| WG121 causes Win XP to freeze have Win XP Professional and a WG121 USB wireless adapter which connects to a DG834G ADSL router. When the adapter is connected XP completely crashes/freezes in what seems a random way, no apparent specific event trggers it; it could be 5 minutes or 5 hours. Otherwise XP is amazingly stable. It has never fallen over except with the adapter connected. I also have a Win 2000 Pro machine with the same adapter. It has run without problem for 3 months.
Here is what I have tried so far:
1. Swappped the adapter to eliminate the hardware itself.
2. Netgear support: hopeless -suggested I go back to the supplier!
3. Disabling the Netgear wizard so XP itself does the wireless set up.
4. Completely uninstalled the Netgear software and then re-installed only the drivers (suggestion from soemone else in this forum).
5. Deleted all USB drivers and unpugged corresponding cables then re-connected just the WG121.
The problem remains and I am desperate for a solution. Any suggestions (or at least someone who shares this problem!). I saw a suggestion to use Atheros drivers. WHat are they? What would they do?
Thanks
John |
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| John, This sounds exactly like the problem I and many others have got with the WG311. See this posting:
»WG311 Freezing XP Problem
The WG311 uses the Atheros chipset and I believe the same one is used in your WG121. The best advice would be to return the adapter and get yourself either a Linksys or USR, i.e. one that doesn't use the Atheros chipset. Also, before you buy, search for the product in these forums and see what sort of problems people are experiencing.
If you're determined to stick with the WG121, then the best you're going to be able to do is reduce the number of times it happens, not eliminate the problem. The Atheros drivers are posted in the DLink forum but it's difficult to say if they'll work with your adapater as I guess that they're meant to be used with PCI cards.
As I say, best advice is to return the adapter and alert as many people as possible to the fact that these Netgear products are not fit for purpose. |
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| Scoobs72,
I'm not determined to stick with the WG121, I just happen to have it already. "Not fit for purpose" seems like a leap of logic to me. This WG121 works perfectly in a Win 2000 PC; and I've had the XP PC freeze identically with two different WG121s; the common factor in the failure is the XP PC.
So I would conclude that there is an incompatibility in the XP / Netgear driver / WG121 hardware setup. For all I know the problem could be in my PC itself (some kind of USB problem maybe?)
Your comment "best you're going to be able to do..., eliminate the problem" suggests you know or suspect something about the underlying cause of the problem. Could you tell us more?
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
John |
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| John, yep no problem. I really do believe there is a fundamental problem with Netgear's implementation of the Atheros chipset. Whether the problem lies with Atheros or what they've done to it themselves (if anything) I don't know. But, when you've got a situation whereby quite a lot of people are experiencing lock-ups with the most widely used o/s in the world, I think you could argue a case that the product is not fit for purpose - particularly when several of the lockups have caused me to lose data, and in one case corrupted my Microsoft Money file!
What compounds matters is Netgear's blanket advice from their (dreadful) Support line of "Send the card back and replace it". There seems to be no willingness on their part to address the cause - and in many ways why should they - a few hundred people dotted round the planet experiencing the lock-up problem are never going to be able to apply sufficient pressure for them to address it.
It could well be the case that the problem is with VIA chipsets or similar, but when Netgear are introducing a product onto an existing platform, the onus is on them to ensure that it is compatible with the existing systems out there, and if not, address it with VIA for example. My suspicions are aroused even more by the fact that they brought out the WG311v2 card with a Texas Instruments chipset soon(ish) after releasing the WG311. I think they know there's a problem but the product has moved on and they thought they could get away with leaving the stock of old WG311's out there in the market.
Sorry for this rant, but I'm hacked of with Netgear as you can probably tell! My best advice would still be to return the adapter.
Just to place things into contect and so it doesn't sound like I'm a whingy old sod, I also have a couple of other Netgear products, both of which I'm pretty happy with 
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| Well I have to agree with you about Netgear's support having just spent an hour on the phone to a perfectly pleasant young man and the final advice was "download the latest driver".
The one thing I got from him was that there are "issues" with the Athlon processor (which I have) which "in some circumstances" can "cause difficulty" (imagine trying to get your car fixed with diganostic data like that!). He claimed the latest driver should help.
Then a survey arrived asking me about their service - and the description of my problem was "Not able to install the adapter on WIN XP" !!!
I will struggle on for a bit - like try the latest driver - and keep you posted.
John |
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| Hmm, "issues with the Athlon processer"...a guy claiming to be from Netgear support posted in the WG311 Freezing post saying that this was the cause of the problem. It sounded so incredulous at the time (and to be honest it didn't seem genuine) that I dismissed it. Now you've been told it on the phone, maybe it's the 'big secret' that Netgear don't want people to find out about! |
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| Well, the plot thickens.
I followed Netgear advice and downloaded the V2 driver.
