Customer Reviews

NETGEAR FA311 10/100Mbps PCI Ethernet Interface Card

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

To keep my small business network running, I've always tried to reduce costs where possible. Unfortunately, when it comes to network cards, using the lowest possible priced Ethernet card can be false economy.

The Netgear FA311 is one of the only cards I've come across where oddball compatibility issues don't arise. With others, there's always an issue or two, however minor they may be. A D-Link card that prevents a home automation package from working. A Linksys card that conflicts with an online streaming video technology. I could go on. The Netgear costs just a few dollars more than these others, but is still well under the price of brands such as 3Com in most cases.

For me, on all the machines I've tried, the FA311 installs quickly and easily, and works marvelously.

I have only one caution: Windows 2000 users should download and have ready the latest drivers from the Netgear web site. Across two FA311 purchases, the drivers delivered on the packaged floppy had various problems (e.g., major packet loss). I'm used to doing that as a matter of course for the majority of driver-dependent computer goodies, so I didn't find it to be a hassle in this case.

This card will cause a major problem if you have a Athlon DDR motherboard with the amd761 chipset. You will not be able to reboot!

The 310tx does not have this problem. The 311 has an updated controller, called a "soft" controller, that uses cpu power, much like a "win"modem vs. older, controller-based modems. In general, avoid these...

I have bought over 5 of these for home and office use. They work flawlessy and for the price you cannot beat the functionality. I was running Windows 95 or Windows 98 on all the computers. Setup was a snap. Just pop in the card to an empty slot. Then install the drivers from the floppy disk that comes in the package. Worked flawlessly everytime. I had no problems hooking up the ethernet card to a Linksys DSL/Cable Router, Netgear ethernet hubs, or a college dorm ethernet connection.

Get this card and you will get the convenience of file and print sharing when used in conjunction with some sort of hub and windows network neighborhood. Anyone with little to no computer expertise can do this just by following the instructions. It may be a little difficult if you are scared of computers, but it can still be done. Just follow the pictures that come on the step by step setup foldout.

If you are a Windows 9X user connecting to a Cable/DSL connection, you really can't beat this card - Especially where price is concerned. I've had this card up and running on a Win98 machine for about 4 months now; with nary a glitch. However, there is one *big* caveat with this card that has to do with false advertising on Netgear's part. Netgear claims that this card is Linux compatible. If this is the case, then I would love to know what distribution of Linux they have running over there at Netgear. I have yet to come across a kernal that comes loaded with the drivers to support this NIC. After spending days sifting through usenet groups and downloading a supposed driver update from Netgear, I never got this card to work on my Linux box. If you're looking for a truely Linux-friendly NIC, try Netgear's FA310tx. Every major distribution of Linux comes loaded with the tulip driver needed to get that card up and running.

If you like to gamble on mediocre hardware, then by all means by this card, maybe you'll get lucky and it won't lockup your machine or freeze your system for several minutes randomly. Do yourself a favor and search google for "netgear FA311" and look at all the problems. This card has a major hardware flaw that can't be solved by drivers or firmware updates. I've tried using 3 different drivers, two from netgear, and one from the chip manufacturer themselves, all 3 resulted in random freezes within 5 minutes of booting into Windows. If Netgear is aware of the problem they're yet another company that doesn't support their customers because they don't admit it and they don't offer a fix. Probably because it's a hardware issue that can't be fixed with software. I hear these problems are solved on the FA312 because it uses a totally different chipset, so if you absolutely have to buy a card from Netgear, get that instead of the FA311.

the 310 311 and 310 txc are all great cards. but the tx-c is the same NIC at teh same price and includes a 10 foot cable. if you do not order it, you are missing out on the free cable. the 311 is the newer chipset and offers an upgrade path to the new 3.3 v bus. it works like the 310 and offers newer docs and a newer chipset.

I recently developed a rather urgent need for a PCI Ethernet Card. After upgrading my old computer from Windows 98 to Windows XP, I discovered that the PC's old SMC ISA network adapter would not work under Windows XP. (Should have listened to the XP Compatibility Wizard!)

Based on price and reputation, I took a chance on the Netgear FA311 TX 10/100 Ethernet Card. I was nervous about installing it, based on some of the reviews below. But it seemed most of the complaints related to online gaming. My networking needs are not quite as demanding - browsing, email, Web design, a little Internet chess. So, I crossed my fingers and installed the Netgear into one of the available PCI slots. Both the hardware and software installations were a breeze. The FA311 worked right away, getting an IP address via DHCP from my DSL router. It's kept working ever since - in fact, I can't say much about it, since it works so well. Shouldn't all Plug and Play devices be so invisible?

Users with special networking requirements might want to continue researching this and other cards. But for the average home user, the Netgear FA311 TX 10/100 Ethernet Card is a solid performer at a great price.

SUCKS I had this right form the start with my compaq 7970 which is amd k7 processor and has the via chipset. The computer seemed to work for a while or at least had few errors when I first used it but I guess that was when I had windows 98 for 2 years. When I upgraded to windows XP it just got terrible I had frequent blue screens and errors. I thought it was my video card or my ram or Irq sharing tried all that didn't seem to be it. Eventually I was wrong it was this card as mentioned before by others apparently it does not like some amount of internet use and when the card gets stuck it shuts down and windows xp just says error or points to the video card or irq sharing ot page fault in non page area as the problem. The card was the problem buy another card other than fa310,fa311 the one I have and fa312 even if you have intel or something else I would not waist my money on this card it will probably give you problems down the road. I have tried updates from [...] and updating my ram and video card have checked my irqs and reformating hard drive none worked. I put in a 3 com card I bought a few years before this computer and wow no crashes that other computer is now wirelessly connected to my home network.

Installing an ethernet card should be simple, right? Put the card in the slot, install the driver - bingo.

Not if the company has programmed it with an incorrect PCI ID. It will be unusable.

"A small percentage of the FA311 with serial numbers starting with the characters below is affected. FA35A09, FA35A0A, FA35A0B, FA35A0C, FA35A11, FA35A12, FA35B11, FA35B12, FA35B13, FA35B14."

Lucky purchasers of that small percentage may experience frustration, rage, and a tendency to avoid Netgear products in the future.

Eventually (using a borrowed laptop and a dial-up internet provider since we couldn't use our DSL without a functioning ethernet card) we were able to find a fix on Netgear's website.

Ah, so they knowingly sent us a defective product, it's not like it was a one-time fluke or anything, there's a bunch of people just like us, part of an unlucky "small percentage."

Thanks, Netgear! Produts that work are so boring. Thanks for mixing it up with some spicy defective ones that don't.

Some of these cards were shipped with the wrong EEPROM resulting in the drivers not being recognized. I learned of this from Netgear's technical support after I spent a couple of hours trying to get it to work. You have to go to Netgear's web site and download S/W to correct the problem. If you are not comfortable with this, avoid this card. I use this card to connect my PC to a DSL modem. My DSL connection is slow. I don't know if this card is the reason by it is suspect.