WGB511 Cable/DSL 54 Mbps Wireless Router & 54 Mbps Wireless PC Card Bundle
1 Easy Setup But Limited Reliability
I received the Netgear router last month and configured it quickly with WEP and locked down by MAC address (its best secure mode). When I was simply browsing the Internet it worked fine, but when I VPN'd to my office to synchronize mail it was unworkable.
Theoretically this unit should just pass packets from PC card to router and make no difference where they are going, but since I know the Linksys has no issues I am returing it for that one.
2 Great Wireless Network
This system works perfectly. It took only a few minutes to set up. Speed is blazing and reliability is 100%.
Just be careful when you set it up, to avoid a conflict, that you disable your software firewall such as zone labs. The instructions don't tell you to do this, but because the router is also a hardware firewall, you don't need an additional firewall set up on the computer.
Buy this it's perfect and you'll be very pleased.
3 Excellent product, and easy to setup
I had this product set up in about two minutes. Easy to use, and both desktops and both my laptops worked on the network.
Of course, I've only had it set up for about two hours, so I can't comment on its long-term reliability.
Great product so far!
4 dynajim
I Too Bought Netgear Wireless Products. There's a Conflict Between the XP Software & the Included CD. But You'll Be Lucky to Hear That from Netgear!! When You Encounter the Problem of Connecting(You'll See That You Have a Strong Signal) and Call Tech Support, 1st You'll Be Routed to INDIA (of Course!)! Then , If You Can Understand Them, They Ask if You've Registered Your Product? HELLO!! If I Could Get on Line With it I'd Gladly Register! When You Tell , Try to Tell Them That You Can't Get on, They Tell You to Call Back When You Do!! DON'T BUY THERE PRODUCTS!! I Ended Up Buying a Linsys Card & Router.
5 Very bad customer service
If you are not a computer whiz, think twice before buying from Netgear. Customer Service in my experience is very bad -- both the system and the people at the end of the phone.
6 Update: do NOT buy Netgear! Downgraded to 2 stars
UPDATE (march 10, 2005)
Well, I take back the 4-star rating I gave a few weeks ago. I now have serious doubts about Netgear's quality control. I say this because 1) my Netgear router (from this kit) stopped working after just two weeks, and 2) my web search revealed that this is a *common* problem.
I wish Amazon could let me revise the rating. I'd now give this kit a 2-star rating. The PC Card, which I have been using heavily, still works fine, although the end plastic (where you hold the card) is coming off loose. At least it still works and does a good job at pulling in and maintaining wi-fi signal.
But the router's poor quality pissed me off. It stopped working exactly two weeks after I set it up. All of a sudden I just couldn't get on the Internet. I hadn't done a thing to provoke this. I tried connecting to the net using my old Linksys and D-Link routers; both worked fine. Once I switched back to the Netgear WGR614 router, once again I would lose Internet altogether. I repeated this a dozen times on two different days, resetting the router seven or eight times total in the process, all to no avail, so my conclusion was my router broke.
I dialed Netgear's tech support, which is a toll-free number, but I was on hold for too long that I gave up. I'll try again tomorrow, but right now (3/10/05) I'm not hopeful.
Given how commonplace this "not-working-out-of-nowhere" problem seems, I caution anyone against buying Netgear products, until they improve their quality. BTW, the box of my Netgear kit says "made in Taiwan," but the router and PC Card are both labeled "made in China."
7 my netgear loyalty is waning..
I've always used netgear, and I've never had any manjor problems with it (just some vendor interoperability issues), so I got his as an upgrade to my netgear 802.11b router [...]
Plugged it in, and the setup wizard failed, could not get it to connect. Called netgear support for assistance, and after an hour of trying random stuff, they tell me my cable modem is not caompatible with their router (what??!!). They tell me to put a hub in between the two and it'll work. Luckily I have a hub lying around, so I try it and it works. Very unnecessary though.
