This relates to an older post (see below), but it's just got more complex. The PC freezes on file transers with both the Netgear WG511 and a newly fitted D-Link DWL-G520, although the latter might be a bit more stable. What's going on here ? There isn't anything unusual about the PC's specs, it's not overclocked etc. Does this mean that Netgear and D-Link's kit won't operate with an MSI/Athlon combination for anyone else ? The only other clue I've seen is post in German (similar problem) on another forum suggesting a VIA chipset may be the conflict.

Any ideas appreciated ... Alan

Details from my earlier post... "I've just built a PC using an Athlon 2400 and MSI KT4V motherboard. Also just set up a Netgear WiFi system using a WGR614 router and WG511 for my laptop (which connects fine).

However ... after installing a WG311 in the PC this desktop freezes if a file transfer is attempted. The internet connection seems to be stable. Reception is good to very good, WEP 64 is enabled.

Any ideas anyone ? I've spoken to the WiFi kit supplier and they suggesting swopping the WG311 for a D-Link (I just thought itwould make sense using all Netgear kit)."

Netgear WG511 is freezing up my PC as well. It is a custom built Althon 1.2 with a SOYO motherboard. Although it doesn't freeze up all the time, it still does frequently which is quite annoying. I heard that this problem might be corrected if you turn off the USB support in BIOs but that doesn't sound like a good option to me.

Hi,
i have the same problem with a MSI KT3V, it seem that there is an incompatility with VIA chipset and DWL-G520 (same chipset and drivers than WG311). D-link support in france do not have the solution for the moment, but i try to disable DMA mode on twice IDE primary/secondary controleurs and then windows stop crashes... but the system is slow...
wait a new drivers from dlink or netgear, nothing else to do ? surely

Hi I have the same problem with my biostar MBoard with KT chipset , Athlon 800 and Netgear 311G. (in France too btw). Windows randomly freezes and I have to reset the system at random. Also Warcraft is a system killer and I noticed that there are serious losses of connectivity when using a file on the remote machine e.g. if i try to play a tune from the main machine, i would have loss of connections, system "hicups" and some system final freezes.

I am gonna try the DMA trick although its a pity.

Hope someone will come with a solution (preferrably netgear with a compatible driver :p)

It's good to know it's not just me ... there must be hundreds of similar combinations of cards, motherboards, and chipsets around ... but it doesn't help us.

I was hoping by now to have tried another possibility, which is swopping out the PCI card for a USB2 version, but neither the Netgear or Dlink versions are available yet. The PC has been stable in hardrive DMA-disabled mode for a few days, so that's something. Does anyone know why disabling DMA works ? Is it just slowing everything down or taking something Crucial for the conflict (or whatever) out of the system ? Does anyone think a USB2 54g card would have the same conflict issue ?

The supplier (broadbandbuyer.co.uk) and technical support people there have been really helpful, but I think they are a bit stuck for ideas now. I'll post any further experiences. Alan

As, posted on another thread, i got redirected to this one by Alan. I too have an MSI KT4V Board with Netgear WGR614 Router, 2 WG311 PCI Cards and a D-Link 300g+ Ethernet Modem.

I originally had problems connecting to my broadband connection through the wireless device, (seems like all of you have) so i used the onboard lan to try and connect. No Joy. So eventually i got fed up and just connected through the ADSL modem, This worked fine until the need to have 2 computers browsing occurred. I tried to connect through the onboard Lan, through the router (using cables) to the modem, but there was a conflict with the IP addresses. Both devices had a settings page with same IP address 192.168.0.1, This was another pain, and eventually after some luck, I figured i might install an old ethernet card, and bam, it all worked fine and this is currently how i am connected to the internet.

However, for the second computer, and eventually this one (the cables are so messy) i would want the wireless cards working. I paid the money, so why should it not work. Netgear, report a IRQ conflict, and trying to disable the DMA is B***S***. If there is any new info on disabling the DMA, ie the consequences, trade offs, let me know. I would prefer not to disable it, but if it will work.

