Why I buy this one ?
- Wireless connectivity for notebook PCs
- High-speed 11 Mbps data rate
- Operating range up to 500 feet indoors and 1,650 feet outdoors
- Supports Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, and 2000
- 5-year limited warranty

cheap-o-deals offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $19.99 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

cheap-o-deals offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $24.99 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

What our customer's say!

"Works OK", This wireless PC card does work intermittently, but is very inconsistent and slow. Do not recommend!!

"forget about the rebate amount", product works great. but i never recieved the rebate amount. Whatever product you will buy from Netgear, you will never get the rebate amount.

"Worked better than internal 54g card", This card works great and I haven't had any problems with it in spite of abusing it. However, the price seems a little high. You can buy newer models and even 802.11g cards for less.

I have used this card on 2 laptops. I used it on a work laptop that I used for travel, and then gave it to my daughter for her laptop, which she abuses. There is even a dent in the metal case. I was worried because about a quarter of the card sticks out from the laptop (for the antenna).

It came right up on both my computers, and I don't think I even needed to use the installation disc (maybe I did, I can't remember, but if I did, it was so easy that I forgot about it). Both my laptops have Windows XP.

The signal is very good. It is much better than the factory installed card that came with a Compaq computer. It is about the same as the internal card I have on an IBM laptop.

Note that with a router and this card, I am not able to get a good connection everywhere in my house. I blame that on the router and not the card. There are only so many walls 802.11 technology can penetrate. To get wireless connection to a remote bedroom, I bought a Buffalo router and repeater kit. It works great, when it works (the router had to be sent back to be fixed.)

Note that I have researched wireless networking systems, and they don't seem to be very reliable, especially wireless routers. I had both a Netgear and Buffalo wireless routers where the radio portion went out. These cards are probably more reliable.

If all you need this for is the internet, 802.11b is sufficient, because DSL or cable modems are not any faster. If you want to send video data between computers then you should go with 802.11g.

"Great for OTHER operating systems and older laptops", The Netgear MA401 802.11b Wireless PC Card is great for Windows 95, NT, Linux and Macintosh operating systems. The reason is that there are no other wireless cards that I know of that have DRIVERS for the wireless card to operate with the other operating systems. Newer Netgear products will not work.

The MA401 has a 16 bit PCMCIA interface is great for some older laptops that will not support a newer 32 bit cardbus interface.

This is in addition to the fact the MA401 is built well and has very good signal strenght.

"Just stopped working", After using this with the MR814 router for over a year, my computer no longer recognizes this product as a wireless adapter. When it's plugged in, it's identified as the MA_(four box symbols), and won't recognize the drivers that are installed because of this bogus product name. The last time this happened, tech support, which was previously very helpful with set up (terrible, incomplete instructions included in the box), had me try to ping my router a few times and then said they couldn't help anymore. Since this problem has happened multiple times, I have fixed it by uninstalling the bogus name from the device manager list and then plugging the card back in, which usually worked. Once I had to do a system restore--I'd like to not resort to that again.

This may be a problem with the "hibernate" as in some previous reviews (my computer has hibernate issues anyway), but this latest problem occurred after a full shut down. When it works, I was pretty happy with it (wireless is amazing), but I've had regular enough headaches that I can't recommend it, at least not with my low-end Dell laptop.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"I won't buy it again", I usually don't write reviews, but after reading other reviews, I became kind of upset and couldn't resist writing. I just can't believe those reviews who gave it high points. I bought "two" MA401 and a Netgear router 1.5 years ago. First of all, their effective range is less than 50 feet. I put my router on second floor, and I couldn't use it downstairs. The signal goes below 30%. I moved around, turn the direction, even installed RF mirror with aluminium foil, but couldn't get above 50%. At low signal strength, the speed goes down to 5.5 Mbps or 1 Mbps, but then, no data goes in/out. Is this how 802.11 supposed to work, stopping transmission at all below 11 Mbps? I had to live with barely 30% signal strength and a lot of frustration. Secondly, the netgear router is very unstable. It works flawlessly usually, then at a critical moment, it stops working. Not only wireless, but all the wired ports too. I turn it on/off, reset, cut off the cable modem, and do a lot of things in vain. Then after a few hours, it starts working again. Also it does not work very well with non-netgear cards either. My visitors can't use it wirelessly. Thirdly, the PC card is unstable. Sometimes it becomes hot and stops working. After cooling down, it becomes ok. Sometimes it fails to work when I boot up my notebook or plug in after power up. It finally stopped working entirely last week, and I am happy to be able to throw it away. I am shopping around for a new card, and that's why I came across with these reviews.

"Works flawless with Netgear MR814 802.11b wireless Router", This is a great product. I recomend this product to everybody who wants to go wireless. The installation was very easy. Security setup was also easy too. This card is working great with MR814 router and my dell laptop with windows 2000. I will buy Netgear products again for my wirless needs.

"Easy as pie", Wow, nice and easy. I purchased this adaptor to go along with a Dlink 614+ Broadband Router because I couldn't get the Dlink NIC to work...hmmm. I am running Win XP Pro on a company IBM Laptop. Loading the software from the CD was a easy. HOWEVER, NOTE WITH WINXP MACHINES: After you install the software, Windows automatically selects itself to "configure the wireless connections". This needs to be unchecked within the Network Connections. As soon as that is done, configure the card with the software installed and you are on.

"Not bad", I purchased this for my brother in law. Setup was good and the quality of the card seem to be on par with the rest of them. I've never been a netgear fan, but the price of this after rebates was a good deal at the time. Overall I was impressed. I'd buy Netgear again.

"GNU/Linux Plug and Play", Netgear MA401 802.11b card gets recognized, the moment you plug in
the card under Debian GNU/Linux and should be the same case for
most other GNU/Linux distributions. The chipset is compatible with
the standard "orinoco_cs" GPL driver. Let me know if you need my
configuration scripts.
- ab@fig.org