Hardware ReviewsNetgear Wireless PC Card, PCI Adapter and Wireless Access Point We know Netgear quite well at homePCnetwork.com as a quality maker of network gear and their new wireless PC Card, PCI Adapter and Access Point are no exception. All three are solidly built, installed easily, performed well, and came packaged with decent instructions and nifty software. Plus, the price was on target with other manufacturers. We found the PC Card, PCI Adapter and Access Point for $99; $36 and $208, respectively, at buy.com. What else could you ask for? Well, we're a bit demanding at homePCnetwork.com so we did find a few things we would like to see improved. But, overall, Netgear comes through again with quality network gear for the home user. Read on. Overview
Wireless PC Card -- This is model MA401 and is similar to the Linksys card we recently reviewed. This is a PC Card that fits the card slot available on most notebook computers. An inch-long gray part of the card (the antenna) sticks out of the computer when the card is inserted and a small green LED lights to indicate a positive link with another wireless device. The Netgear package
contains the PC Card, an installation guide "broadsheet" (meaning a large,
fold out), a card with support information, a warranty card and a
single CD. The installation guide provides only minimal information, but
for the most part it was enough to get the card installed and working. The
CD includes driver software, a nifty utility (more on that later) and
documentation for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000. The 20-page document
(in Word or Acrobat format) provides good, additional information over the
foldout on wireless configuration issues but still stops short of
comprehensive background on networking, just as we noticed with the
Linksys. It seems both companies expect users to be a little knowledgeable
about networking. Of course, visitors to homePCnetwork.com can get
information on TCP/IP, file and printer sharing, and other basic
information in our how to.
Wireless PCI Adapter -- this simple device (model MA301) connects to your desktop computer via a standard PCI slot (inside the computer case) and has a small slot into which you slide a Wireless Network PC Card (see above). Together, the adapter and the PC Card allow your desktop to have wireless networking capability. The Netgear package includes everything that the PC Card does (see above) although it has a slightly different installation guide foldout. The CD includes software for both the PC Card and this PCI Adapter. Wireless Access Point --
this device (model ME102) allows you to connect the wireless portions of
your network (for example, a notebook equipped with the MA401 above) to
the wired portions of your network (for example, a desktop PC or two
connected via wired Ethernet or
Fast
Ethernet). That type of setup would be typical, for example, if you
had a cable or DSL modem already shared with several desktop computers
using a router and wanted to network a "roaming laptop" anywhere in the
house, to that same shared cable or DSL modem. The Access Point is a small device, about the size of a portable CD player, with two antennas sticking up from the front. You can take your wireless adapter-equipped notebook or desktop ANYWHERE in the house, and the access point will receive the signal and connect your notebook/desktop to the rest of your network. The Access Point package includes another installation guide "foldout" brochure, a card with support information, a warranty card, an AC adapter, a standard Ethernet network cable, a USB cable and a CD with the necessary software to configure the device. Installation Overall, installation of these Netgear wireless network pieces was fairly easy and, in comparison, seemed a little bit smoother than the comparable steps in the Linksys equipment. Wireless PC Card Using the included installation guide, we inserted the PC Card into an available slot in our test notebook. As indicated in the instructions, the "Add New Hardware Wizard" dialog box appeared. Per the instructions, we pointed the installation wizard to the CD and the folder for Windows 98. The program automatically installed the proper files from this CD and our Windows 98 setup CD and required a restart. Upon restart, the installation routine continued by installing a nifty utility. The utility provides a taskbar button that turns colors to indicate how strong your link is to the Access Point: green for strong, yellow for weaker and red for no link. This was very handy as we moved around the house with our notebook, indicating that it was distance from the Access Point (and not a million other variables) that was causing slow Internet access or other network trouble. Upon another restart, the PC Card linked automatically with the Access Point we had previously installed (see below) and no changes in the setup were required. Because our local network uses manually selected TCP/IP addresses (as yours might) we then had to manually insert the TCP/IP address in the network control panel and reboot. That's really not a problem, but even the CD-based documentation doesn't help a user figure out how to do that. (Go here for our instructions.) Wireless PCI Adapter Again using the installation guide, we turned off our PC, inserted the PCI adapter into an open slot in our computer and inserted a PC Card into the adapter. We restarted our computer and it promptly froze. We still don't know why. To solve the problem, we turned the computer off again, powered it back on and everything was fine. Per the instructions, the "Add New Hardware Wizard" dialog box appeared and we specified the location on the CD for the correct driver (be careful here, use the 301 folder, not the 401 folder). The installation program copied all of the necessary driver files and requested a restart. Upon restart, just as the instructions say, the program then installed the nifty utility program. Again, neither the install program or instructions provide any networking help, but we only had to turn on file sharing and share a drive on our desktop to get up and running. Wireless Access Point Installation of the Access Point is a two-step process: install the hardware and then configure the settings. To install the hardware, we plugged in the included AC power brick adapter and then connected the included