WG311v3 vanished

Hello,

I installed a WG311v3 wireless adaptor a couple of days ago. Initially it
was slightly troublesome - it would regularly drop connection if using the
Netgear utility provided. However, I switched to the Microsoft utilities
which worked fine. Yesterday, I upgraded the drivers provided by Netgear
from the Windows update site and everything started working brilliantly (via
the Netgear utility).

This morning things were still working well until I tried to copy a 500Mb
file from another computer on the network. It almost completed (it was up
to '10 seconds remaining') when the PC froze.

I had to press the reset button and when it all came back to life, the
Netgear utility didn't seem to appear and , upon checking Device Manager it
seemed that there was no mention of the wireless adaptor. I tried
rebooting... still no mention. I shut down, unplugged the computer,
replugged the computer and rebooted... still not there!

I'm not sure what to do now. It was all working so well!

Any ideas?

Many thanks in advance,

Daz

"Kroma" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Netgear utility didn't seem to appear and , upon checking Device Manager it
>seemed that there was no mention of the wireless adaptor.

If there's a "question mark in a yellow circle" in Device Mangler, try
reinstalling the drivers. If there isn't, try putting it in a
different (PCI?) slot. Kinda sounds like an infant failure, though...

> This morning things were still working well until I tried to copy a 500Mb
> file from another computer on the network. It almost completed (it was up
> to '10 seconds remaining') when the PC froze.

I've had similar lockups with the USB Netgear wireless adapter (WPN111)
under Windows XP Pro. Working fine for a while and then PC locked solid.

Digger deeper on the web it transpires that the driver for the USB don't
seem very stable (to say the least) but the culprit appears to be the
Netgear wireless utility. One suggestion was to just install the Windows XP
drivers alone and forget the utility. Means that you have to use Windows XP
to control the wireless but that's usually works.

Fortunately, I image my PC regularly so was able to easily go back to an
earlier image before Netgear was installed. Installing the drivers alone
seemed to work for me.

I'm guessing (and it's a big guess) that the same utility is used on all the
Netgear devices so maybe the same trick will work.

Cheers, Rob.

Thanks for the replies... I got it working again.

I had to remove the card, reboot the PC, shut down, reinstall the card and
reboot the pc again.

I have done as suggested and disabled the Netgear utility from activating -
everything is handled by Windows and works a treat (well, about 99% of the
time - I've had one total disconnection and the odd slowdown but the
slowdowns wouldn't have been noticed had I not been looking for them).

I'll keep an eye on the performance for a while.

Thanks again,

Daz

"Rob Nicholson" <rob.nicholson@nospam_unforgettable.com> wrote in message
news:KUuGf.16754$(E-Mail Removed)...

> I've had similar lockups with the USB Netgear wireless adapter (WPN111)
> under Windows XP Pro. Working fine for a while and then PC locked solid.
>
> Digger deeper on the web it transpires that the driver for the USB don't
> seem very stable (to say the least) but the culprit appears to be the
> Netgear wireless utility. One suggestion was to just install the Windows
> XP drivers alone and forget the utility. Means that you have to use
> Windows XP to control the wireless but that's usually works.
>
> Fortunately, I image my PC regularly so was able to easily go back to an
> earlier image before Netgear was installed. Installing the drivers alone
> seemed to work for me.
>
> I'm guessing (and it's a big guess) that the same utility is used on all
> the Netgear devices so maybe the same trick will work.

> time - I've had one total disconnection and the odd slowdown but the
> slowdowns wouldn't have been noticed had I not been looking for them).

Those happen anyway :-)