Also, I spoke to someone that knows a lot about computers, and he said to try and allot a different irq slot in Device Manager, He said it was a bit of hit and miss. I haven't tried this yet, but anyone alse with better understanding of computers might know. If it works, post up a step by step guide, it would be most appreciated by me, and the other forum users.

DMA trck does not work.

As far as I am concerned, I returned the card to my retailer and exchanged it for a SMC card, which works great.

This is the reply I got from their tech support regarding the PCI card (WG311) .. and sofar it's worked for me .. oh .. I also had to remove my Soundblaster Live Card .. which kinda sux, so I'm using my motherboards onboard soundcard for now. I do still get weird pauses from time to time, but it hasn't crashed like it used to.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Netgear Support. My name is <removed> & I will be handling your enquiry.


Disable the XP utility by following the below steps

1)Right click the Two computer like icon on the system tray.

2)Click on "View available networks"

3)Click on the Advance button.

4)Uncheck the option " use windows to configure" and click on ok.

Regards

Netgear Support
support@esupport.netgear.com

I had the same freezing problem with the DWL-G520 on an MSI KT3 Ultra. I tried tons of stuff with no success, and then I tried James's trick of disabling DMA on both the primary and secondary IDE controllers (in Windows) and now it runs fine. Of course, anything that uses the hard drive a lot is now noticeably slower.

In case anyone out there is trying to find other solutions, I've already tried upgrading the KT3's BIOS version and the DWL's driver version, moving cards around, fixing IRQs in BIOS, trying the BIOS and Setup defaults, underclocking the CPU, overclocking the CPU, etc. None of these things had any effect. So, until D-Link fixes this problem, my hard drives are going to be sitting around in PIO-only mode.

ahh glad its not just me then. I have a MSI KT4V and this f'ing netgear card has been nothing but hassle since I installed it. . Tried every thing you've all suggested and think it's best if i take it back as its only 2 weeks old. netgear need to sort there act out! + there support is about as good as AOL's
(ie monkeys who cut and paste responses to you or send you the help page that you've spent days looking at already)

A solution ! (of sorts). We finally got around to swopping out the D-Link card for the Netgear USB card WG121, which was launched before the D-Link equivalent etc in the UK. This seems to have solved all the previous problems, although the supplier (broadbandbuyer.co.uk - who have been really helpful throughout) weren't sure it would. Apart from the occassional loss of network (which could be anything I guess) the system - this PC and the other 2 in the network - have been stable and it all works well.

No one has been able to explain why the cards don't work in the combination we have experienced. Apart from the few who have contacted this forum I think there must be many others out there with the same issue, getting the same unhelpful responses from Netgear etc - and wasting hours trying to sort it all out. Good luck - I'd be interested to know if this solution works for others.

Just wanted to add some more to this thread - I just bought a fresh Shuttle SK43G, VIA KM400 VT8378 chipset, Athlon XP2400, running Windows 2000 server (neat setup . My f***ing Netgear wg311 does EXACTLY the same thing. Total freeze at random times when the network is used, not even a bluescreen. *crying*

For those of you having problems with the WG311 .. there are new drivers out at last (v1.3) .. hopefully they'll fix all the problems

ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/wg311_1_3.zip

Good luck!

Joel

Hey I got the same problem and listen : IT'S NOT A DRIVER PROBLEM.
I say that because I'm using a WG511 on a Linux-box with the same problems (opensource madwifi drivers). The computer freezes ad random times and that's a really strange thing for a Linux-box compared to a windows machine and it often means only one thing : hw problem.

The machine can run stable for some days and than suddenly freeze one ore two time a day. I've noted that it freezes more frequently when there is another wireless device on the network apart from itself and the accesspoint.

So one of the two : either both linux and windows driver share the same problem or it's not a driver problem but and HW one. I think the latter is the more probable and the more serious.
Although it could be possibile to have a software workaround, depending on the actual cause of this annoying behaviour it could be impossibile to fix it with a patch on the driver side.

