Customer Reviews

Netgear MA101 802.11b Wireless USB Adapter

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I purchased the MA101 in the UK which may have a slightly lower output power that the US version mandated by the FCC. I must admit that the software installed easily enough on Win 98 and had some nice features like scanning for new SSIDs to find your network however it did not install properly on my XP machine.

The problem with the unit is that it is POORLY designed RF wise. I was attempting to connect to my neighbor who lives 250 feet up the street with little success. Even when the two antennas were line of site between the access point and Netgear MA101, the link seemed very poor.

Having worked in the wireless industry for the past three years as an engineer, my curiousity go the best of me and I opened the Netgear MA101 to discover to my horror that the antenna lead is just a piece of wire soldered into the motherboard that travels down the length of the unit and then up into the plastic antenna. In other words, the actual wire antenna will always act as if it is in a L shape when the platic anntenna is up and as two parallel antennas when the plastic antenna is down. This is very bad as the antenna is supposed to act as an isotropic radiator.

To prove just how poor the design is, I was able to increase the signal strength significatly by adding a piece aluminum foil to the bottom and back side of the antenna to act as a ground plane/ reflecting back. After doing this, my signal strength shot up by more than 50%.

I wish Netgear would put a little more effort into their RF design even though the case looks nice and the user interface was good.

It took me all of 20 minutes to set up a network using this terrific USB wireless adapter and the MR314 wireless router/switch/access point. Of the total time, maybe five minutes was spent installing the MA101 adapter. As a network novice, I was amazed that everything worked exactly as it was supposed to, without my having to reinstall anything, call tech support or tear my hair out.

The PC with the adapter is located two floors up from the router, about 50 feet point to point. Signal strength registers as "low" (2 pips out of 5 on the utility display), but I am getting an unbroken connection at a speed indistinguishable from that of the PC that's wired to the router.

I'm running Windows XP. The Netgear Web site has an updated driver, but I decided to live dangerously and use the driver on the CD-ROM that's supplied with the adapter. No problem -- I clicked through the warning about an "unsigned" driver, and it installed and worked fine. At this point I'm going to leave well enough alone and not install the new driver.

Highly recommended.

If you have a PC with Win98 or better and a spare USB port, the MA101 is really great. The installation is easy - you don't have to open up the PC, just plug it in and run the installation CD. The big advantage of the MA101 over the alternative, an MA301/MA401 combination is that you can position the unit on your table or desk to get the best link quality and signal strength.

If you are running XP, this unit may require a driver update to run properly. That should be available on the netgear website.

Konrad Roeder (...)

I purchased the Netgear MA101 802.11b Wirless USB Adapter and connected to my XP computer. Installed the driver that came with the adapter and it started working without any hitch. My PC is in a different room from the Wireless Router (around 25 ft and couple of walls) and signal strength is Max. Enabled WEP encryption and other security features available in XP and never had any problem. I am a network pro but did not have to do any tweaking to get it up and running. I have DSL at home and it runs lightening fast. I did not have to open my PC (that is why I did not buy the PCI card) which is a great convenience. It is more than 2 months now and so far no problem. I would recommend Netgear for wireless networking at home.

I got this for my Tivo Series2 and it works great. It was easy to set up. I actually bought this used from Amazon, from some dude. I'm 100% satisfied with the process and the purchase.

I recently upgrade my internet connection to Verizon DSL, and I wanted to share my new connection with my secondary computer. I purchased this adapter along with a Siemens Speedstream Wireless USB adapter to go along with my MN-500 Wireless Base Station.

The setup was alright - the performance, was not. I plugged it in, Windows refused to recognize it. Rebooted, finally recognized it, installed the software. No response. Couldn't get anything working. Tried installing the other one - same results. Rebooted router, finally I got wireless running. The MA101, however, I saw very poor results. The adapter was no more than 40-50 feet away from the router, yet my signal and link strength barely reached 6%.

The signal constantly dropped, and the only way to get both signals above 6% was by holding it straight over the top of my head. From there I was able to get a little less than 20%. Tried all different positions on my desk, on top of my monitor, etc but to no avail. Tried all different antenna positions to no avail either. Plugged in the Speedstream and got a constant 46%/33%.

Netgear's networking hardware has a great reputation and I believe that this adapter, in short distances with line of sight between wireless components, could have the ability to perform outstandingly; however, if this is not the case for your network, you are much better off purchasing a different USB adapter.

After first trying Linksys PC card and USB adaptors to make a peer-to-peer network between a notebook and a desktop, I was never able to get the two devises to connect. I ended up returning the Linksys equipment and buying Netgear. The Netgear hardware worked almost instantly and it has been great since. Even though I am only using dial up for my Internet, having the flexibility and connectivity anywhere in the house has made a big difference. It really is the way to go.

If you are technically competent and do not expect to require any support for this product, then by all means take a chance!
However, if you are not technically competent or are technically competent, but require that a question be answered or guidelines provided on finding new drivers, etc..., you are out of luck here. Why bother with a product that will surely NOT provide any assistance? You can find much better support with LinkSys or D-Link. I had a question about how I can reinstall my Netgear adapter and the support people (I called back twice) told me to uninstall any Anti-Virus software and disable my firewall! When I asked him what that will do for me, he told me that the Netgear adapter will not run correctly while any anti-virus or firewall software is loaded on my machine! How irresponsible! When I asked Sabu (that is the 2nd support guy I spoke to) if I could speak to his supervisor, he told me that their policy does not allow them to transfer me to their supervisor. Needless to say, I fixed the problem on my own, but it would've been alot easier had they shown even a little interest in their product!

The good: It installs easily enough, and I've always had excellent signal strength with it.

The bad: If you're using Windows XP and want to do anything but browse the Internet, return this adapter immediately! It is NOT compatible with the Wireless Zero Config service in XP. Every 60 seconds, it drops the connection and reconnects in about 5 seconds. So this adapter is fairly useless for online games, streaming mp3's from another pc on the network, SSH connections, or anything else that requires constant connections.

The ugly: It seems as if NetGear has completely abandoned this product! The software download page makes you guess which driver is the right one, and it hasn't been updated in forever... Maybe there's just not a way to fix it...

My verdict: If you just want to browse the web, and you can pick one up cheap, go for it. But with Linksys adapters selling for the same price, I can't see why you would.

I am using this adapter under ad-hoc mode to connect my laptop.
It seems windows xp's wireless zero configuration service will stop the wireless connection very 50 seconds for about 2 or 3 seconds, which makes watch stream video and voice chat almost impossible.
After disabling this service, it works ok. So if you do not need to change configuration frequently please disable it.