Netgear WG511T or WGT624 crashes Windows XP

[dchilder]

I've got a Netgear WGT624 108 Mbps router, which works fine for my wired desktop. However, I've also got a Netgear WG511T 108 Mbps wireless card for my laptop. I use Windows XP Professional, installed the latest drivers successfully (true for router as well), and started off fine. Unfortunately, at the beginning I was not accessing my home LAN through the wireless connection, just the Internet.

When I started trying to access my LAN drives and files, Windows XP would crash to blue screen and give me an error about the Netgear driver issues. I tried this first on my older Dell laptop, and then tried the card on a brand new Dell work laptop-- same issues. The problem *usually* doesn't happen with just web browsing, but it does happen when I try to do certain things, like streaming video, or using a VPN. However, sometimes it just crashes my computer while I am starting Windows and it is loading my desktop. If I access files on the LAN, like video, it usually crashes within minutes.

The new drivers are Microsoft certified I believe, and Netgear's Indian tech support has not been helpful. The only recommendation they've given me, besides "download the latest drivers" was to adjust my MTU setting in the router. No luck there.

First of all, has anyone else had similar problems with crashes when using Netgear wireless products? If so, what did you do to fix it? Apparently there is a generic Atheros driver around that a few people seem to be using, but that disables the 108 Mbps speed that was one of the reasons I bought this particular router/card combo.

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

David

 

[dchilder]

Bump for help...

Anyone even use these Netgear problems? No problems? Please let me know what driver versions you are using if you use Windows XP. Thanks

 

[fogleroller]

I just bought the same setup yesterday. My laptop was locking up because of the Netgear PC card.

There are brand new beta drivers/software that was released yesterday (oct 8) for the WG511T card (VER 3.8 . they seem to be working. You must completely uninstall all Netgear software/drivers that are installed.

http://kbserver.netgear.com/su...details.asp?dnldID=850

 

[dchilder]

I've installed the new beta drivers on one laptop. I'll post if I continue to have the problems.

 

[yohji74]

Dave, have you had success in this setup? I recently purchased this combo and, like you, had no problems accessing web pages and doing normal activities on my new dell latitude laptop - i don't even need the card anymore since the laptop has b/g capability built in, but i wanted the 108MBps speeds. if i access large files from my desktop, stream audio/video files residing on my desktop or upload files to the net from the wg511t, then i also get a BSD indicating a problem with the 511t.sys drivers. it appears that anything that resembles intensive downloading/uploading 'kills' the driver. i also notice that the connection immediately prior to the BSD becomes erractic - when i view that Tx Rx on the monitor, it begins to get choppy right before the crash. i've done this about 6x to isolate the problem to no avail.

i didn't yet download the new beta drivers, worrying that it might f*** up my new laptop. i'm waiting for a fix from netgear. interestingly enough, i don't think too many ppl have been having this problem since your post was the first i've seen on it. i have v2 of the wgt624. pls let me know if the new beta drivers work or if you have any other word around. thanks.

 

[dchilder]

I've had the beta driver installed for a couple of weeks now and I've had no problems at all since then. However, I haven't done any file transfers on my LAN (OS reinstall on my desktop with SP2 had some hiccups). I have been trying to do streaming video over the Internet, which also used to cause crashes, and I've had no problems at all with that. I'll post if I ever reconnect to my LAN and have problems, but I'd recommend installing the beta driver. At worst, you'll have to reinstall the old drivers, and at best, the problem will stop. You have a Dell too... I'm thinking that this had something to do with Dell drivers or hardware. Very strange.

David

 

[yohji74]

thanks. i'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

 

[fogleroller]

new beta driver just released

http://kbserver.netgear.com/su...details.asp?dnldID=875