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NETGEAR WN311T RangeMax Next Wireless-N PCI Adapter | List Price: $119.99
Discount Price: Too low to display
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Brand: Netgear
Binding: Electronics
Release Date: 2006-07-31
Warranty: 1 year warranty
Features: - Wireless-N PCI adapter delivers exceptional speed and range
- Delivers up to 300 Mbps of wireless throughput
- Provides up to ten times the range of 802.11g networ
- Backwards compatible with 802.11g/b wireless networks
- Device measures 4.85 x 0.33 x 2.13 inches (WxHxD)
Don't purchase! [Posted on 2007-11-20]
Netgear has had problems with their wizard for uninstalling old drivers and installing new ones for over a year and this product is no exception. When updating to the latest driver (due to inconsistent behavior of this adaptor in finding the network)according to the directions on Netgear's website I was unable to completely remove the old driver as instructed or install the new one, even in safe mode.
After an hour and a half with Netgear's tech support who also failed to complete a successful driver update they told me to call Microsoft or the manufacturer of the pc or to reformat the hard drive! They essentially terminated the call at that point, refusing to even escalate the call to higher-level support. I am left with a 2 month old product which is unusable and no connection to the network.
Why do business with a company who continues to sell defective product over an extended period of time (This situation is well-documented on Netgear's own tech forum as well as others.) and won't help the customer correct the problem?
Excellent [Posted on 2007-12-14]
I have found so far out of all the networking gear whether wireless or wired, Netgear just makes the best stuff and this PCI adapter is no exception. It was easy to setup. You can use the Netgear network assistant or just use the Window Wireless Utility to setup it up (after you install the driver of course). It works flawlessly. A little signal loss up stairs but to be expected due to the houses construction.
Especially Frustrating For Vista Users!!! [Posted on 2008-03-01]
I bought this for 50% off from a well known computer store chain that's going out of business. (You know the one I'm talking about) Anyway, I started to try and install this on my machine around noon on a Friday and finally got it up and working Saturday night! I mean I worked on it that entire time, except for maybe 7 hours of sleep. I'll spare you the eye-glazing details about what I tried to get it working, but here is what I finally figured out was the problem: I had too much RAM installed on my machine! That's right, if you are running Vista and are trying to install the drivers for this thing and have more than 2GB of RAM, it won't work! (The drivers "installed", but the device manager gave a Code 10 error: "The Device Will Not Start".)
Where did I get this bit of information? Netgear's forums of course! Like everybody else, I tried their phone help support first and like everyone else was bitterly disappointed with it. (I was on the phone with them for an hour and all they did was have me do the same things I told them I had already done to get it working...utterly worthless that outsourced tech support is!) So finally I looked online in their knowledgebase and found the answer in under a minute! So I took out some RAM, loaded the drivers, installed the card and the driver wizard finally loaded like it was suppose to!
What I find most disappointing, not to mention enraging, is that Netgear's own tech support doesn't know enough to ask how much RAM I have as soon as I told them I was running Vista and told them the error code I was getting! You'd think a GOOD tech support would keep up with the latest problems, but alas, they don't!
And finally, after using this card for a week now I can't say I see next to any improvement in signal quality or speed. (Yeah, the big antenna you'd think is suppose to help get a better signal...not so much) I'm using this in conjunction with my new Linksys N UltraRange Plus router, which puts out a pretty good signal, but for some reason this thing just doesn't pick it up that well. (No more than 60% strength, usually staying in the 50-55% range where I have the antenna piece placed now. I may hang it on the wall since I was able to get a 72% signal strength there when I was trying to find the best place to put it. I just don't want to hang it with that wire drooping down!)
So what am I trying to say with all this? You can get a better wireless N card than this one! I only got this one because it was so cheap! I'll stick with this one for now, but eventually I may get a better one. It's just depends on if Netgear comes out with better drivers that improves performance or if Service Pack 1 for Vista will improve the N draft capabilities. (Which it is suppose to) Hope this helped!
Works flawlessly, and boosts signal strength of Range Max Next WL Router excellently. [Posted on 2008-04-23]
What can I say...this fine Wireless-N 802.11 draft specification desktop adapter works exactly as it should and how it was described. Installation took only 20 minutes, with most of the time just making sure my crowded chassis didn't get too stuffed.
Just so you know, I am running a Dell XPS 600 3.2 GHz Intel Core2Duo running Windows XP Professional SP2. This item supports Windows 2000, XP, and Vista.
I have never been this satisfied with networking hardware in my life.
P.S. The only con is that the downloaded driver that you can get from Netgear Update before you install the PCI card does not have the correct prompts installed, so it can be a bit confusing if you are not technically inclined. If you are a newbie, I would install from the disk first and then update later following Netgear's instructions.
Works Great [Posted on 2008-06-13]
Easy to install. The fact you can position it to recieve the best signal is a real plus. I had a antena that stuck out back of computer, and didi not like it.
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