NETGEAR WG511NA Wireless G Pc Card

This NetGear card served me well in my 11 year old XP laptop. I think this card originally came out about 10 years ago, or more.I personally used one of these cards for 8 years.However, since it is old, it does not support the newer WPA2 encryption protocol. It uses the older, less secure, WEP encryption.So when I recently moved and was upgraded to Verizon's latest and greatest router, which uses WPA2 encryption, all of sudden my old laptop would not connect with this wireless card.So after many, many, years of faithfull service I had to get rid of it.I ordered a newer USB Panda Wireless N card, which supports WEP, WPA, and WPA2 (like the newer protocols) and BOOM! I was back online!So even though this thing came out 10 years ago, and even though I can no longer use it... I am amazed this NetGear card worked for me as long as it did. It is now antiquated and out of date, but in its time it was a 5 star product for sure.So as long as you dont need WPA2 encryption, this thing will work great.

Background:I currently have the Netgear MR814v2 router (802.11b), and got mixed results with my various notebooks. My HP workstation notebook (wireless a/b/g) and my Dell Latitude X1 (wireless b/g)...yes, the smallest one (rock-on!!!), both connect fine with it. However, my HP Pavilion (wireless b) can connect wirelessly if in the same room or the next, and still the connection is sketchy. I decided that the built-in wireless is not too good, so I bought the WG511 as well as the NETGEAR WGR614 router (802.11g) to upgrade. I decide to just try the WG511 card on the MR814 first.Setup:The results were not great at first, but that was because I had the router set to block the SSID broadcast. I was manually forcing the card to look for the router, but had problems with it the recognition (I'm not sure if the problem was on the router or card side). When I configured the router to broadcast the SSID, then everything worked fine and dandy. Overall time for setup was 3 seconds for ripping the plastic and opening the box, 3 minutes for install of the software and driver, 5 minutes for troubleshooting the router/card recognition issue, and 5 seconds afterwards to connect.Range:I have the router sitting in the basement, and I still get signal on the second floor bedroom at the opposite side of the house. That is approximately 200 feet away from the router, through 2 floors and about 4 walls away. Also, I am quite impressed with the range this card was able to extend for me. I had coverage in every room of my house, plus the basement, garage, and the sidewalk across the street! Mind you, I also enabled WEP, so only specific wireless devices (MINE) were able to access the router.Speed:I was able to maintain file transfers (from PC to PC in my network) at speeds near the 11Mbps rate everywhere in the house, so I was quite impressed. My cable broadband downloads only up to 6Mbps (average 2Mbps mostly), so this card is more than capable of web-surfing wireless-ly.Conclusion:This card is compatible with the NETGEAR MR814 802.11b router.If the setup with the MR814 router was this easy, and the connection (and speed) is fast, then I can't wait to setup and try the NETGEAR WGR614 router with this baby!Note:For the average user, this card is a great buy and works flawlesly with the NETGEAR MR814 router. Rembember that broadband ISPs transfer rate is only at about 1.5 to 3.0 Mbps for DSL, and about 3.0 to 6.0 Mbps for cable broadband (these are maximum speeds, not average speeds), so going for 802.11 b versus g is not going to make a big difference. The two big advantages of the g over b are 1) faster rates WITHIN YOUR NETWORK (transfering files from one computer to the next, or broadcasting music or video from computer to tv/receiver), and 2) increased security (added SPI firewall in addition to the NAT firewall available in most routers). Hope this review helps you.

I have a somewhat dated Sony Vaio PCG-23 laptop running Windows-XP SP3, and wanted to connect to a new Airport Extreme wireless router controlled by my Intel IMac desktop computer. The installed wireless card in the Sony Vaio was either too outdated or wasn't working anymore - it wouldn't connect. Looked for updated drivers and tried several, but couldn't find anything that used WPA/WPA2 encoding, and the current Airport does not recognize the old WEP anymore. So I needed a simple solution - a PCMIA card wireless adapter based on g or n technology and using WPA/WPA2.After a lot of research, I went for the Netgear WG511v2 because it promised both G and N, and I figured one or the other should connect to the Airport. Other reviews indicated it was a good high speed adapter with the proper drivers, and I was willing to get them from the Netgear support page.I simply opened the box, unwrapped the PCIMA card and put it in the PCMIA slot and it activated. Light came on but the driver that Windows New Hardware program found for it didn't work. Wouldn't recognize my WPA network. Uh oh! But thanks to other reviewers, I knew that this might happen if I let Windows find a driver. There was no CD included with the shipment, so I went to the Netgear Support site at [...] and downloaded the WG511v2 software version 3.2, and ran it. Voila! It installed a different driver and immediately the wireless card found my WPA network, and as soon as I filled in the password for my network, it connected instantly. Moral of the story is, USE THE NETGEAR SOFTWARE, NOT THE WINDOWS DRIVER. I also went into Device Manager and disabled the old internal wireless adapter, just to be sure there would be no conflicts.How does it work? FANTASTIC! I am getting 3.2 MBPS out of my 3.0 MBPS rated DSL feed, can't complain about that. Noticeably faster than a direct connection of the DSL wire, which was giving me about 2.5MBPS. If that is confusing, what I am saying is that the wireless card is faster than having the DSL line directly connected to the computer. Controller software says it would feed me 54MBPS if my connection were that fast. All bars lit, so signal strength is excellent. It runs fast and cool, which is more than I can say about myself! And now I can run several computers at once on the same DSL line, so it is much better in that respect also.Bottom line, I am DELIGHTED with this wireless adapter. It was easy to install, works extremely well, and once set up (which was easy), is completely automatic. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!