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[jbjorgan]

Has anyone out there managed to get this card to work under windows 7 x64???

I've tested all the drivers out there; both dlink's and Athero's. The network signals are ok for a few seconds, then the transmission stops / clogs for 15-20 sec's, then a new burst, etc, etc. My router is a DIR-655, and I also got a DAP-1360 as a repeater. I'm just about to give up on the 556 and configure the DAP-1360 as a bridge cabled to my pc...grrrrr.

[FathomX]

I am currently using this card under Win7 x64, with no problems at all. I did have some problems with the connection at times, which I have solved by disabling the "computer browser" service. I'm running the latest drivers with no problem, straight from D-Link website. Did not mess with the driver CD that came with the card.

Try this out: This solved my connection drop issues.

Start, Run, type services.msc, and find "computer browser", hit properties and disable it. The you should have full signal, else your having other troubles.

[xion824]

That should help out, yes. The computer browser service is used primarily to be backwards compatible with pre-Windows XP systems. This way, if you have systems on a network that are older, your current Windows version will be able to see and communicate with them. It should not be needed for you.

[pixelnut]

I bought this card without checking whether it would be compatible with my system or not, assuming that I will be able to tweak it to work as I did with my DWA-652. After all, it is the latest offering from D-Link, it should work with the latest from Microsoft and the latest hardware.

Well, I was wrong.

Tried to tweak the DWA-556 for 2 weeks and getting nowhere. Tried almost all the drivers available out there. The most stable connection that I managed to get was with the default driver installed automatically by Windows 7 with Received buffers = 224, scan valid interval = 40 and transmit buffers = 256.

I could surf with this setting, the connection would drop and reconnect every 20 seconds or so but the browser does not seem to be aware of the drop. However, I never succeed to transfer large amount of data across the network, of the 100GB or so that I used to test, the most that I got through was 20GB, sometimes the connection simply drop and the network became inaccessible, many other times the system reboots after a BSOD. All in all, it was a huge pain in the ....

I finally gave up and got the DWA-552 instead. Using the last driver left over from the DWA-556 (version 9.1.0.100), Windows 7 detected it and it worked. Copied the whole 100GB of data in about 5 hours. The connection did not drop even once. And so far, no BSOD.

To all who tried to get this thing to work reliably on Windows 7 (64 bit) and failed, I would highly recommend giving the card to somebody who can use it and open up your wallet to get the DWA-552 instead. I did it, admitted defeat and swallowed my pride.

My set up: Windows 7 64 bit on a Dell XPS8100.

[tikoqeri]

Hi All,

I have recently purchased the DWA-556 and had random blue-screens and restarts on Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
After searching a bit I have found that if you update the driver for DWA-556 within Windows to Atheros drivers, the product works fine !

I have downloaded these drivers from:
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/atheros.htm
The AR5*** / AR9xxx is the one that I have used (I actually followed someones post about this and can't find that URL).

Give it a try, and I hope that you find this helpful.

[pixelnut]

Hi tikorqeri,
You must be very lucky. I used the driver from the same site you posted with no luck. It must be my combination of hardware. Although my other system is working perfectly with same router.

Either way, my DWA-552 is still working perfectly for almost a month now. My reply to this post is to help those people who are about to get the card. My advice is to get the DWA-552 instead and save some money and headache, it is cheaper and advertised as compatible with Windows 7. The Microsoft compatibility website specifically states that the DWA-556 is not compatible with Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bits), while the DWA-552 is.

BTW,
My old but still working set up: Windows XP Pro, Dell laptop, DWA-652, D-Link router DIR-655. 
My new non-working set up: Windows 7 home 64 bits, Dell xps8100, DWA-556, same DIR-655 router.

[view2akill]

I have als0 had DWA-556 issues.

Not identical synptoms to BSOD or reboot issues, though it could be the same as reboot as my recovery bios settting possibily aren't the same.

In essence the system will run for a period of time, but will then suddenly just power off with no explanation of log records.  It is most bizarre as I don't know where to start tracing the fault, though I know it is down to the DWA-556 as disabling it fixes the issues.

I have just tried running services.msc and disabling the compuer browser, will report back on how it goes.

[view2akill]

 Ok, so far so good on typing  services.msc and closing the computer browser service

The system ran overnight with no issues whereas before it was powering off  after about 20-40 minutes.  I may do some stress tests later as the problem felt like it always occurred during a network backup or RDP session, but I suspect that was just the issue arising of its own accord and not the backup or RDP.

[sid2330]

Hi All,


I was able to get my issues resolved. I followed the steps exactly as per following link.... This really helped me and saved my $80 network card from going trash..

http://troubleshoot4free.com/index.php?topic=433.0


Regards,

[lvlup]

just bought the 556...shoulda done my research on this card earlier =\


having problems too, w7 pro 64bit.

ever since i installed the card into the pci-e slot, my boot times have suffered significantly, as well as shutdown times. no idea why.

i initially installed drivers with the cd, but after looking on these forums, i've followed them and completely removed all the "default drivers" and "dlink wizards", and now have done a straight, plain install of the Atheros drivers (AR5008 ver.9.2.0.206)..i run these drivers now.

and now connects fine to my Linksys WRT54Gv2 router, 5 bars signal. Speedtest.net completed with 8.4Mbps downstream, compared to 1.01Mbps previously using the Dlink CD drivers/wizard.

but.


everytime i put the card "under stress", it disconnects. i dont know what to do now.
i can never load a complete youtube video, it disconnects. listen to pandora it disconnects too.
surf the web, its fine for a little bit longer but then disconnects.

what can i do now? what to try? trash the card and bad word the product? i'm an editor on one of the major "tech-gadget" websites..i have the opportunity to put this card "to sleep" and hopefully save millions more of potential customers from all this trouble and recommend other choices.

[philwoz98]

Lvlup, instead of using 9xxxx firmware, try using the the 8.0.0.372 firmware instead. Both the original dlinlk drivers and the Atheros (8.0.0.372) have been rock solid paired with my dgl 4500 using g/n mode only.I am also using windows 7 64bit. When logged into my router I usual get 200 mbps, maxing out at 270.

Also some else posted a custom driver on these forums, here is the link. I mean if all else fails why not give a shot and possible fix it and save other people headachs as well.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=23391.0

let us know how it goes.

[lvlup]

that "custom driver" aint clean.

will try the 8.0.x.x version of the Atheros then...logic would tell me the 9.0 version is latest which mean is better.. but ok will give the 8.0 version a shot.