"Outspoken"
Problems with Netgear Network cards FA311 & FA312.
(written 20 Dec 2002)
At PPS, we used Netgear FA310 network card for years without any problems (from 1999 onwards). We found them to be most reliable, fast, and with pretty good drivers (even though there were too many revisions of drivers!)
Then in 2001, Netgear released a newer card, the Netgear FA311. We immediately switched to this card, on the assumption that it would be even better.
However, it became apparent after some months, that lots of the workstations that were fitted with these cards were troublesome. Often doing weird things like randomly not allowing sign into a domain controller, or often having huge delays (like up to 2 minutes) when signing into Windows 2000 servers etc. Sometimes when copying large files, the time taken would vary significantly, like up to double the time. Sometimes, mid session, drive mappings to a server would vanish. Yet re-mapping them fixed it so that you could continue (until the next problem).
So we set about doing some testing. On one of these troublesome workstations, we did a simple Ping test, with the "-t" option, so that it would continuously ping. With no other traffic on the network at all, you would get random results, looking something like this.... reply, reply, timeout, reply, timeout, timeout, reply, reply reply, timeout, reply etc etc. Completely random, and completely unacceptable.
Swap the card for a Netgear FA310, and wallah! The problem goes away, and the reply is consistent at 1ms or better. The problem also does not exist if replaced with a Intel PCI network card.
We have been unable to pinpoint the cause of this problem, as we have some FA311's in machines which work fine. But we have noticed this... The problem seems to be far more common in machines with cpu speed faster than 1GHz. Older machines seem to work fine. All the machines we have tested have been Genuine Intel processors (Celeron and P4), and on two brands of motherboard (Soltek and Intel).
When speaking to Netgear about this problem, they did not admit that there was a problem. However, I know that several other dealers who purchase Netgear cards through the same wholesaler that I use, have also reported the problem.
After Oct 2002, the Netgear FA310 cards became unavailable, and so we began using Netgear's latest card, the FA312. We have successfully installed several workstations with this card, but have just recently discovered that some machines do exactly the same problem. As of Dec 2002, we have decided not to sell Netgear network cards again, until Netgear can provide a card that does not suffer from this packet-loss problem. We are instead selling Intel Network cards.
I feel that the problem is either in the chipset used on this card (which is very similar between the FA311 and the FA312) or with the drivers that are shipped with Windows XP, or with the card itself.
Update 26 Apr 2005:
We recently came across another person with some Netgear issues... This person has had two FA311 network cards, that have failed after a year or less in their PC. When they started dying, they caused weird problems, including recent problems with my having to uninstall and reinstall the software / drivers for thir Audigy 2 Value soundcard, to get sound from my rear speakers once again. Along with that, they even had an incident where they found their speaker settings changed to 2.1 sound, and I then had to change it back to 5.1. They even had trouble connecting to the net, thanks to the FA311 network card when it started dying. Replacing the 311 card witha diferent brand card fixed the problem. Next problem was with their Netgear FR114P router... About 4 or 5 firmware revisions ago, Netgear trashed the ability to block website ads using the Keyword blocking in the FR114P setup screens.
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updated on 26 Apr 2005.