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Scoobs72
join:2004-01-15

Scoobs72

Member

Re: WG311 Freezing XP Problem

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.
Scoobs72

Scoobs72

Member

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 )

pete_12345
@freedom2surf.net

pete_12345

Anon

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
Scoobs72
join:2004-01-15

Scoobs72

Member

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.

TailsK
@eburwd2.vic.optusnet

TailsK

Anon

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.
tropic
join:2003-04-05
Fairfax Station, VA

tropic

Member

said by TailsK:
Atheros drivers? What are they?

RebuM was nice enough to post a link to drivers for the Atheros chipset. If you have the original version of the WG311, these should work great for you.

Post: »Universal Atheros Driver

Drivers: »wlan.vx.sk/files/atheros ··· 2_22.zip
Scoobs72
join:2004-01-15

Scoobs72 to TailsK

Member

to TailsK
TailsK, do a search on this forum for Universal Atheros Drivers. If your PC's not freezing completely then I wouldn't install the Atheros drivers. It sounds like you need to disable to Wireless Zero Configuration - again, search on this site and you'll find instructions

TailsK
@eburwd2.vic.optusnet

TailsK

Anon

Thanks for the help guys, I'll give it all a whirl and get back to you. I'm trying out the Atheros drivers... I saw somewhere that you can increase the Atheros to 108mbps as an option?

If someone could tell me how... Thanks again peoples
TailsK

TailsK

Anon

Looks like I got mine working now... Did a bunch of things.

1) Disabled DMA
2) Disabled on-board lan
3) Installed the Atheros Drivers
4) Disabled Wireless Zero Ping thing...

Seems to be running fine now... No dropouts, no connection issues, no freezes, no blue screens...

Only problem is, the athores driver only lets it run @ 54 mbps. I looked at the Atheros thread, but I can't see a link to the new one (v3.0.0.43) or something, that lets you connect at 108mbps... If anyone has a link, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

SirLoinOfBeef
@iprimus.net

SirLoinOfBeef to TailsK

Anon

to TailsK
Yeah! I have this same problem! Computer freezes up for a few seconds every few minutes! Netgear must surely recognise that this is an issue!?!?!!?

Industry Sandwich

Anon

SirLoinOfBeef,

I've also had bizarro hangs in XP, lasting around 1/2 a second, occurring every few minutes (not at regular intervals).

These problems had occurred since I upgraded to the 1.3 drivers on netgear's site.

Reinstalled the 1.0 drivers yesterday, and everything is now working perfectly. Although I don't have any WPA-PSK support anymore.

Ah well.. maybe *one day* Netgear will release some drivers for the WG311 V1 that support WPA-PSK that don't hang every few minutes.

:/

Dean
Trevarchi
join:2004-06-02
Australia

Trevarchi to Scoobs72

Member

to Scoobs72
I have been having the same problem with a Netgear WG311 wireless adapter and a K7VZA motherboard from Elite systems - the system freezes after a few seconds and I have to power down. I have tried a lot of things, but after much angst, I discovered the motherboard runs PCI 2.1, whereas the adapter requires a PCI 2.2 compatible slot. I suspect many of you in this forum have a similar problem. Check your motherboard specs! There are some adapters out there that support PCI 2.1, but the WG311 is not one of them, and the same probably applies to many other models. The solution? A new motherboard, or hunt round for an adapter that supports 2.1. It's a lousy solution, I know... any better suggestions?
Scoobs72
join:2004-01-15

Scoobs72

Member

Definitely not the problem in my case - my motherboard is 2.2 compliant. The Atheros 3.1.1.48 drivers are still doing the trick (with the very occasional lockup), so for me it comes down to bad software from Netgear.....who still haven't managed to release the 3.1.1.48 drivers on their website two months after Atheros released them!!! How's that for useless support!!
degauss1
join:2001-07-02
Hillsboro, OR

degauss1

Member

Was having some of the same problems with my new WG311. Was having other XP related problems too though. I reinstalled XP, patched up and used the .43 Atheros driver and no utility. (that's right, letting windows control the wireless) Been running 32 hours non stop without a slowdown or hang.

