Netgear WPNT511 RangeMax 240 Wireless Adapter

bad

I wish I had researched Netgear more thoroughly before I bought my wireless gear from them. I regret it. Despite good editorials, their products break down with astonishing regularity. My first WPNT511 was bad out of the box, the next one broke down in under a year. If that isn't bad enough, their scripted, plastic technical support seems to be designed more to deliver infuriating platitudes and block the customer from getting any meaningful resolution to their problem (that might cost Netgear an extra penny) than to be sincerely helpful.Consider this a "danger sign." You may choose to ignore it, but be ready for the consequences.

OK in its time… Who cares about this review years later. Netgear stuff generally solid products.

I have tried each and every netgear pcmcia wireless card, I have come back to this one. All of the more recent ones such as wpn511 (no 't), wg511t,wg511u, and countless others do not perform as well as the wpnt511 Netgear Wireless Adapter. If configured correctly, you will immediately notice a speed increase in your download(and browsing) speed, you can try it on speakeasy.net/speedtest website.This is the deal however, you should try to avoid using netgear's built in utilty for configuring the card. If you Do use the netgear internal utility, look in task mgr with your browser open to a page, but idle. You will notice wpnt511.exe is a bit of a resource hog, using about 9000kb of memory. If you are familar with windows internal zero config utilty, use that instead with this card, you will not see that resource hog wpnt511.exe in task mgr any longer.By the way, if you have successfully selected and are able to use windows zero config utilty, go to start, run, type msconfig in the run box then hit enter. Go to the startup tab on the rt that comes up with the system config utility, make sure wpnt511.exe in Unchecked, if it is not, uncheck it, hit close, then reboot, put the check mark in the system config utility box so that that window does not appear each time you reboot(check 'do not show this message again')I have purchased this cd from amazon(refurb) for 8.00+ shipping and it works perfectly rt out of the box. (if you do not have the driver install package for this cd, go to netgear.com, type in search box there wpnt511, then cl on support, there is only one driver download for this, download it to your desktop, follow instructions, choose netgear wizard built in utility to scan for open networks if that's your thing, then later on use the msconfig command as detailed here to improve your performance and conserve your memory especially if you are using an older laptop w windows xp and 515 mb ram like myself.Despite its one flaw described above(resource hog) I highly recommend this wpnt511 card is the best card for use with an older p4 or p4m laptop with windows xp pro os. I believe it is still the best of netgear at this date: 6-26-08. Good luck.

After seeing so many low-scoring reviews for this product, I was worried I was throwing my money away, despite such a low price.I'm very pleased, to say the least with these Netgear WPNT511 PCMCIA NICs. Certainly an unbeatable price with great performance.The software installation went well on my two Windows XP laptops. After the drivers were installed, it was all plug-and-play from there.I had no trouble getting the cards to work with my Netgear Rangemax Router. In fact, it took less than 5 minutes to go from the box to getting the NICs to work.I'm going to have to acquire more of these.In a nutshell: an excellent value, great performance and so long as you follow the installation instructions to the letter, all will work out just fine.Of course, always make sure your router is properly configured as well.

I have a RangeMax 240 Router in our house that has performed well for a year. So I thought of buying a compatible adapter card (WPNT511) to maximize the performance. I followed the instructions, which is to load the software first, to install the card. When the installation prompted for card insertion, I followed and it froze the laptop. If I manually unplug the card, the computer would unfreeze (and even perform keystrokes I have had entered during the freeze). I thought the card was not compatible with my computer's particular setup. But when I tried it with a second laptop (completely different brand/setup) it freezes in the same way.So instead, I tried avoiding the software, and just use Windows to install the driver and manage the wireless. I got that to work maybe 5% of the time, the rest would result in the same freeze until I remove the card. After searching online, I found that I am not the only case experiencing this or similar problem with the product.I looked on NETGEAR's website and found that there are no firmware updates available since the initial release in 2005. Apparently, the card has been phased out in favor of the newer RangeMax NeXT series (including WN511B & WN511T).I would avoid this card and look at the newer, and probably better supported, RangeMax NeXT cards. If you could wait (and has it been a long wait) I'd suggest waiting till they ratify the 802.11n spec so that companies can start making inter-compatible adapters/accesspoints.

This is the worst cardbus I never seen in my life. It's even worse than my old old cardbus. Can not connect to any of wireless, even I next to the router.

My internal wireless adaptor on my laptop was dying so I was recommended this product by someone on an online forum. So far it seems to be working fine. The only trouble I had with it was that it seemed like the software for this card and my internal wireless card could not be used at the same time, so I ended up having to uninstall the old wireless card before I could use this one, which was slightly more complicated than I would have liked in terms of setup. But overall can't complain.