I just bought a NetGear RangeMax Wireless PC Card WPN511. I installed the software and plugged it into my laptop. I ran the setup wizard and tried to connect. It said connecting, then it said "Waiting for Network..." and it just stayed there. After about five minutes, it will admit that it cannot connect to the access point. This is not the first time this has happened to me. We bought a WiFi router/DSL Service about a year ago, shortly after I bought my first laptop, a rather aged IBM Thinkpad t20 (Specs Above) and I bought a Linksys USB adapter so I could use it on my laptop and my other computer while I worked on hard-wiring the computer. That adapter gave out about one month after the purchase. I took it back and got another one, the same thing, but this time I was smart and got the one year warranty. It quit after two days! I got another one (USB (Moved the warranty onto the new one) but this one was my first NetGear, and had that one for about two months until it quit. Then, my computer was hard wired (I was lazy lately) so I bought a laptop card for my computer. It quit after about 3 months. Then I bought this one, also Netgear, and had the problem I mentioned above. Anyone else have these problems before or am I just cursed? :-) I am kinda venting on this because I am really ticked that it gave ot BEFORE I EVEN USED IT!!! I specifically bought this one because it said "For Heavy Internet Usage" so I thought it would last longer than the others... Also, I have contacted NetGear and Linksys for help and they gave me suggestions that either led to my ISP is bad (ZoomTown) or the adapter is bad. I have tried resetting my router and modem and have tried the USB ones on all my computers and on my laptop at the library also. I have erased all automatic connections in the Windows Wireless Managment program. I have changed channels as well. All of these had the same symptoms; Says "Waiting For The Network." William E C I AM WEC!!! "No waste of time here, just a hell of a lot of fun!" -Me

Is is always happening on the same machine? I didn't quite understand that. If it is, something has to be frying them. It could be heat or some electrical interference. Edit: One more thing. Look at the event viewer for error messages.

No. When I was hard wiring my computer in the other room (I was lazy so it took a while) two quit when I was using it on that machine (One actually wasn't detected). One quit when I was using my laptop. The new one that I bought, the one that quit right away, the problem was IN FACT my router (for once (I reset my router when all the others quit)) because none of my other WiFi things worked. I reset it and now it works! William E C I AM WEC!!! "No waste of time here, just a hell of a lot of fun!" -Me

Ok, good.