Netgear USB Wireless w/Win XP SP2 Q's?

Bob_M hath wroth:

Could I trouble you to disclose the model number of your Netgear USB adapter? Extra points for disclosing what access point or router you're connecting to.

WPA is failing to authenticate. Check your typing for the WPA phrase.

Not me. I nevr mak typng errrors.

Also see:

I am sorry that I don't have an answer for you, but I have experienced the identical situation in my various attempts to get a wireless PCI card working in the Win98SE box, as mentioned in my post, .

I hope that we can get a good answer to this. I have some suspicions, but I don't want to muddy the water with uninformed speculations.

Thanks guys for the input. Sorry about the model number omission. Its an MA111v2 USB wireless adapter.

Now, this morning... came to work, brought up the system, wireless network came up, four seconds later disconnected. Played around with the firewall on/off button (normally I keep it off because I am behind a firewall) and click on repair connection. Took some time but it came up and for some unknown reason, it is still up (5 minutes now) and I am typing this. I didn't do anything special except toggle the Windows firewall on/off/on/off a few times then repair.

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. But, don't think I will purchase Netgear wireless stuff again. I've had NO problems installing/configuration/using other brand wireless in the past.

Thanks,

Bob

bobmct hath wroth:

Did you check your typing? I've blown it a few times with leading spaces and difficult to see punctuation marks.

There are a few postings on DSLreports forums that suggest that the Netgear wireless utility is deficient and suggests using Windoze Wireless Zero Config instead. Have you tried both?

What's the access point maker and model? Does it have some form of security such as MAC or IP address filters? Any secondary authentication such as RADIUS? It appears that you're successfully associating with the access point but something is declaring you to be unauthorized, unathenticated, or unwanted.

Ummm... is this an authorized wireless access point at work, or an unathorized one? Just curious.

Weird. Since it appears to be your personal access point, you might want to just start over. Just reset to defaults and setup a really simple unencrypted session. That should work or one end is possibly broken. Then, turn on WPA encryption. If that works, turn on whatever MAC or IP filters are probably causing problems.

Are there any other laptops in the office that can (or cannot) connect to this mystery access point? Also, try your laptop at a wireless hot spot to see if it's working as expected. That will isolate whether the problem is at the MA111v2 end or at the mystery access point end.

FYI - figured it out myself but eventually get a response from Netgear tech support.

It appears that Win SP2 broke something in the netgear programs. I had removed/uninstalled the netgear programs and used PnP to re-detect the device and install ONLY the drivers. From then on the Windows Zero Configuration seemed to handle things just fine. It stayed up ALL DAY today. Slow, but up and alive.

Thanks all.

Bob

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

FWIW I've found the Netgear wireless utility (latest version) to work very well in addition to being more capable than Windows Wireless Zero Config.

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

Netgear software is working fine here on Windows XP SP2, perhaps because I'm using the latest versions. See for more info on SP2 issues and fixes.

I am sorry that I don't have an answer for you, but I have experienced the identical situation in my various attempts to get a wireless PCI card working in the Win98SE box, as mentioned in my post, .

I hope that we can get a good answer to this. I have some suspicions, but I don't want to muddy the water with uninformed speculations.

phrase.

That was exactly my suspicion in my case -- though there was nothing wrong with the passphrase. I've watched this happen once in a while on this machine and after a couple of auto-retry attempt it goes. Why? I dunno. I also notice that the router admin page sometimes rejects logon and you have to enter it twice, though it's automated and has no possibility for error. Glitches!

When I get the wireless card working in the Win98SE box (see above) I'll be able to play with this some more.

BTW, Gibson says that certain wireless chipsets can't handle non- alphanumeric ASCII key characters, which could explain non- authentication if you're using, for example, higher-security 63- character random string keys. I'm not positive, but I believe this is the case with ZyDAS 1211 devices. Logon problems disappeared with that unit after going to a straight alphanumeric key. More experimentation is in order.

mne nbeither

Bob,

I have bought 4 NetGear items in the last year: an ADSL modem and a MR814V1 wireless router at a sale last Jan, and another wireless router (MA814V2) and an MA111v2 like yours in Dec, as a Xmas present for my daughter for her two computers.

The ADSL modem was faulty on delivery, but was quickly replaced with a new one which worked, and still does. The MR814v1 was OK.

The MA814V2 and the MA111V2 were both faulty. The MA814 fault was easy to diagnose (ethernet connections worked but no wireless signal) but the MA111 took a bit longer in that every time it would work fine to my V1 wireless router after bootup for about 5 minutes then would lose connection and say there was no signal available. Running Network Stumbler on my laptop alongside the recalcitrant MA111 soon put the lie to that.

Unfortunately, the purchase receipt was lost in amongst all the Xmas paper wrapping and thrown out, and neither the store or NetGear would do anything about the faulty equipment under warranty without the receipt as proof of purchase. Repair at my expense would have cost more than the equipment was worth.

I gave up fighting, threw the Mr814v2 and Ma111v2 into the trash and instead bought a Belkin wireless router and USB adapter (from a different store!), and they installed and worked like a charm, but being 11g instead of b were much faster, so my daughter was happy even though the cost of my Xmas present more than doubled!

So I will NEVER buy NetGear products ever again. 3 out of 4 failing out of the box is just not acceptable - they must have zero quality control or testing.

--=20 Regards, Peter Wilkins

Dunno. Can I guess? RF interference on the first few attempts that went away when it finally succeeded?

Packet loss or interference? I guess you're doing this via wireless.

Good idea. Having two computahs for testing will possibly eliminate the computer as the culprit, leaving perhaps the router. Also try it via a direct ethernet connection just to be sure.

Naw, that's for WEP, not WPA. The problem is that there are two algorithms for converting WEP ASCII keys to Hex. Microsoft XP only supports one of these algorithms. Using Hex always works, ASCII doesn't. There's only one algorithm for WPA so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the feedback, Peter. As stated, compared to other products I've installed and used successfully in the past, this was a hassle. The MA111v2 worked OK all day today to I'm going to keep it but as soon as I can replace my desktop with a 64bit notebook its going to be given away.

Thanks again.

Bob

Maybe the latest version, but the version shipped with the NIC was flaky and prone to locking Windows XP solid.

Rob.

One more observation with my (former) netgear MA111v2 USB 2.0 802.11b adapter...

Shouldn't it be able to work with a non-USB 2.0 USB port (i.e.: USB

1.x)?

Again, this adapter wouldn't work at all today and out of frustration I yanked it, uninstalled the drivers then plugged in a ZyXel G-200 USB

802.11g adapter, installed the latest drivers and it came instantly alive. Worked for the rest of the day.

Anyone want to purchase an almost new Netgear MA111v2 USB really cheap???

Bob

:-)

The Netgear USB I was trailing at work in a Citrix/terminal server environment locked my PC solid on a few occasions and then started freezing the traffic. The later is especially noticeable in the terminal server environment where mouse movements and screen updates are continually streaming backwards and forwards albeit a relatively low bandwidth.

A friend asked me to wireless their house inc. a laptop and I decided to go for wireless USB NIC as I've found these get a better signal than PCMCIA cards. Not as neat and tidy though. So I bought them the cheapest USB wireless NIC I could find on Dabs - the ubiquitous Edimax variant :-)

As the kit arrived at work, I decided to give it a go in the same situation and it's working perfectly for at least a week. Must get around to installing it at friends house! It doesn't come with a neat little plastic bracket though so it's bluetack time.

Cheers, Rob.