NETGEAR AC1900 Wi-Fi USB 3.0 Adapter for Desktop PC | Dual Band WiFi Stick for Wireless Internet (A7000-10000S)

My Mom needed a WiFi adapter antenna because the marina where she lives on her boat has one WiFi router and she's very far away from it so she barely gets any service. I bought this one from Netgear and a cheaper one from TP-Link because this one took longer to deliver and she needed one ASAP. The difference in performance between the two is MASSIVE. The TP-Link one improved the connection a bit, but it was still very slow and she couldn't have Zoom calls without the video and audio dropping out. Once she received the Netgear one, it was better than when she had a wired ethernet connection in her home. She also said that the setup was very fast and easy. Now she has zero problems with her internet. It's very fast and stable with no dropped connections, and no spinning wheel waiting for a page to load. I did a lot of research before buying one, and this is the best one by far. It's a little more expensive than the other ones, but you get what you pay for.

This thing worked miracles on my internet speeds, having a room on the complete opposite side of the house from our router with horrible connection prior to using it, sharing the internet with multiple other roommates all using lots of bandwidth. While gaming/watching videos/browsing I used to get terrible drop outs with my old usb wifi adapter, constant connection issues, packet loss, complete disconnects etc. It was often unplayable. Plugged this bad boy in and my download went from less than 100mbps to at time 600+ no drop outs, zero connection issues, night and day difference. Obviously mileage may vary, but it’s worth a shot if you can’t hardwire your computer. Only caveat is that the software needed to use the adapter requires internet to download if you don’t have a disk tray in your pc (which most people do not these days, really odd decision to only include the disk rather than a usb or something of the sort). Simple workaround is to just download the file prior to switching over to this device. Installation was straightforward and took maybe 5 minutes tops - highly recommend trying this thing out if you’re internet isn’t up to par with what you pay for and you don’t have the option to use a cable. Very satisfied with my purchase even it was a bit on the pricier side. Also something to be aware of, the installation software has some bundled bloatware that you definitely do not want clouding up your pc, pay close attention when you are updating your adapter.

I don't know what is going on with my stupid $1k+ laptop but it picks up the wifi signal like crap! It was so freaking annoying. I tried all of the obvious things: disabling then reenabling the network adapter updating the drivers rolling back the drivers changing the location of the router It was at this point I realized I had exhausted all of the things that I knew how to do. I was plagued w/ this issue for many months after buying my laptop new! Just constantly dropping the connection completely. Literally was unable to browse the internet at all. It was all really bizarre. I would restart the laptop and certain things would seem to update fine, or scan to see if updates were necessary (like steam) and as far as I could tell they seemed to be connected to the internet. But I would have random problems connecting the browser to the internet.... Everything seemed to be updated: windows, drivers, router stuff.... Just constanst problems I had. Idk if there is some software causing incompatibility problems or what but I was so fed up. I bought this on a whim to see if it would help. My connection problems are 96% reduced. Every once in a great while the internet goes out. So I unplug this out of the usb port, plug it back in, and restart my laptop and the issue is resolved. So while my random connection problems are still undiagnosed this has helped to bring about a gazillion % increase in my satisfaction. It's probably one of the best things I bought. It's kind of sad that it really shouldn't be needed, to be honest. But whatever mysterious problem is plaguing my life has ALMOST been ereadictated by using it. So all in all I am happy I got it. Even if it shouldn't be necessary. Word to the wise: stay away from crappy Lenovo Yogas.

