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Netgear WG511 Wireless 802.11g PC Card

Netgear WG511 Wireless 802.11g PC Card

List Price: $66.44
Your Price: $42.74
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: Works really well, had no problems with installation or setup. I have a netgear router WRG614, I think having both from the same company might have helped as well.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The good, the bad and ....the ugly ?!?
Review: I purchased the Netgear wireless card based on mostly good reviews. Most problems seemed to be associated with XP. Still having a laptop with the good ol' 98, I figured I'd give it a shot.

I use the card mostly to have access to hotspots in major cities for work. Here is my take on it:

The good:
1. The card software was extremely easy to install
2. It just takes 3 seconds to scan all available networks in your area WITH their characteristics (name, infrastructure or ad-hoc, security or no, channel, etc.)
3. Great connection speed
4. you can save network profiles (home, work, etc), which is great if you plan on switching network often.

Now the bad:
1. I did have to do research to figure out why, even after a successful installation, I was unable to go online. I actually had to update my protocol (thanks to my geek peeps!).
2. Even after connecting to a network, my experience showed that it was better to reboot the computer before going online. In other words, turn on computer, find network, turn off computer, turn it back on. Otherwise, the connection kept being dropped. The card would keep scanning channels, which would cut me off every 5 seconds.

Conclusion:
Even if the initial set up seemed a breeze, it took me a few hours to figure out the specifics of my installation and a few more to figure out the whole turn off/back on trick to a better connection. For someone with no technical background, this could be very frustrating. But now that it works, I am pretty happy with it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Excellent hardware, bad software
Review: Using the included install CD, it did not work on W2000 with their own MR814 802.11b router. It would connect only occasionally, then drop the connection in a minute. The latest driver from their website fixed the problem.

On Linux, the prism54 driver supports this card, assuming you bring your own firmware. The firmware extracted from the cd did not work, while the firmware could not be (trivially) found in their latest drivetr. Luckily I found a standard prism54 fw somewhere on the net which did.

Once I got through the exceptionally painful installation, it works smoothly and has a greater range than my previous Netgear MA401 and Dlink DWL650 802.11b cards.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works Well at a Very Good Price
Review: The card has worked flawlessly since I installed it as far as range and link quality. The larger antenna which, as one reviewer already noted, does stick out more than the usual PMCIA card from the laptop may have something to do with the superb transmission.

Combined with the low starting price from Amazon + the rebates, this is a hard deal to beat.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Life is good.
Review: The WG511 was very easy to setup with no problems. I am very pleased with the connection speed. So far it hasn't dropped below 50kbps. I am glad I stuck with a Netgear system. I almost went with another brand, but decided to stay with Netgear. What more can I say, it's the best. Netgear support doesn't have a good reputation but I usually don't contact Netgear anyway, unless I really need to. If you are debating on what brand to get ? Well you know my opinion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: I can't recall a device that ever installed and set up as easily as this. It gets excellent throughput even through a number of walls and distances of about 20yards. WiFi works very well also - synchs fast and easy to reconfig on the fly if necessary.
My only complaint, and not a huge one, is that it hangs out about twice as far (an inch or so) as my old Linksys, so you really have to eject it when packing up the latop and it didn't come with a travel case like the Linksys did.
Overall, I would highly recommend this card

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCELLENT PRODUCT..
Review: It's a small card. Yet, its range is wider than any other wireless device I know of (D-Link, Linksys). Some things to crave about:

- Exceptionally fast throughputs. I used to own a Linksys, which was cheap then, but Netgear's speed is mindblowing.
- Set up is a cinch, and instructions are simple, in layman language. You'll be up and running in 20 mins.
- Supports both IEEE 802.11*b* as well as IEEE 802.11*g* (this is a good thing because you have to worry lesser about whether your wireless LAN card is "supported")

Make sure you have the latest firmware, and if you have problems like other reviewers had -- booting machines etc, then update your BIOS from your computer vendor. The card itself is compact and competent. Recommended!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ...almost gave up
Review: see my review on "Netgear WGR614 Wireless 802.11g 54 Mbps Router"

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Easy installation, works well
Review: This is a replacement for a Linksys card which 'fried' after a little over an year of quite constant use. The Netgear software is much more intuitive and, should you be an expert, offers more customization features. The card works extremely well, is blazing fast paired with a Netgear 11.g router. No problem whatsoever with either one or the other, I was a little concerned about their customer support but I never had to call them. Definitevely recommend.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Installing a Pain...but works well
Review: Used on a Dell Inspiron (XP Home) in conjunction with a 802.11b Router (Netgear's MR814v2). After I loaded the software and then popped the card in the PC slot, XP promptly crashed. Blue screen of death with a Kernel Dump. Tried to restart and uninstall the software (CD Version 1.1). Reinstalled the software. Didn't work still.

Called up customer service. They picked up the phone (from India) within a minute and proceeded to help me for the next 45mins. So excellend customer service. I ended up having to uninstall the software, download a newer version from the website, upgrade the firmware on my router from their website and then I was able to install the card and get it to work.

Even then, after a few hours, the main WG511.exe (slightly different name) crashed, but this time, connectivity was maintained.

I've used the 802.11b card before and had no such problems. So summary:
a) Unstable with XP. Bad and painful install process.
b) Good customer support. Patiently helped through 45mins of mess
c) Once up and running, then excellent performance.


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