I'm online now and the included laptop NIC works fine without problems, but my roommate cannot connect to the router. He has a different vendor card (airlink I think), and it can connect to other couters, but not mine. So he has to go out and buy a netgear card, which works. I also try my Linksys game ethernet bridge which I get setup correctly, but it constantly needs to be reset after transferring < 1 gig of traffic. Some of these issues might be the devices and not the router, but I doubt it. Why do we have such vendor interoperability issues with this router?
As an aside, I got this to get my tivo to run at 802.11g speeds, but I recently discover that I could have accomplished this better instead with two linksys WGR54g routers and new firmware from sveasoft that allows them to operate in bridge mode.
In conclusion:
Rough setup and vendor interoperability issues similar to the ones I've had with previous netgear devices make me think that I'm going to go linksys from now on.
8 Not bad at all
i have had this netgear router and the laptop card for over a year now. over all it's been doing good so far. i had to reset it about 4 times in the past year but besides that it's a good solid product.
9 Excellent router at an excellent price
I was looking to replace my Linksys Wireless B router that was starting to die on me. I wanted to get a Linksys at first, since I had a history with them. I was reluctant to try a new company, but after reading many reviews, I decided to buy the Netgear.
I want to give thanks to Amazon for a prompt delivery. I ordered on December 26. Even with the holiday rush, Amazon and the USPS got it delivered to my home in four days.
The actual router is very easy to set up as you will read in other reviews. I probably had the router set up and WEP enabled within 15 minutes, ready to surf. Netgear included some software to help enable the security, but it disabled my Windows software. That can easily be changed through your control panel.
The package came with a version 4 router (a tiny silver router), a white wireless card for a laptop, an extra ethernet cable, and the power adapter. All I needed to do was connect my cable modem to the router, and install the drivers from the CD onto my laptop. The installation was very easy.
The signals are excellent on the router. My wireless-B router couldn't hold a signal 30 feet away from my router. In the same spots that my Wireless B would get Very Low, my Netgear gets Excellent or Very Good. I'm very satisfied with my purchase. If you're in the market for a new router, Netgear is the way to go.
10 Excellent Product
I was hesitant to purchase this product after reading several reviews; however, after being burned by D-Link and Linksys in the past, I decided that Netgear deserved as much of a chance. I must say that I will be purchasing wireless products from Netgear exclusively for the forseeable future. I had absolutely no problems whatsoever setting this up. I followed the ludicrously simple directions and had my home wirelessly ready in under twenty minutes start-to-finish. Getting WEP security activated took another three minutes. I have experienced absolutely no signal lossage in the several days I have used this product. Highly recommended to anyone who would like an easy wireless experience. As a nice bonus, it also looks great.
11 Terrible
The wireless router was dead on arrival and the wireless card broke 2 months later. Don't buy this product!
I replaced it with and Apple Aiport Extreme base station (it works on PC's too!)
12 easy setup, works fast & well, but one problem
just bought this router/pc card combo yesterday during a black friday special for super cheap after rebate. i've been meaning to get one for a long time, but my thinkpad has built in a/b and i didn't want to spend a lot of moolah to replace the built in with a card sticking out of the side of my laptop. most uncool.
but for that price i couldn't not buy one.
brought it home, unplugged my old netgear mr814 and plugged this one in exactly the same way. connected, went through the easy configuration, and voila, working perfectly.
or so i thought.
my vonage internet phone service box is a motorola vt100. i originally had it hooked up after the router, as a connected device. this configuration did not work at all with the new netgear router in this package. the motorola vt100 voice terminal could not receive an ip address via dhcp to this router, and did not appear as a connected device. other various problems persisted with the whole setup, resulting in many full hardware resets, unplugging cable modems, devices, etc, and a few hours (at least 3) spent messing around with the whole setup.
problem solved when i hooked up the vt100 vonage internet phone in front of the router and had it pass through to the router. but this isn't the configuration i wanted. works though, and i'm gonna live with it unless some upgrade comes out to fix it.
thats why the 4 stars instead of 5. everthing else is perfect. no problems with the pcmcia card at all (the new downloadable beta version of the windows xp driver works perfectly, i didn't even bother with the one on the cdrom.)
good luck! - n
13 Code 10 Error
CODE 10 ERROR folks, ***** READ THIS ******
They finally fixed it. Details about the fix are on their product support page. I did all that and used their new (beta) 2.9 drivers finally fixed the code 10 problem on my Thinkpad and gave me WPA.