UPDATE: After about a month of daily use, I'm seeing random lag spikes of 100 ms to 2 seconds. This doesn't affect normal web browsing, downloads or watching Youtube, but it's highly obnoxious when using Teamviewer or audio/video chats. This is not an issue with my router or interference, since other devices on my network don't experience it. It's not my laptop or its OS either, since if I switch back to the internal wifi card, this issue disappears (but then I get random disconnects every half hour or so again, which is why I got a USB wifi adapter in the first place). I'm docking a star because of this issue, but it's still usable so I'm continuing to use it. --- I just got the A7000 to replace a previous-model A6200 that was starting to fail. These are my initial impressions on unpacking and installing it. I'll try to come back in some months and update this with how it does long-term. Right off the bat, it's really big and chunky. If you're looking for a little wifi adapter to drop in your travel bag along with your ultra-slim laptop, this is not the one you want. However its size gives me some hope for its longevity. Fast wifi adapters with good range always get hot, just from the transmit power and processing involved in it. Being larger means this heat is spread out over a larger area, so it hopefully won't run hot enough to damage itself over time. Installation was easy on my Windows 10 x64. I plugged it in first despite what the sticker on the baggie it was sealed in said. Windows failed to find any driver for it automatically, so I went to their website and downloaded the latest driver package for Windows, currently 1.0.0.15. Inside the zip, there are two installers, one with the complete accessory software, and one "standalone" one that's (supposedly) just the drivers. The Windows 10 wifi network selector has always worked fine for me, so I went with the standalone one. It took less than a minute to install, and when it was done I could pick a network to connect to the usual way in the notification tray. ...I said the standalone package is supposedly just the driver because the standalone and full installers are almost exactly the same size, 54 MB. After installation, there's 23 MB of stuff installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\NETGEAR\A7000. I'm not sure if I'd have more installed there if I'd chosen the complete package, but I assume so because the installer is much larger than what it installed. I'd guess the standalone one contains all the same files, but just with some of them set to not be installed. A strange decision, but whatever, it works. To test its speed, I copied a very large file from a shared folder on my NAS over 5 GHz wifi, since that's my usual use case for a home network that's faster than my internet connection. It copied at a whopping 70 MB/s! On further use I'm seeing between 60-85. That's megabytes, not megabits. That translates to 480-680 mbps. Yes, that is considerably less than the advertised "up to 1300 mbps", but that's a theoretical maximum under laboratory conditions with zero interference. 480-680 mbps under real world conditions, with a bunch of neighbors' networks visible, is dang impressive.

I have been using an external usb wifi dongle on my macbook since my internal wifi has not been working for some years now. I have a 1Gbps broadband connection and before I got the Netgear A7000, I was using a Dlink DWA-172 and a TP-link Archer T2UH_V2 usb wifi dongles and I could only achieve an average internet speed of only 145Mpbs download. After I changed to the the Netgear A7000 (which is the only Netgear wifi dongle able to support Mac OS upto MacOS 10.13), my speed almost doubled to an average of 240+Mbps with excellent range, being far away from the router. The limitation of the bandwidth I get is due to the USB2.0 port on my old macbook which has a theoretical throughput of 480Mbps. I am sure if I had a USB3.0 port, I would be able to get blazing speeds of upto 1.3Gbps (which the A7000 supports) The other unique feature of the A7000 is that it supports Enterprise security networks connections which my other 2 wifi dongles do not. Note that the A7000 is uni-directional which means that you can aim the antenna in the direction of your router to get better speeds. The negative of the A7000 is its form factor which is pretty large compared to my other 2 dongles. Luckily, it comes with a caddy with its own usb 3.0 cable which you can hook it to so that it will not block your other ports when connected to your computer, especially a laptop. Overall, I give it 5 stars just on its performances on speed and range alone. A well-built product and worth the investment.

UPDATE: Okay now I'm beyond frustrated. Was working golden for a while now has absolutely nosedived in quality. My below fix lasted for a while but now nothing will help and it is completely failing me. I cannot keep up in my online classes now because they are not recorded and lag spikes every few minutes completely freeze me and I miss out on all the material discussed at those times. Would not recommend anymore. The Problems -- The two major issues I read reviews on before buying were frequent disconnections/lag spikes and how awful the Netgear genie is. When using the genie application, I agree that both are absolutely awful and it made my time using it a chore, because the only solution I found was uninstalling and reinstalling the genie, which was annoying and caused glitches. While this did work for a day or two at a time, there is a better fix. How to Fix Them -- Though the genie is used to connect to networks, it isn't needed. The trick to fix this is installing the driver from the genie independently. Because reviews don't let me put links, my best recommendation is searching YouTube for "fixing netgear a7000 genie and driver installation" by Samuel Hart. Their video details the process perfectly and will improve your experience with this adapter. When utilizing the driver and not the genie, I've had decent ping and my connection isn't dropping. With the genie, I wanted to smash the stupid adapter, getting slow speeds and constantly dropping out. This thing is decent/good if you just don't use the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad (like seriously they should be embarrassed by this) program they say you need to use it. Internet where I live is fairly poor, and using the device driver WITHOUT the genie still had a significant benefit. When the program made my problem even more of an issue, I thought the adapter was a lost cause. So seriously, look up that YouTube video (or just install the driver if you already know how) and hopefully you'll also find that this is a solid device that does a good job, permitting you know how to set it up properly. @Netgear your program literally makes life harder. Will you read this, no. I just wanted to say this because it seriously sucks and I hate you for it.

