Netgear MA 301 802.11b Wireless PCI Adapter

Other products by Netgear

Product Details

Product Manual [334kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005B8HS
• Item model number: MA 301
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 15, 2001

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Netgear's wireless PCI adapter enables you to easily network all of your employees with desktop PCs at 11 Mbps without installing any new wires. (The MA401 wireless PC Card is required and sold separately.) Whether you're setting up a new office or extending your existing workplace to remote sites in your building, your employees can immediately use your wireless network to access e-mail, file servers, and printers and to share cable/DSL Internet access. With an operating range of 175 to 500 feet indoors and 835 to 1,650 feet outdoors, the MA301/401 combination provides standards-based 802.11b technology and 128-bit wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption to ensure maximum reliability and privacy for your network.

Designed for desktop PCs running Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, or 2000, the MA301 wireless PCI adapter comes with a five-year limited warranty.

Product Description

NETGEAR's MA301 802.11b Wireless PCI Adapter enables you to easily network all of your employees at 11 Mbps speed without installing any new wires. Set up a new wireless network or extend your existing workplace to remote sites in your building in no time, and escape the hassles and expense of Ethernet cabling. Your workforce can immediately use your wireless network to access e-mail, file servers, printers, and cable/DSL Internet access.Standards-based 802.11b technology plus 40-bit and 128-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption provide your wireless network with the highest level of reliability and privacy. The MA301/401 combo is equipped with automatic speed adjustment to extend the communication range for longer distances from other 802.11b PC nodes or 802.11b access points. Designed for PCs running Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, and 2000, the MA301 performs with the vast majority of desktop PCs, it also supports Plug and Play installation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This card works well, June 2, 2002

By	Thomas A. Carlson (AZ, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So-so adapter, September 4, 2001

By	M. Bennett "ttennebkarm" (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars MA301 works well with MA401 and older WIN95 pentium, November 18, 2001

By	Konrad and Sharon Roeder (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews

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.