But when I went through the whole uninstall/install process (using the download) I ended up with exactly the same driver version as I had before (1.05.1000 dated 13 Nov 03)!
It works as before - everything's fine for a while then freeze-up.
John L |
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| reply to spierian
I too am experiencing this annoying problem. I have recently installed WG121 adapters onto 2 different PC's in two locations, both to DG834G routers. Both PC's are now freezing randomly. Removing the adapters solves the problem. Both PC's use Athlons on Via chipset boards (2 different Gigabyte boards) running XP, confirming the issues raised in other posts. Do Netgear read these posts and have any response? I've bought tons of Netgear kit but this experience (and others recently with Netgear kit) is making me seriously consider switching to another network kit supplier.
Any advice on a reliable G USB adapter I can use instead of the WG121? |
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| I've spoken to Netgear about this issue and they've confirmed it is a problem. They say they are working on some drivers to fix compatibility issues between Athlon based systems and their Atheros based cards and they'll post them on their support site when done. But, no date available for when this will be. |
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| Many thanks scoobs. The adapters are less than 30 days old so I shall speak to Netgear about a refund under "unfit for purpose intended". I just can't believe that Netgear could have released these units without proper testing on Athlon based systems!! I'll let you know what Netgear say..... |
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| Good luck, but don't be surprised if they deny it! I think I got lucky with who I spoke to (i.e they begrudgingly admitted it was a problem), but given that Spierian managed to get the same reply and a guy saying he was from Netgear support on the WG311 freezing post said the same thing, i think Netgear should post something on their website to acknowledge the problem and confirm they are working on a fix, instead of people like us finding out and posting on forums. Let us know how you get on! |
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| I've just sent a long email to Netgear tech support, quoting the "Sandeep" email and a full description of the problems I've had. I'll give it 48 hours and then hit the helpline.........
I'll post progress here, as I appreciate that many people seem to be suffering the same problems with the WG121. |
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| reply to spierian
Well this gets stranger...
Quick review - I have XP, WG121, Athlon processor and was gettig freezes every few hours. I installed later drivers as per Netgear instructions (V1.1 then V2.0) and ended up with the same version drivers!
I got new instructions from Netgear.
1. Go into safe mode and uninstall the drivers and utitlity software.
2. Restart the computer TWO OR THREE TIMES (safe or normal).
3. Install the V1.1 drivers.
4. See how that goes, if no luck repeat but this time installl V2.0
I did this. V1.1 gave me a driver vsn of 0.11.0.1 dated 16/10/03, older than the original.
I repeated and installed V2.0 which gave me the driver vsn I started with - 1.00.05.1000 dated 28/11/03.
So it seemed I was right back at square 1. I called Netgear and to their credit I was put on the escalation path, still awaiting result.
HOWEVER..,... Since then I've run for over 15 hours before the freeze-up and then after restart, for 5.5 hours. This is much less than it was before. Something has changed -maybe it's just the threat of escalation.
I will report progress. |
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| Hmmm...this is rather like the behaviour I've had after reinstalling drivers. It's happened a few times so it can't be a coincidence. Basically, the PC behaved better after I removed the old drivers and then resinstalled them (or put a different version on). Don't know why, and I ended up thinking I'd fixed the problem only for it to then start crashing again at an increasingly high rate. Don't get your hopes up too high Spierian! |
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| reply to spierian
Thanks Scoobs72. My optimism is duly dimmed :--) To me, he mystery is NOT why this particular thing fails but how on Earth the whole PC things works at all! |
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| Arnie_75 has quite rightly pointed out in this thread:
»WG121 dead like a doornail
that the WG121 doesn't actually use the Atheros drivers. My mistake - it appears to use PrismGT drivers. Quite why Netgear didn't know this I don't know, but it suggests another compatibility problem with these drivers. |
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| reply to spierian
I had the same problem with the linksys usb g wireless adaptor. So I bought the netgear wg121 and the problem exists here too. I am running windows XP. |
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| If it was Linksys WUSB11 you had then that uses a Prism chipset as well! Basically the issue with all these cards seems to be who makes the chipsets, whether it's Netgear, Linksys or DLink on the badge it seems its pretty irrelevant. Whether it's an Atheros, Prism, TI etc chipset seems to be the issue |
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| reply to spierian
It's been 2 weeks now since I installed updated drivers for the WG121 and there is definitely a huge improvement. My machine still freezes as but now it typically runs for 15-20 hours before falling over. Before, 2-5 hours would have been typical.
No news from Netgear's "escalation"....../ |
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| reply to spierian
Update - getting nowhere with Netgear support, who deny there is any problem with the WG121! I need to get this sorted so have decided to changeout the WG121 for an adapter from another manufacturer. I can't do this until next week. I hope the different equipment will solve the problem. Will post result here later....... |
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