Last week I purchased NETGEAR's Rangeman MIMO Wireless Router and PCI Card for the house we moved into. Finally, COX Cable came today and installed the gear (as well as the digital telephone and the digital cable box that is now not working...another story). Anyway, I set up the wireless router and no problems there. Then I went to the PCI card. It installed, and let me open one webpage for 10 seconds before it caused my entire computer to crash. So I troubleshot it for a while to no avail. Finally, I called Netgear's tech support. Yeah...they are in India. I tried talking with one woman (Well, we were both talking, but we didn't understand each other, except for) and all I got out of here was, "You need to hang up, register your product ONLINE, and then call back."

Sure. Whatever. Did that, then I called back. I talked with the guy and he asked me what type of processor I had. AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (yeah, it's a few years old, but it works). He said, "Oh, okay sir, the NETGEAR products are not compatible with the AMD Athlon."

"Okay, so it sounds like I'm going to have to return the wireless router and the PCI Card."

"Oh, no sir, the best thing for you to do would be to replace your processor."

".....Huh?"

"Yes, sir. The best thing for you to do would be to replace your processor. The wireless card works just fine, it just isn't compatible with your processor."

"Right, but I've had this processor for a while now and I've never had a problem with it. Why would I replace the processor when I know it works with everything else in my computer? It makes more sense to replace the router and wireless card when I know they don't work with the computer."

".....Uh, okay sir, let me check just to confirm that the processor is not compatible with the wireless card first."

"Okay, sure."

"Uh, yes sir, the wireless card will work just fine it is just not compatible with your processor."

"Okay, thanks. I'll just replace the card and the router."

"Uh, okay sir. Thank you for calling tech support. Please complete the survey we will mail you about the call."

Yeah...so I'm on my way to BestBuy.

3/27/2007 6:30:26 PM

i am a fan of dell chat support. accents don't show through as much on chat

3/27/2007 6:36:10 PM

i find it hard to believe it wouldnt work with an AMD athlon XP

3/27/2007 8:16:00 PM

Yeah that seems like a fairly stupid kind of incompatibility.

3/27/2007 8:32:35 PM

yeah...I agree...I did return it and got the usb wireless from NETGEAR...it seems to be working better...only froze up once...looking online, I can't see anything in particular that would cause it to freeze...somebody on one site mentioned the possibility of a USB 2.0 vs. 1.1 issue...someone else mentioned the IRQs (there's a built-in VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter on the moboard on my cpu)...not exactly sure...but my 360 works just fine with the router...

3/27/2007 9:57:25 PM

this is utter bullshit

x86 is x86 is x86.

3/27/2007 11:36:11 PM

^ that's what it seems like, but i've heard of odd cases with AMD/Intel.

More likely though it's level 1 tech support seeing that the specs only say Intel and they are following their charts of saying only Intel will work.

It sounds though that kdawgc's computer has other problems, if it's crashing randomly like it is (I know it's WIndows but it's not suppose to do that).

3/27/2007 11:39:53 PM

it didn't start crashing until I put the wireless card in it...and it hasn't crashed in geez...about a year

3/28/2007 12:05:31 AM

fyi, I have a netgear USB 54G card, it was notorious for crashing. Turns out it draws a LOT of power from the USB port and a lot of computers can't deal with it.

first thing is to make sure it's plugges into a primary port or through a powered hub, second was downloading their new beta drivers. drivers fixed the issue for me, but I'll never buy another netgear card again.

3/28/2007 12:30:43 AM

Quote :

"but I'll never buy another netgear card again"

3/28/2007 1:45:59 AM

tried the card in another amd computer? another intel computer?

3/28/2007 6:17:39 AM

Noen, I think I'll try hooking it up to the powered port. I just woke up and when I tried to connect, the USB wouldn't turn on. Hardware manager said it wouldn't start and I had to uninstall and reinstall the blasted thing.

3/28/2007 6:47:13 AM