Equipment Support > Hardware By Brand > Netgear > WG311 Freezing XP Problem

WG311 Freezing XP Problem

said by Scoobs72:

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I have a WG311 PCI card connecting wirelessly to a DG834G router. Since installing the WG311 my pc locks up about every half-hour (no mouse, keyboard etc) and nothing but a reboot of the pc works....

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Thanks for the reply. I've already tried reinstalling the card and drivers but that didn't work. However, for the benefit of any other people suffering from this problem, here's what seems to have worked for me.....

The problem seems to be being caused by the Netgear Wireless PCI Configuration utility. So what you need to do is make sure all the settings for the wireless access point are in the Netgear PCI config utility (don't use "Use Windows to configure my wireless settings" in the Advanced box under "View Available Wireless Networks" on the Windows network connection icon on your taskbar).

Next, make sure that you've got a connection to your wireles access point, then disable NetgearAG in the startup panel under MSConfig. Reboot the PC and all should be working ok now....at least it has for me for the last couple of days now - no lockups yet.

reply to Scoobs72
I installed just the driver and not the utility software. Seems to be stable now. Spent all day f****** around with it.

I too have the same problem with the WG311 PCI adapter. I did as Scoobs72 suggested, but in 10-15 minutes, sometimes sooner, the computer freezes. I have also exchanged the card for a new one, and had it in three different PCI slots. If the card is "disabled" in the device manager, all is fine. Sure seems like a driver problem...or a mobo chipset incompatability?? Anyone have any more suggestions, before I contact tech support?

reply to Scoobs72
I have a similar problem with the WG511 locking up an Acer Travelmate 200, running XP Pro... it works fine on other laptops. I've also tried other network cards on the Acer and they work fine. If anyone knows what that's all about, I'd like to know...

reply to Scoobs72
Read my post above, but what seems to work is not installing the Netgear software, and just installing the drivers, letting WinXP handle the adapter and networking.

Worked for me anyway...no problems since. YMMV.

OK, I think I'll try that. How would I go about installing the drivers only and letting XP do the rest?

Well, I spoke too soon, as my pc's started locking up again, exactly the same symptoms as before. Netgear's support has been useless (they suggest sending the card back to the supplier) and they won't even acknowledge that this is a widespread problem. Going to try a few more things to fix it, will post any results.

reply to Scoobs72
Here is Netgear's level 2 supports answer:
Dear sir/madam,
Thank you for contacting Netgear Support. My name is ****** & I will be handling
your enquiry.
Since even the second does the same thing i think there should some
compatibility issue with the card and the motherboard of your computer.
System Requirements:
• Pentium III Class PC with an avilable PCI 2.2 compliant slot
• 20 Mb of free hard drive space
• Windows 98SE, Me, 2000 or XP
I think we cannot do anything much further, since you have almost tried
everything by yourself.
Regards
****** ***
Netgear Support
support@esupport.netgear.com
Please help us serve you better by clicking here
mailto:support@netgear.com?subject=Feedback_in if you would like to provide any
other valuable feedback. (Note: this feedback is not sent to an agent so you
will not receive a reply.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++
--Original Message--
Wg311 card crashes Windows XP. After one exchange of the card, three different
pci slots, two software tweaks, the machine freezes up after 5-10 minutes. Do
you have any other suggestions I should try, before I return it?

***********************************************************

Anyone know of a compatabile wireless pci adapter that works in Windows XP Pro, a Soyo MOBO: Sy-K7VTA-B with a VIA Chipset, number KT133?

reply to Scoobs72
Tried bruce0195's suggested fix above and it works!! PC no longer freezing out! There is one other problem though...the connection keeps dropping and restablishing every minute or so. This turns out to be a problem with the wireless zero configuration feature with XP, which I fixed by following the advice in this link.... »www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic···hpage=11

I've now got a stable connection which very rarely drops out. Just need to run the batch file from my desktop after establishing a wireless connection. Incidentally, I tried applying the Microsoft WPA patch on Windows Update and I lost all connectivity to my router. Had to uninstall the patch, but will possibly give it a go at a later date as it may have need some config changing.

reply to Philip K

said by Philip K:

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... How would I go about installing the drivers only and letting XP do the rest?

