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Never worked!
By: Simon Sez
November 10, 2008 @ 9:50 AM
Many reviewers have described WPN311 as garbage. That is exactly my opinion as well. Have tried it on two pc’s and it has not worked.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
PIECE OF JUNK!
By: Dylan hughes
October 8, 2008 @ 2:23 PM
this adapter is a piece of junk. will never, ever buy a netgear EVER again! the adapter does not even get recognized by any operating system regardless of the computer you put it in. you plug it in, the lights on the back of it turn red/and sometimes green. and thats all that happens, its a computer paperweight. windows doesnt recognize it, nor does BIOS. installing drivers are useless as the software says the adapter isnt even plugged into a pci slot. tried 4 different pcs.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Unstable
By: Oleg R
March 13, 2008 @ 11:17 AM
The configuration utility running in the tray is very unstable, so better not to touch it without a good reason. Still there will be some blue screens for you.
The electronics may seem to work and connection is more reliable than my previous D-Link Wi-Fi adapter. Just a note that my router supports only 54Mb 802.11b/g and this network card was regularly trying to connect at 108Mb (and regularly losing connectivity on the way). I had to manually disable support of 108Mb using its flimsy configuration utility. Overall: try to buy something else instead.
Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
WPN311 - Junk
By: Adrian Dorman
November 20, 2007 @ 4:25 PM
I would like to echo earlier comments. The Netgear WPN311 is a piece of junk! I have attempted to install it in two PC’s and neither worked. Download latest drivers, tried to configure with both the Netgear and Microsoft wizards. Tried pre-assigning IP addresses. Nothing worked. I doubt that I’ll buy another Netgear product.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
It keeps locking up my computer
By: Nate
July 18, 2007 @ 8:51 AM
I just bought the Wpn311 adapter and it has been nothing but problems. First it caused conflict with my wireless mouse which I replaced after one of their techs told me that this move would stop the freezing up of my Win 2000 OS. I am still having problems with my computer locking up with a wired mouse. I called support and they told me to talk to my operating system tech support because ÂâIf I can get online then there is nothing wrong with their equipment. It is your computer that is having the problem.Ââ Obviously after looking at this forum itÂâs not our computers. Besides the fact that their techs can barely speak English they obviously are hiding from this problem. Crap! Now I have to go back down to the store and replace this.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
One of the worst products I've ever seen
By: Trev
June 9, 2007 @ 11:13 PM
Anyone considering a wireless 108mbps adapter, steer WELL away from this. It’s utterly hopeless, gives very low signal strength even when the router (WPN824) is nearby and as others have said, it also gives you BSOD crashes. Absolutely abysmal product, Netgear should be ashamed of themselves for putting this piece of junk out there. Nothing you do can fix the problems people experience with this, nothing.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Bad driver locks up, also crashes Windows XP
By: Keith
April 19, 2007 @ 11:09 AM
The WPN311 software locks up when logging into Windows XP. It has many error messages and has to be reset. The card also causes random blue screen crashes.
NetGear has done a very poor job deploying software upgrades. None have worked to date. The software upgrades also caused problems. The latest version frequently loads twice causing double icons and lock-ups.
Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
bad
By: JeffH
February 23, 2007 @ 6:09 AM
I figured I’d buy this card because I bought their wpn824 router.
I’ve downloaded all their updated drivers; none work. This card stinks.
Like cars, there should be a recall/refund for these.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Netgear WPN311
By: marketst
October 21, 2006 @ 7:35 PM
Seems to be OK with Win 2000 but had serious problems with Windows XP, crashes and BSOD. Do not recommend.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
WPN311 GARBAGE
By: Robert Bud
October 5, 2006 @ 9:00 PM
This card is a sure fire way to destroy yout Windows XP OS. It will crash to a blue screen intermittently.
The ‘fix’ from Netgear destroyed my registry. The hardware trashed hard drives, probably due to poor circut design.
This occured on TWO of my computers. STAY AWAY FROM THIS POS!
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Seems to be crap. Hope i'm wrong
By: Paul
September 22, 2006 @ 2:52 AM
There seems to be no way to get the WPN311 to install as a service,
with the result that a user must be logged in to share files. This
is dopey. The facility to save a profile is flaky. Pretty graphics
on the smart wizard though, and it beeps so that’s good.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
workaround for wlancfg5.exe problem
By: laotse90
September 14, 2006 @ 1:08 AM
If the smart wizard delivered with wpn311 PCI cards “crashes” the following might be a solution.
(It was not really a “crash” in my case, but the GUI did not show up, even as the application was listed in the ask managers process list).
The source of problem is the with service which gets installed along, “Atheros Configuration Service” . Once it is started, wlancfg5.exe also behaves normally (installation from CD (Feb. 2005) or as version 1.3 from kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/d102923.asp).
Seemingly the installation routine does not set the necessary flag “Allow interaction with desktop”. You can do that manually. Afterwards the service starts as soon as the user authenticates (while the system is preparing network services.)
For complete remote access, however, this is too late, you would not be able to authenticate via remote control (remote admin server, terminal services etc.). For that you need to start it “manually”=programmatically, using the tools srvany, and a further small tool which is able to start services from the commandline.
Hope this helps as it worked for me.
(system: Win2000 SP4, hardware: quite old double procs ASUS board (spring 2000))
Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Beware if you have a VIA chipset
By: Modigleana
February 26, 2006 @ 8:15 PM
I bought the Rangemax wireless router, four WPN311s and a WPN511 to set up my home network. I have no problem with the WPN511 and two of the WPN311 cards. After much frustration, lots of forum reading and several calls to Netgear it turns out that if you have a motherboard with a VIA chipset this card will lock up your system anywhere from every 5 seconds to every few hours – depending on how many other resources you are using. Check out you chipset BEFORE you buy!
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Rubbish soft., prob. crap card.
By: Stuart
February 6, 2006 @ 2:57 AM
Clearly released buggy. wlancfg5.exe crashes on my brand new install of Win2000 approximately after 5 seconds. Reviews here and elsewhere make it clear that it’s impossible to get satisfactory answers from NetGear (no surprise here)… a total disappointement.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
win 98se wpn311 a real pain..
By: no name
January 23, 2006 @ 12:19 PM
very strange..it will work fine for a while, 5 min to hours then invalid page fault, kernel32.dll…flakey operations…when it works, it works great, but spent hours with and without support to resolve, which i bought the wg311 to replace and hopefully not have a prob..
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
WPN311 wlancfg5.exe
By: Jerry
January 15, 2006 @ 8:12 PM
I have over 8 hours – 2 with tech support trying to debug and install on a Dell with Win XP. Had I read the forum first, I never would of bought this product.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Buggy driver, no support
By: Dave
December 6, 2005 @ 2:17 PM
The driver is buggy (intermittent blue screens) and not windows certified. Netgear support completely ignores the problem: see this thread:
http://forum1.netgear.com/support/viewtopic.php?p=...
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Locks up on Dell with XP Home
By: Keith
November 5, 2005 @ 12:08 AM
There is a file called “wlancfg5.exe” that hangs up when starting. The connection has to be reset and drops out occasionally.
For the many hours spent on trying to maintain a simple connection, it would have been better just to put 100 feet of ethernet cable in the ceiling.
Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
PC Lockups the Norm
By: Tim
October 19, 2005 @ 2:16 AM
One word avoid.
The card has a documented history of locking up Windows XP, slow driver updates from the manuf. Look here for pages of problems and 100s of wasted man hours spent on fruitlessly trying to get this PoS to work.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9086546
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No