Netgear MA701 Short Review

jonnylbluejeans · 02-19-03, 04:53 PM

After a little bit of fooling around, I have my Wifi Card working.

I had some troubles with WEP at first. For some reason, if I used WEP 128bit, I could not make any DNS requests. I could only talk by IP address. (I have other Wifi devices on my network, and I am sure that I had set it up correctly.) After disabling WEP, all was well.

It autodetects the WiFi speed, and performs well. I am, however, less than impressed with the form factor. There is a good deal of space between the top of the Axim and the bottom of the extended part of the card. (I will submit pics later) It doesn't look "sturdy" at all.

One more thing... get the vxUtils from the download section. (Follow the link to their homepage and check the WinCe section) There is an ipConfig tool there to release and renew DHCP leases. (I needed that a few times.)

Overall, I am happy with how it works, but if I were you, I'd do some investigating to find the card that fits the best.

jda5id · 02-19-03, 05:34 PM

Just to make sure I understand your form factor issue...you are saying that there is a gap between the top of the Axim and the fat part at the top of the MA701 (the antenna).

If yes, then I wanted to let you know know that the Linksys WCF12 has a gap as well. It is about 1/4".

aximppc · 02-24-03, 04:07 AM

I didn't like MA701 too much. First of all, it does not allow one to manage profiles. I tried drivers from other vendors but PPC does not allow it. I have manged to install ambicom drivers in win2000 to use the MA701 in a cp card slot using an adapter. Ambicom allows profile management. I called netgear and they said they cannot mange profiles. I told them that almost every manufacture out there has profile management. It seems MA401 the PCCARD brother of MA701 has profile settings. I have also successfully installed MA401 drivers version 2.0 for win2000 to use with MA701.

Also the form factor is not pleasant. The antenna section is too thick. I wish it is no thicker that the CF portion, but it's almost 3X thicker.

Speedfreak · 02-24-03, 02:21 PM

To aximppc,

So let me get this straight. You actually got the MA701 working on a laptop using the MA401 drivers? Did you notice any performance issues or does it work just as it does on the Axim?

I had always thought that the MA701 was for PDAs only. This is good news now that I don't have to spend too much to get wifi on my laptop!

Thanks for the tip!

TSB8C · 02-24-03, 04:18 PM

I too use the MA701 CF card. I am very pleased with the performance. I also wish the upper (antenna) portion was not so thick. Perhaps that larger antenna is needed to get the excellent range I experience, but it is a pain to insert this card into a pocket in the case and not have it either get crushed or crush something else. It's a non-issue for me when it is actually inserted into the Axim - just a problem when in the case pocket not being used.

gordy · 02-24-03, 04:48 PM

I to use the MA701. It took longer to take out of the box than it did to set up. It has not failed once and I am using it with a Linksys wireless router/switch.

Yes there is a gap....but who cares. The performance it great and it does not hog my battery. I can get about 2 hours out of it.

Regards

gordy

aximppc · 02-26-03, 02:03 PM

SpeedFreak,
Yes I am using MA401 drivers with the MA701 card in win2000. No problems. Actually I have switched to ambicom drivers which has more features. Most of these guys use the reference design from intersil and then ship it with their own packaging and their own modified drivers. In fact I am using intersil's latest drivers in the PDA. It has profiles !!!!!!!!

Intersil drivers are a pain to install. Netgear will probably release some new drivers soon.

Speedfreak · 02-26-03, 03:15 PM

Aximppc.
Sound great, I can't wait to try those other drivers. I'm on ambicom's site now but I'm not sure which driver to grab. Would it happen to be this one "WL1100B: Wave2net IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN" ??? I also have an older laptop with win95 so I hope Ambicom has drivers for that OS.

I've downloaded the drivers from Intersil but I'm not sure if I need to, or even know how to, uninstall the Netgear drivers from my Axim first.

Being able to create different profiles for each SSID would be the icing on the cake for my MA701.

Please help!!

aximppc · 02-26-03, 05:21 PM

speedfreak,
Uninstall the Netgear drivers or go to the control-panel / networks/ properties of the netgear card. Try to find the update driver button. Chose the "Have Disk" button and point to the OEMSETUP.INF file the downloaded ambicom drivers.

You have the correct ambicom drivers

Speedfreak · 02-27-03, 01:36 PM

Hi Aximppc,

I removed the Netgear util/driver from my Axim, loaded the Intersil Prism 2.0.9 drivers and now Pocket Warrior works perfectly. The only feature I missed from the Netgear util/driver was the ability to see the IP status info of the current access point and DHCP assisgned address. Other than that, the combo of Intersil & PW is truly awesome. I was able to see a list of APs detected around my neighborhood without having to hit rescan like I had to with the Netgear util. I haven't tried to connect with any of the newly found APs, but is it just a matter of putting the SSID into the Intersil BSSID field?

Thanks for all your help thus far!

aximppc · 02-27-03, 01:53 PM

speedFreak,
To further enhance your pleasure, check out http://www.cirond.com and their WiNC program. This allows you to configure you PDA for various networks. Say WORK and HOME. When you arrive at work, it will see the work AP and configure all the settings automatically. And when you arrive home, it will see your home AP and change the settings automatically.

Speedfreak · 02-27-03, 02:05 PM

Oh my god, you totally rock!! Thanks a billion, man!

jonnylbluejeans · 02-28-03, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by aximppc
speedFreak,
To further enhance your pleasure, check out http://www.cirond.com and their WiNC program. This allows you to configure you PDA for various networks. Say WORK and HOME. When you arrive at work, it will see the work AP and configure all the settings automatically. And when you arrive home, it will see your home AP and change the settings automatically.

Dude, that app rocks. My only complaint is that it takes a bit to find the network. Mine just sits scanning for a network for a little bit. Pocket warrior is much faster at actually "finding" a network, but it is nowhere near a featured as WinC.

Norco · 03-02-03, 09:52 PM

What are these Intersil Prism 2.0.9 drivers you're talking about? winc doesn't work with my ma701 w/netgear drivers, and i'd like to be able to use the sofware. What steps can I use to force it to work? Thanks.

Norco · 03-02-03, 10:08 PM

n/m, found it