Updated Review:
Their tech support is super dumb. If you have a real technical issue, don't call them, they won't know how to help. The hardware itself is quite good, the signal strength is very good.
Basically, if you manage to get it to work, you'll be happy. Getting there is mostly your luck! (Though to be fair, after almost 6 months later, their drivers seem to be better now)
14 Bad Experience
I bought this at a time when I had a little extra money, but I knew I wouldn't be using it for about 2.5 months. Well needless to say, when I tried to install it at the 2.5 month mark, I had trouble. I used to be a total fan of Netgear products, but I will never EVER use them again. I called their help desk and they tried to help me. I went out of town and when I came back the same problem arose. When I tried to get help from Netgear again, a person on the other side of the world told me that I would have to pay $35 odd dollars for premium service because my 90 day free help had expired. I had the case # and advised them that this issue started before it expired and they said it didn't matter. I would have to pay for their help. Well I didn't pay. Got a D-link router and have had no trouble with it at all. There service is stellar, even after 90 days. Boo hiss to Netgear customer service.
15 Poor quality, dead after 4 months
From the time I plugged it into my cable modem, the router would crash hourly until I was able to upgrade the firmware. After that, the router would crash and lockup my modem once a day. This is the worst quality piece of networking gear I have ever purchased. Netgear offers a short 90 day warranty because they know their product won't last longer than that. My router died after 4 months of use. (...) it is not worth wasting your time or money on. I should have paid attention to the other reviewers. I am so disappointed and frustrated with Netgear. It's probably only a matter of time before those with positive reviews have to revise it to zero stars when their router prematurely dies.
16 crap
worked fine for like a week, then breaks down everyday. need to turn the router off and restart it DAILY. takes at least 10 minutes to get connected EVERY TIME! and then breaks down as often as it pleases! stay away from netgear!!!
17 90 DAY SUPPORT
Netgear offers almost no support for their products. Buy with caution.
18 I replaced my old MR814 router with this WGB511 kit
I recently purchased this router to replace the Netgear MR814 802.11b Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router I had before for over a year now. The MR814 started to die on me last month - at least the wireless part is. I could be sitting next to the router and the wireless signal still says "low". I must mention that I never really turned off this router pretty much since I got it, may be the electoincs just had enough...
I really mulled over buying Linksys router as the Netgear MR814 died on me. Linksys router has two antennas and I was ondering if that somehow improves signal strength... But two things swayed my decision to Netgear - 1. Netgear has Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) and Linksys does not. 2. I also install small networks for my customers - a recent installation with the Linksys Wireless router and PC Card did not go very well - PC Card installation crapped out on my IBM Thinkpad midway. Coupled with the fact that I have experience with Netgear, I went for this one.
Installation was simple and thankfully there were not many changes to the router configuration program from my old MR814. It took just a few minutes and I was up and running. My router is in the basement (I know, I know...) and the old setup did not work on the second floor of my house, the new Wireless G works fine, though at a lower transfer rate as can be expected. Once more thing, from the pictures it may seem this router is identical in size to MR 814, it is not - the new router is much smaller - less than half the size of the old one I would say. I have enabled WEP and MAC address filtering with no trouble at all, SPI and VPN pass through work fine with default setup.
Now my boss (wife) is happy that she can browse the net from the kitchen again. If you are thinking of getting this, go for it. My wired desktop is a newer DELL and my laptop is an older IBM Thinkpad (600X), both running Windows XP Professional... Best of luck!
