Summary: I purchased this FA311 card after successfully using dozens of Netgear's FA310TX NICs in client's machines over the past several years. I installed this on a 500 MHz AMD K6-2 machine running Windows 98SE and immediately started experiencing sporadic OS lockups. Since I'd also installed several other networking programs at the same time, it took a week of uninstalling one-program-at-a-time seeking a solution. Finally this NIC was the only change remaining. I swapped it out for a used NIC I had lying around. The system lockups stopped, and I picked up approximately 2Mbps file transfer rate improvement (on a 10 Mbps network).
Reviewed by: its_wayne on 15-Feb-03Rating:
Strengths: Inexpensive, easy to install. Good instructions.
Summary: I have this NIC installed in two computers on my network. Each of these is running under Windows XP Home edition and I had absolutely no problem with the hardware installation or setup. Netgear's instructions were simple, accurate, and helpful. Both NICs work as advertised out of the box. I purchased mine on sale and don't think you can get a much better value for your money. I have purchased both the Netgear FVS318 VPN router and these NICs and I am pleased with both. I would definitely purchase this brand again.
Reviewed by: rbeaufor on 19-Feb-03Rating:
Strengths: Reputation
Summary: Once I installed this NIC in my computer, my PC would not boot...at all... I changed to difference PCI slots with the same problem. After uninstalling the video card and putting the card in I was able to boot after hitting reset a couple of times.
The end result is this, there is a little know fact that the AMD 750 chipset and the netgear FA311 (some also report the FA312 are incompatible. Some surmise that if you reassign the Interrupt (IRQ) of other PCI peripherals and use only bus mastering PCI slots on your mobo, you MAY get the card to work reliably........not worth it.
DO NOT buy this card if you have an AMD Athlon board!!