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Netgear MA101 802.11b Wireless USB Adapter

Netgear MA101 802.11b Wireless USB Adapter

List Price: $69.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works Great!
Review: Finally, a great product hits the market! My daughter's computer is about 60 feet from the Router and the Netgear MA101 Wireless 11 Mbps USB Adapter works fine! I saved a bundle on cable installation!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Highly recommended, but must understand networking...
Review: I highly recommend this product, especially for outdoor connections.

However, the setup guide walks you through the hardware and driver installation but you're on your own to get the device to recognize the WAP.

Issues are usually based on the manual setup of the SSID of the WAP (wireless Access Point) and the WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol) Keys.

Once you get it setup, it's off to the races!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: the good & the bad
Review: This wireless modem is great, I can take my computer anywhere in my house and I get great speeds. I download stuff at up to 200kbps, and my computer is about 30 ft from the DSL. The only bad I have found with it, is if you are an avid Counter-Strike player, it causes spikes about every 2 minutes (I think this only happens with Windows XP, which I have). If you can find a way to fix this please tell me.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Some problems but made it work.
Review: First attempt at a wireless network using MA101 and MR314 router. Router worked great with no problems. Could not get MA101 to talk with router at all. Called tech support and was on hold about 30 minutes. Worked with them about 20 minutes. The three machines I tried this on all had regular NIC's as well. Finally had to setup two hardware profiles (one for wireless, one for wired) with the wired NIC disabled in the Wireless profile and vice-versa. This works although it means the MA101 is not really hot-swappable and requires a reboot. Not a big deal as the user on boot will know which way they are going.

As far as distance it is OK, but not great (certainly no where near advertised). My house and the installation site has several dead spots around mechanical rooms. Large basements with inside corners are a problem as it doesn't broadcast through dirt (to be expected). I guess I was a bit naive about how well it would work. Overall I would definitely recommend the MR314 router and perhaps try a different 802.11b NIC.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disconnects you and gives very signal warning.
Review: I spent days with technicians who could not help me. The signal is low and nobody knows where. It disconnets you from internet.
The distance from the router is not 1/100th of what the specifications say.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Elegant unit design. Works well.
Review: It works as promised. A little pricey but it had the best unit design (not bulky or ugly like the others). Never really tested the range.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very easy to use
Review: The adapter has been working flawlessly in Windows XP (downloaded latest drivers from the Netgear website). I'm able to maintain an 11 Mbps link about 100 ft away (through a couple of walls and a floor), which suits my needs. My only complaint is that the signal strength isn't as good as what my wife's laptop is able to achieve from the same location. This is likely due to the fact that her laptop has an antenna built-in to the LCD screen, which is much larger than the Netgear's could be. In all, this adapter has been great so far. I wasn't able to use a normal PCI card in my low-profile PCI slot case, so a small USB device was a perfect alternative.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Product - Easy to use
Review: I just received this product in the mail today and had my wireless home network up and running in no time. It installed easily and since I'm using Windows XP I did not have to install the LAN Utility, XP already has one. What could be better, top speeds, excellent signal strength and NO WIRES. I would recommend this to everyone. Great things do come in small packages.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Even Tech Support Couldn't Help
Review: I purchased this item simply to share an internet connection with a Linksys wireless cable router. Setup was simple, and the software configuration tool that came with the usb adapter indicated that it was, in fact, communicating with the router. The only problem was that the adapter was only sending, not receiving, from the router. After about forty minutes of trying to figure it out myself, I called tech support.

To Netgear's credit, I was only on hold a few minutes before someone came on to help. Unfortunately, after nearly an hour on the phone, we could not get this to work. The technician's final thought was that it might be a problem with interference from wireless phones in the house. I thought this unlikely, as I had already gotten a wireless card to work in my laptop (an Airport card on a Mac, no less!). He told me to try again after I hung up with him, and said he'd keep his fingers crossed that it would work.

It didn't. I exchanged the netgear for a Linksys usb adapter, which worked immediately out of the box. Since the Airport card and the Linksys usb adapter were up and working in less than a minute or two, I can only assume there was a problem with my netgear unit, or the product just isn't as good or compatible as the others. I hate to leave negative reviews, but this product just didn't work for me. If you have a Linksys router, get Linksys adapters for your network -- they work like a charm!

By the way, I rate this two stars because tech support promptly picked up the phone, and patiently walked me through many tests and configurations.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great 802.11b adapter!
Review: I am running a Mac network through an Apple Airport. I have only one Wintel machine, which was wired. I decided to make it wireless like my Macs. So, I read much information about many different USB adapters, and I chose this one. It took no more than 5 minutes to get it running, and it works perfectly with the Airport. My Wintel machine is running XP, so all it needed was the driver.

Great product! I recommend to all!


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