

It's with great sadness that I must give this product a 1 egg, but if it cannot handle being used for more than a few hours before having to be reset, the product is useless to me.

Other Thoughts: This is for a Win 7 Ultimate x64 machine.

This is the 2nd TP-LINK product I've used and neither worked well.

Sadly, they don't seem to make x1 cards from name brands like linksys or netgear....at least not that are sold on Newegg. :-(

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties with the TL-WN881ND adapter.

In some cases, Windows cannot "wake up" the network device once it's gone to sleep. In such cases, we advice that you set the feature in the advanced options for "Allow windows to turn off this device to save power" to Disable. That will keep the device from going offline.

We hope this helps, and we appreciate your feedback.

If you have any more questions or concerns, please feel free to give us a call on our support line!

Best Regards!
TP-LINK Support Team
(866)225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: I wrote my original review on 6/25/12 and the Pros have not changed. This device is solid and has never dropped the connection. It is being used in the same room as the ASUS RT-N66U router, so the expectation is five bars and that is what I get.

Cons: Driver is still version 1, dated 11/18/2011. The particular machine this adapter is installed in is running Win 7 x64 and I hope that Win 8 x64 does not have an issue with it. Obviously TP-Link is not "on the ball" with driver updates or Win 8 x64 already has the appropriate drivers for it (and hopefully they work well). I know that Win 7 drivers typically work with Win 8, but NOT ALWAYS.

Other Thoughts: When I get the OS updated to Win8 x64 I will post another update about how this adapter performs.

Pros: Fast when connected even with poor signal.

Cons: Constantly drops signal and has very poor connectivity when connect to a wireless router that’s 30 feet down a hallway. Purchased a Net Gear USB wireless card since this one was working so poorly and I have had no problems with connectivity and have a good signal quality.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We are very sorry about your experience with the TL-WN881ND Adapter. We are confident in our products and their ability to provide dependable and fast network connectivity, so, it definitely concerns us that you were seeing so many disconnection issues. There is a small chance that the item may simply be defective or internally damaged somehow, so if you would like to contact us about replacing the product, we would be glad to assist you!


Thank you for supporting TP-LINK.

Best Regards!
TP-LINK Support Team
(866)225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: It works. Signal is mediocre. The driver's on TP-Link's website are much smoother. CD had some issues, but could have been my drive's fault.

Cons: As with all the other reviews, low profile bracket is not included... :(
I thought with all the negative reviews on this subject would've lead TP-Link to fix and address these issues by now. Looks like they're approaching this situation 1 customer at a time.

Other Thoughts: It was a good thing that I had another low profile bracket with the same screw holes. At least I got to use the product.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We apologize for the low profile issue caused by the product.
Actually all new products are included the low profile.
You may contact me to send you a low profile for free.

email: steve.crow@tp-link.com

Thank you for supporting TP-LINK.

Best Regards!
TP-LINK Support Team
(866)225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: Fast card, but unfortunately, I am far away from the router, but I already notice a ping improvement compared to my wireless G on pci.

Bandwidth is nearly the same though, because of my distance from the router.

I can also multitask with it. Meaning, having netflix in one window and surfing the web at the same time. Couldn't do that with my old G card.

Cons: I havent' tested the card close to the router, and I won't be able to for awhile, so as for right now no cons.