2. The Product

The AP has pretty much what you'd expect in an 11g AP, except for two things. First, it doesn't have web-based administration, instead requiring a Windows application to manage it via SNMP commands. This both limits its potential user base and adds one more application to be loaded onto your probably overflowing PC.

Second, and on a more positive note, it can be expanded to dual-radio operation by the addition of a standard GIGABYTE 11g or 11a/b/g CardBus card.

You can see the CardBus slot clearly in Figure 1's photo of the top of the A17's main board, which is controlled by a TI PCI 1410 PC Card Controller and accessible by snapping a plastic cover off the top of the A17's case.

Figure 1: Top of the GN-A17GU's board

The A17 is based on a Renesas SH7751R Super-H CPU running at 240MHz and backed by 1M of Flash and 4M of RAM.

Figure 2: Bottom of the GN-A17GU's board

The AP uses a GIGABYTE GC-WIAG-101 mini-PCI radio which connects to the CPU via a Atheros' AR5002G chipset.

Figure 3: The mini-PCI radio