Customer Reviews

Netgear MA 301 802.11b Wireless PCI Adapter

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I spent a lot of time reading the reviews about wireless access points, wireless routers and wireless network cards. I finally decided on the Linksys router and the Netgear MA 301/401 interface card. So, here's the deal. I have a PII-400 running Win98 that is connected to the router using Cat 5 cable, which is then connected to a cable modem. For those of you who don't know, Cat 5 cable is simply the standard ethernet cable. I then installed the MA 301/401 combo on another computer, a Packard Bell PII-233 running Win95. Unfortunately Win95 had an IRQ conflict with the PCI card (MA 301) that could not be resolved. I installed Win98 and the IRQ conflict disappeared.

After getting the Packard Bell system set up, the MA 301/401 would not link up with the Linksys router. I called Netgear tech support and discovered that the SSID on the card must be identical to the SSID on the router. I discovered that the Linksys SSID was "linksys" and the SSID on the card was "Linksys." When I changed the "L" to an "l", the card connected to the router immediately and I was in business.

The Packard Bell machine is on the 2nd floor of my townhouse and the Linksys router is in the basement. The signal, therefore, is passing thru 2 floors and 2 walls. The link quality and signal strength are consistently in the "good" category and sometimes they are "excellent." These are qualitative measures reported by the Netgear card's software.

As for performance, I downloaded a 19MB file off Microsoft's web site and it took less than 5 minutes via the wireless connection.

I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about buying the Linksys router. The reviews are mixed and some people have totally trashed it. I decided to give it a try, figuring that I would return it if it didn't work well. The same thing for the MA301/401 card; some loved it and some hated it. I was also concerned that having a router and card from different manufacturers would cause problems. It turns out that I didn't need to be concerned at all because both pieces are working perfectly.

Contrary to what others have said, my connection has not been lost and it takes only a few seconds to establish the wireless connection on startup. I have found that the documentation provided with both items was adequate. However, I wish each of them would have mentioned the importance of having the same SSID on the router and the card. I have not talked with Linksys tech support, but the two calls to Netgear went well.

Things to watch out for: 1)The Netgear MA 301, which is the PCI card that plugs into the desktop computer must be used with the Netgear MA 401 wireless PC card. This PC card will also fit in a laptop. 2) As I mentioned, the SSID must be the same on both pieces of hardware. 3)I have not activated the WEP encryption so I have no idea how it will affect performance.

The bottom line: I highly recommend the Linksys BEFW11S4 V.2 router and the Netgear MA 301/401 interface card.

This is a decent adapter but could use a little work. Inserting and removing the PC card would be improved if they included some type of guide rails. So take a little care when inserting the card, which you will probably only ever do once.
Also, this card will probably only work with the netgear 802.11b card. Other vendors implemented a more generic PCI-to-PCCard slot for their 802.11b cards, but this one seems geared only towards the matching netgear cards.
A little trouble getting it to work with BSD but a friend patched it and has submitted the patch to the BSD folks.
Worked fine in Win2k.
Netgear offers a decent price/performance value for their wireless stuff.

I bought an MA301 and MA401 for an older pentium that had no USB port and Win95. It was a quick install. It took me about 20 minutes to open the PC and install the MA301 adapter with the MA401 card.

However, I would have to agree with the other review that there could have been card guides to better accept the MA401 card. The other difficulty is remembering which side is up when you remove and replace the MA401 card back into the MA301 adapter for some reason.

The signal strength and link quality is better on another computer that uses an MA101 USB adapter. If you have Win98 or better and a USB port, the MA101 is a better choice for two reasons: 1) You don't have to open your computer to do the install and 2) You can position the unit away from the computer so that you can get the best link wuality and signal strength.

I have been asked, so why did I not upgrade to Win98 or better, get a USB adapter and go for the MA101 instead? Well. It's simple. I did not want to risk losing the system to do the OS upgrade. Cost wise, the MA301/MA401 combination is similar to the MA101 with a two-port USB board. However, the OS would have been extra. The advantage would have been the ability to run other USB devices on the old computer.

Ignore the Microsoft Warning upon installation that it is not compatible with XP. It is compatible with XP. I use it with XP and have no problems - once you get past the Microsoft XP installation warning. This apparently is a certification method recently installed by Microsoft in order to get additional control and income over the manufacturers. The Netgear website explains all this.

This product works great. The only complaint I have about it is there is no mention anywhere in the documentation on the correct way to insert the PC Card. The PC Card will go in both ways, and I had to experiment to see which way was the right way. Other than that, the card works great.

I loved the fact that this card installed without the PCMCIA card even present and worked perfectly when I put the PCMCIA card in. No messing around with installing drivers for this card, then for that card, etc.

So overall a slick install and a good piece of work.

You MUST have a Netgear MA401 PCMCIA card for this to work! The intended audience for this product is people who already have a MA401 PCMCIA card (perhaps for their laptop) who also want to swap it into their desktop (and don't mind cracking open their desktop case each time they need to switch it back and forth). If you just want a regular desktop wireless card, you probably can get a better deal with something like netgear WG311 instead of buying a MA301 and MA401.

Be warned! You may think that wireless LAN is something pretty up to date and that you will be able to use a pretty standard PCI adapter with XP. You can't. The XP compatbility wizard managed to find this card and announce its incompatibility. And this is despite there being an XP drivers folder on the CD.

The version I've got doesn't even run under 2000.

AVOID

This adapter performs at a level above expectations. The only negative thing I have noticed is that it took more effort than expected to get the PCCard inserted. I had to take the side of the computer case back off to guide the PCCard into the slotof this card. In general it is my opinion that Netgear makes the best entry level, lower cost products, and this is another good one.