network cable from our existing network hub to the network port on the Access Point. To configure the Access Point, the instructions point out that this can be done using a utility and a special USB cable between your computer and the Access Point OR via your normal Ethernet connection a "SNMP" utility. The foldout instruction guide, however, provides detailed instructions only on the USB method. We decided to use the SNMP utility and the Ethernet connection. We installed the utility and it immediately recognized the Access Point. However, when we went to configure the device, the utility said that the Access Point needed to be "reset" to the same subnet as the rest of the network. Don't get confused. We simply opened the Acrobat installation document and found easy instructions on how to do that. Essentially you temporarily change the IP address using the so-called MAC address (which is printed on the bottom of the Access Point). The only tricky part is that you must set off portions of the MAC address with hyphens which is not clear in the PDF fie. This probably all sounds a bit confusing, but frankly it isn't with the included instructions. It's also easier that the configuration issues we had with the Linksys access point. Once the Access Point was accessible using the SNMP utility, we were able to set it to the network address compatible with our existing network and we were off and running. Performance In our minds, there are two key performance issues with wireless equipment. First, how far away can you get with each device and still have a workable network. And, second, how fast does the network transfer data. We have not come up with a definitive method of testing the distance issue, but we can say assuredly that the Netgear equipment provided better distances than the Linksys gear. Case in point: while the Linksys gear would not allow us to use our notebook on the back deck, the Netgear would (although the taskbar utility made it clear it was not a perfect connection). Overall, as with the Linksys gear, we did not get anywhere near the stated 500-foot maximum distance for an indoor environment. At the slower network speeds we probably were able to get about half that distance. Still, it was enough to get us comfortably around most parts of our 2,600-square-foot test house. To test the performance of the wireless network system, we installed a Wireless PC Card on our test laptop (a Pentium III 500Mhz machine) and a PCI Adapter/PC Card combination on our regular test machine (see "How we Test" for more information on that machine.) Then, using our standard procedures, we copied a 30 megabyte file from one machine to the other. We measured the number of seconds it took to complete the copy process. We did that back and forth twice and averaged the results. The Netgear results are shown in the blue bars below. We also show the Linksys test results in the red bars. And, finally, for comparison, we did the same test, between the same two machines, but instead used Ethernet at 10Mbps and half duplex. The laptop and our other test machine were connected to a Allied Telesyn ATFS708, 8-port 10/100 Fast Ethernet switch. We considered this a fair comparison since the Wireless system is rated at 11Megabits per second. As you can see, the Netgear system fell slightly below (longer time) than the Linksys set and both fell well off the pace set by Ethernet. In real life, you might notice the difference between wireless and Ethernet if you spend a lot of time copying large files across your network. You would not notice a difference between the wireless systems.
We also conducted two subjective performance tests on the system using one PC Card and connecting that computer to our test LAN using the Wireless Access Point. For the first, we played two movie (sound and video) files simultaneously across the network. In other words, from the wireless equipped notebook, we played a file on a hard drive in a desktop connected via Ethernet to the Access Point. Then, at the same time, we played a file on the notebook's hard drive from the same desktop. One of the two movies "stuttered" as it played, indicating that the PC Card/Access Point combination might have issues with large, fast data transfers. The second test involves playing a fast, network-demanding game (Quake III) over the network. Sure enough, while playing the game over a 30 minute period, once or twice the game froze on a desktop that was connected to the network with the PCI Adapter/PC Card combination. It is possible that this is a driver issue, and we suspect that an updated driver for the PC Card likely will alleviate the problem. Neither of these were a show stopper in our minds. However, if heavy network traffic is demanded in your local network, we suggest you be on the look out for some new drivers from Netgear. Support Netgear has a wide range of technical support options including a toll-free phone number 24 hours a day, seven days a week in North America. They also have technical support via e-mail and a web site (www.netgear.com) with updated drivers, FAQs and other options. Summary Once again, we were solidly impressed with the package, construction quality and network performance of some Netgear equipment. Their entry in the wireless market is a worthy competitor to the Linksys and we're guessing, any others that we hope to take a look at soon. The installation went just as indicated in the included instructions and the CD-based guides provided detailed information that got us easily out of one jam with the Wireless Access Point. That's good stuff. Performance was also solid, although it technically showed to be ever so slightly slower than Linksys. In our mind, that was outweighed by the nifty utility that revealed the quality of our network connection and the greater distance we received over the Linksys. The only real hiccup on the Netgear equipment, and what keeps us from giving it a top A+ grade, was the network issues with heavy data and game playing. Again, we're guessing that some updated drivers from Netgear could easily solve that issue. Be on the look out for them if you pick the Netgear equipment. With that small issue aside, we suggest you take a good, long look at the Netgear wireless equipment before making any move into wireless networking. Grade = A Details
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