Matrix19
@128-201-24.mc.videot

Matrix19 to Industry Sandwich

Anon

to Industry Sandwich
got the same problem...

i roll back to 1.0 drivers and it works fine now !
(but no more WPA-PSK support... so back on WEP)

i hope netgear will get better driver soon
lazy8
join:2004-01-12
Elk Grove, CA

lazy8

Member

I just tried the 1.0 driver but it did not work for me. These reboots are killing me so I'm gonna try the atheros drivers....I'll post my results but I'm not holding my breath as it seems to have not worked for others....
lazy8

lazy8

Member

Well the atheros drivers did not work for me either as the reboots happen very often still. I know it is the card as when the card is disabled it works great. This sucks #ss!! does anyone have any other ideas? Netgear has really let me down! If it wasn't for the great wgt624 to wge101 connection I have I'd hawk all my Netgear items...oh well

nooninm
@east.verizon.ne

nooninm to tropic

Anon

to tropic
Same thing. Lock up ... freeze ... have to shut the power off ... have to scandisk. What a colossal time waster.
I tried the WG311 in two different computers:
1: IBM Aptiva with XP (Intel Pentium III)
2: Acer AP4300 (System Board) SIS 620 A2 (Celeron)

I tried many other things, too, although cutting out DMA is totally unacceptable.

I tried the atheros_v2_4_2_22.zip on the Acer before I knew it did not have a Via chipset. Surely some legal type out there can smell a class action suite here. Shipping products they know (or should have known) would not work accross such a large segment of computerdom has to be illegal. Any legal types out there?
alterecho
join:2001-03-20
Midlothian, VA

alterecho

Member

I can confirm that VIA is not the only chipset with a problem. I have the MSI AMD 64 board with a Nvidia chipset. It to suffers from CPU spikes and mouse freeze. If I disable the Netgear 311v2 card, then everything runs fine. I also noticed that the spikes coincide with signal dots, within the netgear utility. If it adds another signal dot (turns yellow=gets stronger) then a spike/mouse freeze follows. If the dot disappears (signal weaker), then nothing is affected.
Scoobs72
join:2004-01-15

Scoobs72

Member

The mouse freeze/cpu spike issue is just down to bad drivers from Netgear. Try the latest Atheros drivers as they solve this problem.
alterecho
join:2001-03-20
Midlothian, VA

alterecho

Member

I will give them a shot.
The interesting thing is that initially they ran fine. Dropped connection more than I liked, but otherwise seemed fine. After updating XP with the newest hotfixes and the drivers from my MSI board is when the trouble began. Shame that netgear is not on top of this.

-=AE=-

TT12121
@range217-42.btcentra

TT12121 to TailsK

Anon

to TailsK
I have just bought the wg311t card and am having similar freezing problems. I actually got two. One machine, this one, runs it fine absolutely no problems but is using Wndows 2000. The problem would appear to be with the service pack 2 for XP, but am yet to solve it! Help!

superAMD
@sprint-hsd.net

superAMD to nooninm

Anon

to nooninm
I have the same problem. After successfully installed the latest version from Netgear (download from Netgear website), I shutdown my computer and inserted the WG311T PCI. Once the computer is on, XP detects the new hardware and applied the latest Netgear's drivers. The computer restarted (crashed) before and the completion of the driver detection. My computer is AMD Athlon 1200. I called Netgear customer support technician, he said the problem was AMD motherboard has 3.3V PCI and Intel has a 5V PCI. Due the different in voltages, the card will not work in AMD computer properly. Luckily, I just bought the card 2 days ago; therefore, I returned to the store. This card should in Intel system. Personally, I hate Netgear customer support and netgear product (waste too much time trouble shooting). I would never do business with Netgear again, personal or business matter. They new about the voltage different, but they didn't do anything to resolve the issue.