19 Product is Fine, Support is crap
Were it not for the horrible support Netgear provided, I would have given this product 4 maybe 5 stars. It works just fine, speed and connections are good, setup was easy enough. Just try to have 1 simple question answered by tech support and you will see why I will never purchase another Netgear product. You have to jump through some very annoying hoops just for the opportunity to struggle to be understood and understand what the person is trying to tell you(and I spoke to 3 of them, all pretty much incomprehensible,... and all of them located in India). Maybe the other brands suffer from the same outsourcing problems, but Ill just keep buying from different manufacturers till I find 1 who speaks english.
20 Happy that I bought this
I was a little skeptical about buying this kit since I have an IBM ThinkPad working on windows XP, the `so called' doomed combination as per some reviewers. But I had good experiences with other NetGear products in the past and so I decided to take this risk, and guess what? It was worth it. Setup was easy and no error code on card installation, thankfully. The range is great and speed is excellent. We have a 2 storied house and the router in on the 2nd level and still I can sit on my porch and connect to my office network. It's inexpensive (especially with the rebate) and does exactly what it's supposed to do. I don't see any reason for giving it less than 5 stars.
21 Fast setup, easy configuration
This router replaced an older Netgear 802.11b router which had served our network well. The web-based configuration utility is easier to navigate, and the signal strength and data rate were improved even with our older 802.11b adapters. One complaint: the MAC filtering option (which limits access to your network to specific physical adapters as alternative or adjunct to signal encryption) is deeply hidden, under the Advanced Wireless Settings | Setup Access List settings.
Nice small footprint, excellent price (especially with the rebate) and good functionality..
The bundled PCMCIA adapter for a laptop was up and running immedaitely on a Toshiba laptop..no issues with the computer's Windows XP SP2 upate (not true of Netgear's WG311 PCI adapter).
22 Decent wireless so far.
The signal strength is good... I can go all around my house with it.
Setup isn't bad if you used v1.6 with the card... otherwise you'll get the Code 10 nightmare. That's because a lot of the WG511 cards are not compatible with a lot of notebooks if you use any version higher than 1.6.
Too bad it doesn't have as good a parental control as the Linksys.
23 A better wireless router
I live in a congested area. For many months I have suffered with my Dell wireless router - which would lose the wireless connection quite regularly. I had come to believe that interference was unavoidable in a densely populated area with an 802.11g wireless router. It was an act of desperation that caused me to buy a new wireless router from Netgear and lo and behold - no more losing the connection.
Yet, I do not give this 5 stars. The wireless card is not Windows XP compatible and while it works on Windows XP, the interface is simply not as nice as the Dell wireless card.
But the bottom line is that this kit works reliably in my home - whereas the Dell equipment does not. That is the really important thing!
24 Did not work with IBM ThinkPad and Windows XP.
The following is a recount of my personal experience with this Netgear product as well as my own opinions about the products usefulness.
My background:
I am a computer programmer with about 10 years of work experience and a 4.0 grade point average from an Ivy League school.
I was not able to get this product to work with an IBM ThinkPad T22 running Windows XP. I got the infamous "Code 10" problem that many others are seeing with this product. (...)a google search for 'netgear wg511 "code 10"' to see more.
Besides the problems that users are having, the technical support requires that you traverse "Bangalore Hell", from which you will probably not receive the information necessary to fix the problem (which, from the above posts, seems to be a driver software problem).
I tried various versions of the drive software downloaded from Netgear, including the latest 2.7.0.0 driver. This was the latest software available as of July 17, 2004. I was never able to get my laptop to properly recognize the card. No combination of removing and reinstalling drivers, removing and reinserting the wireless card, or clearing out Windows registry keys helped.
There is a reference to this problem on the Netgear website. However, it is terse and does not seem to offer a solution -- none of the approaches listed helped solve my problem (...)personal "solution" to the "Code 10" issue was to pack up the Netgear router and card and return it to Amazon. I have since replaced it with a Linksys combination which worked right out of the box. I didn't even need to install software -- Windows XP's built in Wi-Fi support was all that was needed.
