Customer Reviews

NETGEAR WG111 Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter (54 Mbps)

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(40)

 

 

I bought the Netgear USB wireless G adapter to enable me to network my Tivo Series 2 and take advantage of its home media capabilities. I could not be happier with the Netgear's performance. Once my Tivo had downloaded new firmware (its software version 7 is required), I simply plugged the Netgear into the USB slot. Boo-bam, worked like a charm. No configuring, no dropped signals. Good throughput. I am using a Belkin Pre-N wireless router. I was a little leery of USB wireless adapters, but the Netgear worked perfectly with no configuration.

I bought my unit used on eBay about a year ago, so I don't know how old this really is. It's been working great, no drops. It works a little hot though.

Tip: If you have Windows XP, just install the provided software, then disable it and let Windows handle the connection. If you do this, you will never have to worry about connection drops or buggy software. Just plug it in and use it.

I purchased this product along with the netgear wireless router with 4 ethernet ports, Plugged them both in and worked great from the beginning, Followed the usb 2.0 adapter suggestions to install the cd first and to let the wireless assistant control its connection. Immediately they connected and i was on the internet in seconds.
A few weeks later father noticed that we had other persons on our wireless connection so i put in security. And again no loss in connection or speed. I keep my computer on for days at a time and the adapter gets hot but its still going strong. A wonderful piece of technology, I am thinking about upgrading to the Super G or Pre N in the near future if price permits. :)
Oh yes forgot to mention that the initial setup allowed me internet access from behind two concrete walls at a distance of 75ft and a constant signal of 48mbps. Hope this was helpful

I have a VERY nice, expensive Netgear WG302 wireless access point. Using this adapter on W2K to talk to it if any sort of encryption is enabled it will drop the connection once every 5 seconds. I updated the firmware on the AP and downloaded newer drivers for the WG111 and it improved to only dropping once every two minutes. Signal strength is greater than 80%, so it's not that, and I have other wireless devices much further away from the AP that work fine.

You would think that it would work with their own hardware...

Don't get this adapter unless you are:
A: In an airconditioned room, and
B: Plan on using no operating system beyond Windows XP, and
C: Enjoy talking to brick walls for customer support.

I live in Australia. It is summer, and it is hot. And if being hot and sweaty isn't enough, my shiny new wireless adapter keeps dropping out every time I try to load a page. This makes me angry. This is purely a heat issue, having a fan blasting at it seems to solve the problem, but a well engineered device shouldn't NEED that.

I am also an IT student. I like the idea of experimenting with different operating systems. Like Windows XP x64 edition. And Linux. I dare anyone to get a straight answer out of Netgear Customer Support as to whether they plan to produce 64-bit drivers. Their solution is to cover their eyes and pretend the future doesn't exist.

My solution: cover your eyes and pretend Netgear doesn't exist. If you want a truly robust solution, buy a wireless bridge/client/access point. There is nothing to install internally or even any software to install, and they offer much more flexibility. I'm just frustrated I didn't do any research. I THOUGHT Netgear was a reputable company. How wrong I was.

Although I am very happy with the other NetGear products I own I have to say that this adapter is a waste of money. It's easy to set up (I'm running Windows 2000) and starts working at first, but after less than a half hour, it flickers out and stops working entirely.

I have a NetGear router and laptops using NetGear PCI wireless cards which work well, but this product is a dog. I second one of the earlier reviewers who mentioned how hot the item gets after a short time in use. My guess is that it has a design flaw that causes it to overheat and stop working. They should really go back to the drawing board on this one.

It was a little tricky to get it to work. Because, the first time I (unknowingly) was picking up a wrong signal. When I called Netgear, they were helpful (although I had difficulty understanding them, they are in India.) A couple of months ago after a bad rainstorm I completely lost my connection. I called Netgear, but they told me the problem was with my router. So I called Linksys and they told me that I needed to set up a new network. Apparently they claimed that it was "erased" and my connection from the router to my adapter was lost permanently. But they (Linksys) walked me through the steps; they were helpful but also in India so it was again challenging to understand them. Since I got my new network set up I have had no problem getting online and keeping a connection. Other reviews state that their adapter cannot keep a connection for very long. Of course, I'm not a computer expert, but that sounds like either a manufacturer's defect or maybe the adapter or router isn't configured correctlt?

I installed this adapter on a desktop running windows xp service pack 2, well in range from my 54G wireless base station. Though signal is strong (often reporting at 54Mb and usually at least 12Mb) but the actual netowrk connection is very sporadic to the degree that it's almost impossible to browse any website without a long wait (and a lot of the times it simple drops). I searched Netgear's website and found an updated driver for this adapter to work with xp sp2, but after downloading and installing that, it didn't get any better. I then tried removing sp2 from my xp install and it didn't get any better either. My computer as well as my ISP are in good condition. When I tried an old Microsoft wireless-b USB adapter on the same computer, everything worked just fine. So I have to conclude that this adapter is really a piece of junk, especially when used with windows xp. I'm hoping Netgear would put out some better driver fix and I'll probably give one last try before throwing the adapter in the trash.

I was a little skeptical at first about using this device... do to it's incredibly small size. However I quickly fell in love with how easy it was to install on my windows xp machine and the excellent Netgear Smart Wizard that sits in my system tray, making it possible for anyone to quickly get connected to their network. Unfortunately my original skepticism quickly came back to confront me. After using the device for only a few days my connection dropped. I had to unplug the thing and reboot my computer before I was able to get back on my network. I've only had it for about 2 weeks and I've had to unplug it and restart my computer probably 15 times to get it to work again. I never used to have problems in the past with my other wireless usb adapters so I have a good feeling that it's due to this devise. I do notice that it gets very hot if you leave it in your computer for a long time, I'm no engineer but this might be somehow related to its poor performance.

Perhaps I am luckier...my Netgear adapter "crapped out" five times in the first two weeks. After reading all these negative reviews, I decided just to take it back while I still could. Netgear support was spotty--some reps really tried. But I had one simply give up and walk away fromt the call!