I was thinking it was only a problem of mine, but judging from this forum I think it's a NETGEAR problem and if it's so I want THEM to solve it.

Any ideas ?

I've had a problem with wg311 where everytime it scans the channels for the router the whole computer froze.
This was particularly annoying when I was playing music!

I decided to see if it was EMI so I bought a cable to get the aerial further from the computer. The connectors need to be reverse SMA (reverse means the pin/screw plug combination is reversed). Anyway the computer still regularly scans the airwaves but the computer no longer locks up!

Eureka!

I've done it.

I have managed to get the Wg311 up and running on the wireless network without having to disable DMA.

On the KTV4 motherboards, disable the onboard LAN in Bios, remove all other network cards and install the WG311.

I dont have the freezing problems anymore, although I'm not running XP cooler now which is part of PC ALERT 4, coz that seems to freeze it sometimes ?????

Good luck

James

Hi, Im having problems installing my WG311 PCI card

I am having problems with a WG311 card. I have a VIA chipset, S3 Trio 3D/2X graphics card, Win XP OS

I have removed all other network adapters, & sound card,
I have inserted 500 MB of RAM
I have formatted hard drive an installed XP from scratch
I have updated the chipset driver
I have installed the latest wg311 driver
I have unchecked the "use windows to configure" option
I have tried disabling USB and DMA as suggested on some bulletin boards
I am still waiting for a responce to an e-mail I sent to netgear tec support

I can't think of anything else

Can you help???

Just to continue the thought process -
I have WGR614 wireless router and WG311 PCI card in my daughters machine - MSI KT4V motherboard , Athlon 2500+ , 512MB RAM, and I experienced continual lock-ups .
I tried disabling UDMA on drives as suggested by others and it worked for me - it has stopped the crashes, but seriously impacts drive performance ( should be ATA 100 drives ).
I have installed latest VIA chipset drivers etc so I'm left with the conclusion that Netgear must be at fault - either the card is faulty or the Netgear drivers are faulty.
If anyone has tried another 'g' card that worked with the VIA chipset that worked with netgear router - I'd like to hear about it
thanks
kevin Wright

THANK YOU THANK YOU Joel Fortmann
Actually thanks to all.

Today i spent whole night trying to install Dlink DWL-G520 network card on my friends computer
actually card was working fine, until he replace computer with an older one.

My problem was that this card was not even installing ( something like "can not allocate resource" with question mark on device)
I tried D-link drivers with no luck also I disable DMA and USB - no results
Untill I finnaly decided to give a try to ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/wg311_1_3.zip
netgear drivers as Joel said, and to my total suprise it worked!
decpite it's not even dlink driver.

System is quite stable since that when i finnaly got internet on that comp, I instulled tons of software till the morning and it didn't crush yet.

thanks again!

For one year I have looked for the answer to this problem of the DWL-G520 causing my MSI mother board to Freez Up and finaly found the answer here, I went into the Bios and DISABLED THE ON BOARD LAN and it is working perfect now!.

Before trying this I over the last year removed the G520 card and gave up several times, only to trey again when a new Bios UpDate came out for the mother board or a new version of the NetGear G520 software came out or just got bored and messed around with puting card into diffrent slots and or disabling sound or usb or trying that Disable DMA thing... but with out DMA computer was dog crap slow so just used this computrer on a wired lan till today! WOW finaly can roll up the wire and clean up my house!
THANKS to hardwareanalysis.com and another computer user that refused to give up.

WHY the onboard lan has to be disabled on this motherboard I realy don't know, all I can figure is that the board does not allocate the IRQ's or address of the PCI slots correctly.

have an ASUS motherboard. when i had my belkin netowrk card in, my pc was fine. as soon as i installed the dlink dwl-520 it started giving me BSOD. error with a driver. even when i changed to the chipset manufacturers driver (some company beginning with "A" althros or something like that) it had a problem with their driver too