Please note that this is only my personal experience and the experiences of various other anonymous posters on the Internet. It may not reflect every user's experience (or even the most common experience), and must be taken with a grain of salt.
Thanks for reading all the way through! :-)
--(...)
25 Simple to use and hookup
Let me say that I know absolutely nothing about home networking. I had dial-up for so many years because it wasn't available in my area (and I live in Silicon Valley!). When our cable company started to carry it, we signed up immediately.
I found the Netgear router and card to be very easy and simple to use. I just plugged the router in, followed the instructions and off I went. The card was just as easy to set up. My desktop is running Windows XP and the laptop has Win98.
The only problem I had was running the "test" button after logging into the router's setup page. After inputing the router's settings on the setup page, you're supposed to hit a "test" button to see if you're router is setup correctly. It takes you to a Netgear web page where is says you're successful and you're now protected. For me, the success web page would never appear. After surfing the Netgear web site (and several tech support articles), you have to disable any popup blockers you have. When I did that, the success page finally appeared.
For research, I went to www.practicallywired.com where there's a lot of good, basic info for newbies like me.
Good luck!
26 Very Easy Setup--Up and Working <15 minutes
I have an "ancient" Windows 98SE laptop. The setup and configuration for this device could not have been simpler. I was astounded by how automatic everything was. The only problem (not Netgear's fault, really), that I encountered was that I already had a machine on my home network that I statically gave 192.168.0.1 and so there was a conflict. That was easily resolved.
I haven't had much chance to play with the security features of the router and haven't tested the range yet. So far, so good.
I was also pleased that I got a 4-port 100-Mbps switch in the deal, too. I had been thinking about retiring my 10-Mbps passive hub, and lo-and-behold the wireless router has 4 100-Mbps ports on it. How cool is that!
27 Works well with other wireless cards, some trouble XP
I bought this WGB511 Networking Kit just this week (compliments to Amazon.com for fast shipment, BTW) after much consideration of different companies (Linksys, Belkin, etc.) and models (like the 802.11b wireless networking kit from Netgear). In the end, I decided buy this product because it seemed to give greatest bang for the buck (and reviews were up and down for all the products--for some people it worked great, for others, not at all). So far, it works great. My roommate has a Belkin 802.11g wireless card, and the router works just great with his computer--no spotty connections, and Internet connection as fast as connecting to the modem directly. As for me (with the included Netgear WG511 wireless card), the connection was somewhat spotty at the beginning. I think the problem was XP's (I'm not a great fan of M$) automatic wireless network configuration. It must have done something that increases (apparent) signal strength but makes the connection unstable. But, after configuring the router channel to the one with least interference (you can see which channels are in use by other wireless networks using Netgear's configuration utility--Site Survey) and setting up everything using Netgear's utility, it's working fine. So, five stars for working as expected, no points lost for the failings of the other company (er... M$?)
28 Product good - service and support is a different issue
After purchasing this kid I had read previous reviews and I also needed to download the latest drivers and firmware, before the suplied manuals showed the screens and config steps to get the router, cable modem connection and wireless card working. After that I discovered that there was a cover missing on the wireless network card and I could see inside the resistors and other details of the wireless card. I tried twice to report the problem but the outsourced service support was not interested in the missing cover and wanted to troubleshoot the device - no exchange so I consider returning the product to Amazon even though I like it but without cover sooner or later dirt and humidity will reduce the lifetime of the wirless card.
29 Worked at first, now not.
Not sure what happened, but it suddenly started needing rebooting every day. With the router in place, I was getting failure to find websites, but it would suddenly find them after three or four tries...unacceptable. Also noticed huge slowdowns, even while wired, and most websites would come up incomplete. Went back to the modem with my software firewall.
I even updated firmware and reworked the settings, no luck. Would not even try support based upon the lousy reviews of Netgear support.
