Hawking Technology Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Range Extender (HWREN1)

Nice product, but it looks like they left the manual to be written by the engineers. It assumes a lot of technical knowledge and doesn't alert you to issues that you're likely to encounter. This thing should have been a *lot* easier to set up. Since reading some of the reviews here saved me time, effort, and frustration, I thought I'd throw in a review with what I learned in the several hours it took me to finally get configured.I have a D-Link DGL-4300 gaming router. I love it because I can prioritize traffic based on IP -- so when my wife decides to Farmville, she doesn't squash my XBOX connection and lag me out on Halo. :)But in our new house, the router sits in a room at the front and my home office is in the garage out back. I didn't want to go to the hassle of running cable out there, and the Hawking in the back den has provided a nice solution now that it's finally configured.Here's my advice:- If you've got your router configured with advanced security options like MAC address filtering and a hidden SSID, turn that stuff off before you run the setup utility. First order of business is just getting a connection.- Also -- here's the one that tripped me up for the longest time -- the channel that your router is broadcasting on must match the channel that the range extender uses. This can be deceptive because the setup utility automatically matches the channel of your router -- but if your router is set to autoscan channels when it boots, chances are it's going to switch to a different channel at some point, either after you've changed settings and rebooted or after a simple power-down and restart. Suddenly your range extender won't be able to connect and you won't know why. Points off because the range extender doesn't have the ability to find and match the channel dynamically. Save yourself the hassle and turn off autoscan channels on your router BEFORE you run the setup utility.- Now if you've properly prepared your router as described above, you should be able to use the setup utility on the CD (it's also downloadable at the [...] site) to connect the range extender to your network. I'd recommend setting up the range extender's SSID (it's "ESSID" in the interface) to something different from your main wireless network, that way you'll always know if you're connecting directly to your router or through the range extender. I use WPA2 with AES encryption without a problem, just make sure your pre-shared key is the same on the range extender as it is for your router.- By the way, I'd skip all that stuff in the manual about configuring the properties of the LAN connection in Windows. Didn't need to do it in WinXP or Win7 to access the control panel on the range extender.- Another big tip -- as soon as you get a wireless connection from the range extender to the router, UNPLUG THE ETHERNET CABLE from the range extender. Otherwise you're going to get all kinds of wonkiness.- Now you can start putting security back in. I'm running firmware v1.52, but as older reviews advise, you still have to +1 to the MAC address that the range extender reports to get the right one for MAC filtering and other options like DHCP reservations. If you're confused, check the status of the wireless connections in your router's control panel and you should be able to get the true MAC address for the range extender.- Here's something weird: I have my router configured to reserve an IP for the range extender, but you can use the range extender's control panel to set a *different* IP to get to the control panel. This can cause confusion too and could happen to you by accident, so just be aware. If you use your router to force an IP on the range extender, it will happen, but you'll still have to use the IP that was obtained during setup to actually reach the range extender's control panel.That's it for the most part. If you have some idea of what you're doing and are aware of these pitfalls, you should be able to get set up relatively painlessly.PROS: The range extender can hide its SSID, and works with the router hiding its SSID -- so no part of my network is broadcasting. Also, the range extender has MAC filtering, so you can be secure throughout your network.CONS: Terrible documentation when it comes to configuration, and I'm stuck with one configured broadcasting channel instead of being able to autoscan for the cleanest option.Hopefully some of this stuff will help others save time and sanity. Shame on Hawking -- seems like they have a good product here but they're surely losing customers who can't get configured and give up. Good luck!

As written by Jason B, Bob A and Boris, DO NOT USE the cd that comes in the box! By no means do I consider myself IT but after reading their reviews along with a handful of others, I felt confident with handling the setup myself and I always like a challenge. The challenge was figuring out why one of my laptops could detect and log on to the range extender but the other one could only detect the device (both cards are G's). Every time I tried to connect with the other laptop, the message would read that the device was either out of range or turned off. Keep in mind that both laptops were about 24 inches away from the range extender. I'm sure I'll get "head-shaked" from the IT gurus on here but I didn't set up MAC filtering due to where I live. If I was still living in downtown ATL or even downtown Chattanooga, then I would use the extra security but I see no reason for it due to my current location. So back to my issues. My router is set to 168.0 and I noticed that the extender wanted to set an IP of 168.0.106 instead of what the default is set to. My first mistake was using the new IP address. However, the same occurrence was happening with the laptops (1 can connect but the other could not). Even after this, I had a solid internet connection on the one laptop that could connect but I couldn't even access the IP address online to manually change settings. So long story short that worked for me after my first initial run at set up.1) Made sure that the device was indeed plugged in and I hit the reset button on the back of the device a few times.2) LAN connected to the router and ran the setup software again. At IP setup page, I chose to end in 240 so there wouldn't be any conflict with the last 3 digits of my router (this decision fixed the issue with the other laptop and with being able to access online IP address).3) Set security to WPA instead of WPA2 to match what I had changed on the router to work with the extender3) Disconnected the LAN line, and *SOMETHING THAT ALWAYS SEEMS TO WORK FOR ME* rebooted the other laptop that couldn't connect.Presto-Chango, the other laptop could detect, and connect to the range extender. My issue wasn't a basement/ 1st story problem but rather that the server and router were on one side of the house for a base of internet operations for the whole family while my office was clear on the other side. I could pick up the router signal but it was low and I wasn't satisfied with the leftover piece of pie I had to work with when everyone else would be on. Plus, this gave me a good excuse to help bring my household up another notch into the tech realm. My next concern was unplugging the device, moving it to a central location and praying that everything I just went through didn't get virtually erased. Sure enough, I set up the device, and my laptop was still connected and had excellent strength.I'm extremely happy with the device but as just about everyone else has commented, the setup is not so "plug-N-play" friendly at first. I would definitely recommend this product to a friend, but would also help them personally over the phone or direct them to the reviews on amazon. Based on one review, I didn't even bother calling tech support because I didn't want to waste the time getting worked up with the person on the other end. Besides, there are more than enough intelligent reviewers for this product who have given a better step-by-step on how to set this product up and troubleshoot the majority of the issues.