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Our wireless router's range does not reach all areas of our house so we needed another solution.Installation was amazingly easy, it was literally as simple as plugging the transmitter into a wall socket, connecting the Ethernet cable to my router and the transmitter, plugging the receiver into a wall socket on the far side of the house (and a floor up), and connecting an Ethernet cable to the reciever and my PC. The Netgear "Powerline Ethernet Adapter" solved a difficult problem for use since our house is a very old, large Victorian and it is difficult to run wires between floors. That was it, just worked perfectly out of the box.The speed of the connection is more than acceptable and we have never had any drops.Highly Recommended.CFH
Amazingly, Netgear has a tech support in Buenos Aires.that, of course, cannot take part in this claim, because the item wasn't purchased in south america.Bottom line.if you don't live in the US, don't buy it. Funny thing is that neither Amazon nor Netgear could give me a feasible solution to exchange the faulty product. I bought this stuff and brought it to Chile. It actually worked great.until, one month later, one of the adapters broke down. Now I have to send this thing back to the US, so they can declare it faulty and give me an exchange (or a refund).
No issues with Linux. These things work right out of the box and are wildly fast. I keep a spare in case one burns out.
Now I can deal with that for downloading large files over night (when nobody else hinders the speed) or just browsing the net but when it comes to gaming.this just won't fly. I've had no issues as far as other appliances around the house interfering with my speed or connection, then again.the room I am in contains the breaker box and I have a feeling the room is on its own circuit.Should you buy it.This was kind of a last resort for me, just short of getting my own cable service. If you are in a similar situation this would be my first recommendation.PROS:----------------------------------------Just plug them in, hook up the ethernet cable and thats it.Comes with a CD but NO CONFIGURATION NEEDEDThey do exactly what they claimCONS:----------------------------------------PRICEthe light on these things is pretty bright (in case you're a vampire)CONSIDER:----------------------------------------The room you are in; is it own its own circuit. The real test will come with realtime multiplayer gaming.
I seem to have better luck on my PC. No lag to speak of. Gaming sessions with Halo 3 and COD:MW2 have been fine. I'm an Network Administrator by trade but it not being my house I can't exactly go punching holes in walls to get an ethernet jack in the room. They have DSL (bleh) and worse, its wireless. I haven't done any actual gaming with it but I have downloaded many games on xbox live and the playstation network with decent speed. They were a bit pricey but so is the wireless adapter for 360 and its a reliable WIRED connection.
Downloading large files through the Xbox and PS3 can be a bit slow though. Recently I moved into a basement apartment in my girlfriend's house so we could save money in hopes of getting a real apartment in the future. So yea, I could have bought the OUTRAGEOUSLY overpriced Xbox 360 wireless adapter and have everyone yell at me about my lag but I thought this might be a good time to try out this new-fangled EOP technology.So far its great. how far is it from the breaker box.How far are the adapters from each other and what is in between.How old/reliable is the wiring in your house.UPDATE: After owning for 2 months I am satisfied.
I email Netgear's support group; after three days, still no reply, so I find their phone support number on their website (888-NET-GEAR -- not listed with their warranty info, btw) and spend 15 minutes wandering through the voicemail menus and sitting on hold. Sweet.OK, five stars to Amazon. Problem: since this is a two-pack, that means I need to send back a perfectly good unit with the bad one. And I didn't pick this up at Best Buy or wherever; since I got it from Amazon, I need to MAIL it back and wait for a replacement. When I talk to a tech she is able to pull up my case number with no problem, and I am able to talk her out of running through the diagnosis script this time. At which point I discover that Netgear accidentally did me a favor, since dealing with Amazon turns out to be easier than going to Best Buy and explaining things so some clerk.
But he gives me a case number and tells me to call back when the unit does fail.Half an hour later the unit has once again failed on the Ethernet side. I call back, and this time (being after normal business hours even on the West Coast) spend half an hour on hold. Finally I get a tech, I explain what happened and what I've done to diagnose the problem. I got my first XE103 last year because I wanted to upgrade my home network in stages, and the XE103 & XE104 (NETGEAR XE104 85 Mbps Powerline 4-Port Ethernet Adapter) are backwards compatible with the XE102 (speeds between units are determined by the slowest unit, of course).After buying 12 Netgear Powerline units, I finally got one that failed shortly out of the box. Sorry sir, company policy, etc. Sorry sir, company policy, etc.So at this point I'm not happy.
AND they are shipping it 2nd day air (my original shipment was Super Saver). So now I get to test Netgear's warranty support. So I can check out both new units, make sure one works, and get the bad one (and one good one, probably) back to Amazon on their prepaid postage label. Amazon is shipping me a replacement product, no questions asked (well, not many), and I have a month to return the bad unit. But only three to the XE103, because (a) Netgear does not honor its warranty as stated [yes, it worked out better for me, but *they* didn't know that]; (b) although Netgear now offers 200mbps Powerline Ethernet units (like the HDXB111 -- good units, we use them at work), they have not dropped the price of the 85mbps units to reflect the older technology.Side note: the CD that comes with the units has software for "security." If you don't plan on installing security passwords, you probably won't bother to install it. At this point she tells me that I need to return the unit to the store where I bought it.
It works initially, then the Ethernet side dies. He follows his script and walks me through it again, of course (why should he take my word I work in IT. I read her the Netgear warranty that says Netgear will replace a defective unit when the bad one is returned, but she says they only do that when the seller refuses to take a unit back. Excellent for troubleshooting, or just figuring out if running the vacuum cleaner on the same electrical circuit slows down the network (it does, btw). Do so anyway -- the "security" software also can detect which units are on your network, what their MAC addresses are, and what their current speeds are. I have been a user of Netgear's Powerline Ethernet products for years, since the XE102 (NETGEAR XE102 Wall-Plugged Ethernet Bridge), using them both at home and at work.
I wouldn't), and since the unit hasn't been plugged in for a few days it works fine while we're on the phone. But I sign on to Amazon and start the replacement process.
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