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Dell Inspiron 8000 Windows 2000
Got this very cheap at 53 bucks with rebate. Got it working in about an hour, because setting up the router was not quite right. Everything worked out when I added the userid and passwords and waited for the router to figure out the settings (it took about 30 seconds). The pc card would not talk from one of my slots (and I think killed it), but worked first time on the second. The router speed was also compromised if the computer was hard wired and wirelessly connected...once I removed the hard wire, the speed went back to normal. I would recommend doing some bandwidth tests on CNET to figure out what your original bandwidth is before using the router.
Did not get a stand with it, and the router runs like 110 degrees, so I think the stand would help.
30 Easy setup, Great Performance, Cool Deal
This piece of equipment is a piece of pleasure. Took me a total of 15 minutes to set up the router and install the card on my laptop.
The 802.11g range is much more better than the 802.11b, Speed is amazing, Nice Security features. Definitely recommended A+++.
31 WPA does not work for a lot of people
I bought this combo because I wanted to upgrade my wireless network with faster speed and higher security. The speed is no problem, but the security is. After upgrading firmware on the router, I was able to configure WPA security (the best wireless security) with no trouble. The same did not hold true for the PC card...I got installation errors on the software upgrade for the card (you can't use WPA without the upgrade), and apparently for certain computers, especially those with AMD processors, the upgrade software simply doesn't work. Tech support was a big waste of time so far.
If you want WPA security and you have an AMD-based laptop, you might want to think twice.
32 Easy setup
First of all, I woould like to commend Amazon.com on their fast delivery. I ordered it on Monday morning and I got the package delivered to my front door the next morning. That was with the free shipping option, which was suppose to take about five days.
Now about the Netgear WGB511 802.11g wireless networking kit...I was able to get the router running with default settings in less than 10 minutes after I took it out of the box and that includes the time that I used to figure out how to use my old Linksys HPRO200 router as a bridge to my HPNA network. Upon inspecting the firmware version, I noticed that the version posted on Netgear's web site is newer and includes WPA-PSK so I quickly downloaded it and burned the new firmware. Except for the slow download from Netgear the whole process went very smoothly, however, the instruction for setting up WPA-PSK is minimal and it took a bit of guessing on my part to set it up (had to guess what needs to be done on my Windows XP, but only took couple tries.) The range of the wireless network is good and I was able to get excellent strength readings throughout most of the house. Over all, I am extremely pleased with the Netgear router so far, I just hope it won't quit on me prematurely as my Linksys wireless AP did right after warrenty expired.
33 Excellent performance, and it's now Wi-Fi certified
Got the wireless router/PC card bundle last week. I had visited the Netgear website a couple of days before my purchase to download the latest Firmware (F/W) for my version of the router(WGR614v4) and the latest configuration s/w utility for the card (2.5).
As it turned out, my router already had the latest F/W for WGR614v4. The latest F/W adds the badly needed WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) encryption protocol, since WEP is pretty useless and can be easily cracked by a determined hacker sniffing your wireless network transmissions between wireless client and the router. I set up the router, configured WPA and was good to go in about 8 minutes.
I then installed the PC card s/w on my toshiba tecra laptop, plugged in the card, and set up WPA on the card. I connected my
laptop to the network with ease. In conclusion, I'm very pleased with the performance and reception I'm getting throughout my entire house.
34 Great Product
I got this earlier this week and I have it all set and running. The configuration CD has all answers that you need for advanced set up. I have WEP enabled laptop and router working smoothly. I also have a PC connected to the router. This is great value for the $65 since you are getting the highest speed, with lotsa security and it all works without any call to tech support!! I am very satisfied with this so far. Will keep posted if anything unexpected happens.
35 Easy to setup/use Wireless Router and PC Card
I bought this about a month back (not from Amazon though). My experience with both the router and the PC Card have been excellent.
The Pros are:
1. very easy to setup and configure
2. install guide is concise and easy to understand.
3. Very good and knowledgeable customer support
The Cons:
1. advanced setup / features are not very well documented in the manuals - this is where the customer support was very helpful.
2. If looks are important, the WRG614 is definitely not the best
