I get perfect (100%) throughput when I'm in the same room as the router (not surprisingly). From a room or two away, through a couple of walls, signal strength drops to about 70%, but there's no noticable lag. From a few more rooms away and more walls, the signal is actually pretty [not good], hovering around 30% at best. I'm not sure whether to blame the card, my router, or my house.

Anyway, overall, I'm quite satisfied.

After reading several reviews, I made up my mind that while the Linksys family of home networking products has served me well, the addition of the Linksys PCMCIA card for my laptop would yield disappointing connection speeds and wasn't really a viable option.

Many people had nice things to say about the Netgear MA401 Wireless PC card, but there were a few individuals who reported frustration and problems with the setup on Windows XP. My experience was stellar. I suppose that the individuals who had problems tried installing the card before XP drivers were available.

My HP notebook (Windows XP Home Edition) recognized the hot swappable card right away. When prompted, I inserted the manufacturer's CD-ROM and walked through the setup wizard in a matter of seconds. The last part was the configuration of my ESSID, and 128 bit WEP encryption...make sure you have this stuff written down ahead of time and hopefully it will be a smooth install for you, as well.

Range and speed...couldn't be happier. The download speeds that I'm running are equivalent to the speeds I'm getting right off of my router with CAT5e cable. I've yet to wander outside of my two-story house with the notebook, but have not lost a signal yet. WAP is upstairs and I get 11Mbps upstairs and downstairs.

I can't relay any information regarding the technical support staff at either NetGear or Linksys, because I fortunately did not have to contact them...

Highly recommended combination: Linksys Wireless Access Point and NetGear 401 802.11b Wireless PC Card.

The only change that was needed was changing the ESSID of the card from "wireless" to "linksys." "linksys" is the default for the BEFW11S4. Changing this setting is not explained in the printed manual, but the manual refers you to additional configuration documentation that is on the setup CD. Those who skim the install instructions (like me) will need to watch for this.

The range on this card is exceptional, IMO. In a 2200 square foot house, I am getting 11 Mbs no matter where I go. I am really impressed.

The only downside of this card is that the configuration utility leaves a lot to be desired, but that is a minor complaint. It shows you if you have a signal or not and you can check your current signal strength and speed. It does enough for me - but others may want a more robust utility. From doing some research, this seems to be a generic utility that is used with several brands of cards.

All in all, I am very impressed with this card. I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about setting up a wireless network.

I bought this card with the SMC Barricade AWBR7000 wireless router. I first set up my router with my Macintosh hard wired in. I then followed the instructions that came with the card, and I had the link up and running in about 5 minutes (which I thought was pretty good for the first time I had even looked at a router or wireless card!). The only part of the set up that was a little bit tricky was setting up the router online, you have to match the channel with the channel for your card, and you also have to match the WEP. Once you do that, it is easy!

I originally set this up on Windows 2000 professional with no problem, and I have upgraded to Windows XP and still have no problems.

Good Luck

The card, itself, installed perfectly, as did the software. However, I did not get a signal. Read on to find out why.

IT Pro: I checked the configuration for both the router and the card. It should work. I think there is something wrong with the card.

This he assured me for a week and a half. Finally:

Me: Let me look at the router configuration.
IT: Fine.
Me: Ummm, you did not tell me the SSID was THIS!!!
IT: Well, you did not need to know that.
Me: Really, then why does the card work now?

Moral of the story, be sure that the SSID on the router matches the SSID on the card, or it won't work (and avoid IT professionals whenever possible!). :P

Dedicated to my good friend IT Pro.

I installed this card in a Win95 PC using the MA301 PCI adapter. This combination works well for the older PC which is about 50 feet away from the ME102 802.11b Access Point. I get 11mbps with 60% link quality and 60% signal strength.

However, the card does not come with drivers for XP, a new operating system introduced by Microsoft this September. I recently bought a new VAIO PCG-FXA32 laptop which runs XP, so the product did not completely work out of the box for me.

I installed it using the Win2000 drivers and it runs for the most part except the display for the current channel on the link info tab and the PS mode on the configuration panel did not display properly. I am using the ME102 802.11b Access Point and am able to cover my entire 3 story wood frame house with it. I get good coverage in the basement, in my back yard, and in the dining room with 11mbps service and 75%-100% link quality and 75%-100% signal strength being typical.

I called Neesus (the manufacturer of the drivers) and reported the problem to them. They sent me the following driver updates to solve the problem: config.exe version 4.6.4.20 and ndcprtns.sys 1.5.0.5 I've reported the solution of this minor problem to Netgear. They should post these new drivers for XP.

For fixed PCs which use Win98/WinME/Win2000/WinNT/Linux and have a USB port, I would use the MA101 USB adapter instead because the unit and antennas can be repositioned to optimize reception.

I think the Netgear product is easy to install for a wireless home network. It took me less than 10 minutes to install for the Win95 PC and a bit longer with the XP laptop due to the problem I described.

I would improve the product with site survey software wich would allow you to pick the best channel to use considering that these systems are getting popular and occupy the same channels as cordless phones and microwave ovens.

(...)

The card was fine in most instances, and I would recommend it for anyone needing a wireless network in an open environment. My only complant is the range drops in a building with a lot of walls

To compound my problems, when I go to try uninstalling the Netgear utility software I'm faced with a message telling me I cannot uninstall the software because another program is using it. I have no idea what program is using it since I'm doing this after doing a fresh reboot.

It is a great technology when it works the 1 out of 10 times. Transfer rates are good. However, if you plan to download multimedia content expect a large delay in the total amount of data you can download. I was downloading 1 song at a time from [www.....]. Convresely, on my desktop computer that is connected directly to a wireless SMC Barricade router/hub I could download 10 songs at a time.

I would not try this product. If it did NOT work for me I have a strong feeling it will not work for you!!