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reply to Scoobs72
This is a follow up posting. I want to thank all that posted to this tread. I tried all the "tweaks" that were posted here and at other sites. Finally last night I exchanged the Netgear Wireless WG311 PCI adapter for a Microsoft Wireless PCI adapter MN-730. It installed and connected with no problems. Used it for an hour without one hick-up. I turned it over to my nephew to use. End of thread, for me.

reply to Scoobs72
Thought I'd post an update as I know a lot of people are still having problems with this card, not just on this site, but also on the VIA and MSI forums and many others. After my last post, thinking I'd fixed the problem, it reoccured the following day and just got worse. Since then I've been experimenting with various options to fix it as I don't have the option of returning the card (which would be my recommended option to everyone who has this lousy card).
Firstly, the problem does not appear to be related to the drivers as there is another post on the web where a guy had exactly the same problem running the card under Linux. It appears to be hardware related.
Secondly, the problem does disappear if you run your hard drive in PIO mode - but that makes your pc very slow and isn't workable for me
Thirdly, the problem only seems to affect MSI motherboard and particulraly the KT400 chipset as far as I can gather.
Forthly, the more disk activity going on, the more likely the system will freeze.
Fifthly, the weaker the signal back to the router, the more likely it will crash.

So, my recommendations (and these are only to keep my going until I can afford to replace this piece of junk) are:
1. Experiment with the channels and placement of the aerial until you get the best signal possible. Channel 2 gives me 48Mbps connection
2. (and this one is in early stages of testing, but so far so good) Change the PCI Latency timer in the Bios from 32 (the default on my board) to 64. This seems to give the PCI card more time to do what it needs to do and cause fewer freezes.

If option 2 doesn't work out and it starts crashing I'll post again, but for now it seems to help significantly.

reply to Scoobs72
I have a WG311 and it also give me problems. I discovered that my computer crashes only when I use a media file. For example, when I play a video clip in Media player, or and mp3 in winamp. After playing a video or audio clip for a few minutes, my computer freezes, and I can't move the mouse and keyboard does not respond. I also noticed that if my computer freezes while I'm downloading something, and if I leave my computer frozen long enough. After I restarting my computer by pressing the power button, it turns out that my computer still continues downloading in the background. If I don't play video and audio clips, I'm able to use my computer for days without crashing. If I ever want to listen to mp3s for the time being, I have to disable the wireless card from "network connections." In other words, when I disable the network card, my computer works fine without problems.
My specs:
Dell 8100
Pentium 4
1.7 Gz
Geforce2MX 400
Ram 256 MB
Intel 850 Chipset family

reply to Scoobs72
Hopefully my last post on this subject...the last set of attempts didn't resolve the problem so I replaced the Netgear drivers with the Universal Atheros drivers posted elsewhere on this site. The only reason I didn't do it earlier is that I couldn't figure out how to get them working - I finally realised you just had to rename the Atheros driver to wg311nd5 as this is what the WG311 is looking for during install. Since then, things have been much improved over the last two weeks. The freezing problem hasn't completely gone away, but where I used to get 4 or 5 freezes an hour, I'm now getting one a day at the most. I've used both the 2_4_2_14 and 2_4_2_22 drivers and both work fine. Also the Atheros utility is much better than the Netgear one.

End of story for me....hopefully )

I have the same problem with my new netgear wg511 card. I keep geting a system freeze every hour or so. After searching around, I found this in another forum. I've followed it and it now works fine. No problems at all for 24 hours. I also had to uncheck the box to remove the firewall protection as I found this was also causing a problem.
I'm convinced this is the solution, and it seems quite simple compared to someof the other suggestions here.:)

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Netgear Support. My name is & I will be handling your enquiry.

Disable the XP utility by following the below steps

1)Right click the Two computer like icon on the system tray.

2)Click on "View available networks"

3)Click on the Advance button.

4)Uncheck the option " use windows to configure" and click on ok.

Regards

Netgear Support

reply to Scoobs72
Ah ha.. looking for a thread like this to see if peeps had similiar problems.

For me it's the VIA chipset with a WAG311. I only get freezes during video game playing.

But good advice peeps, I'll have to tweak when I get home.

reply to pete_12345
Pete_12345, disabling the XP utility was one of the first things I tried. I'd also seen that post for the WG511 and yes it does seem to fix the issue on the WG511, but not on the WG311.

At least, it didn't fix it for me anyway. I'd still recommend using the Atheros drivers.

Atheros drivers? What are they?

I seem to get the problem about every minute, where the comp freezes for about 1 seconds, but then runs fine... Only happening since I put in the wireless card.