I bought this portable USB WIFI adapter to help with a computer that was located in a corner of the house which did not receive a good wifi signal. This unit definitely helped and this computer is now getting a better signal. I bought a used version of this wifi adapter as a new unit was too expensive for my liking. Overall, I would recommend this unit at the used price point, I am neutral about its price point as a new unit. Here are some of my observations: PROS: The unit does help increase week wifi signals. I can’t tell how much definitely but my signal level increased about two bars. The unit is stable with no signal breaks or drop offs. The unit is larger than most portable wifi units that I have used in the past. With its base, I would not use this unit at a coffee shop as it is very obvious and large. However, without its base, you can connect the unit directly to your laptop with no obvious issues. The base unit also has magnets which you can use to position it on a metal surface if you have one. The unit’s driver, which was described as rather large in the comments section, is divided into two types. One type is standalone and a complete suite. I just used the standalone and it worked just fine with no issues noted thus far. The installation was relatively simple with no hang ups noted. Thus far, I have encountered no issues with this unit. CONS: The unit is larger than most. If you use the base, it will use a portion of your desktop that otherwise would be vacant. Not a big issue if you have a normal desk; however, if you are in cramped quarters just be aware. I wish they provided a longer cord for the base unit and made the chord a little thinner; although, not a significant issue thus far. The unit is not plug and play. You have to download the driver, its in a zip format, then decide what driver unit you want to use. It has a standalone and a suite format. I just used the standalone and it worked fine, for me not an issue, but some may find it confusing. The unit uses USB 3 or 2, but for best performance you have to have a USB 3 port open. For some laptops, this may be an issue, especially if you have other devices already attached to the laptop. I use this unit on a desktop so I don’t have this issue. I have used this unit continuously for about two weeks thus far with no issues noted. Thus far, it works as advertised.

I recently upgraded to gigabit ethernet and was looking to get the most out of my WiFi. I was fed up with the onboard WiFi of one of my PCs and tried a couple of different cheap AC adapters, but none of them would push past 200Mbps on the 5GHz AC. Even with the link speed of 877Mbps, nothing would achieve the bandwidth I was looking for. I also wasn't getting a good signal either (~70%) for this PC that's sitting about 15 feet and 2 walls away from the access point. So I tried the Nighthawk because it advertised a link speed of 1.3Gbps (and my router pumps out 1.7Gbps). I'm definitely not disappointed. In various online speed tests, I'm getting a consistent 600Mbps upload and download speed over WiFi (compared to 850 over hardwired ethernet) with this thing and a solid 100% signal and 1.3Gbps link speed. Awesome! I'm using the included extender stand because it's a little flimsy when connected directly into a USB port. The adapter itself a little weighty. It comes with a little docking station that uses a tradition USB connection which you can then dock the adapter in upright - I recommend using it in this fashion. Setup was straightforward, I did have to download the Genie software for Windows to recognize it, and had to reinstall the drivers once to get everything working as desired - minor hiccup in my mind. If you are looking for a super-fast WiFi adapter to pair with a gigabit connection, I'd wholly recommend trying this thing out.

Lo compré porque tengo un ordenador un poco lejos del router y no conseguía velocidades aceptables con la tarjeta integrada. Instalé los drivers usando el instalador de la web de netgear (el ejecutable 'standalone') y conecté el dispositivo. Windows 11 Pro lo ha reconocido sin problemas, he conectado a la red 5G de mi router y por fin he conseguido llegar a la máxima velocidad de mi fibra (300). Lo recomiendo sin dudarlo!

June 2025 update: 8814AU is Finally mainlined into Linux kernel 6.15. All bugs will be sorted out 6.16. Tested with kernel 6.15 cachyos on fedora 42. Works beautifully🏆🏆. Haven't used all the features only downloading at constant 40 MBps, yes mega bytes from my 5g connection. Upcoming Bazzite, kinoite, silverblue will finally have these kernels and will be perfect for low latency gaming, including on steam OS. Ofcourse can use the full capabilities of this card for servers too! Even 8812au has inbuilt support. Enjoy🥂 Feb 2025 Linux update: For linux, driver is now thoroughly maintained by the Linux community and the installation is a breeze. Although you can't install this on immutable distros like bazzite/kinoite etc etc. 8814au is now going to be mainlined into the Linux kernel directly in version 6.14 if i remember correctly so eventually there will be no need to install any drivers. This device by the end of 2025 will be fully compatible with Linux out of the box. Good luck to all. 😊 July 2020 update: Works brilliantly with Linux and bleeding edge kernels. Good number of contributors are pushing updates on GitHub. Check out aircrack-ng on GitHub to download any updated driver. This card is good substitute to gbit ethernet. Absolutely no issues when updating new kernels using make. Works well with raspberry Pi 4 on usb3. 0...no issues. Highly recommended device if you frequently use vnc and ssh, but all speed is determined by router. So get a good router if you want to exploit this card. This driver also works for rtl8812au.... Ac600. Works with Linux... Kernel 4.18.5 as of Sept 2018 Install drivers manually using either dkms or compile using make.... Then insmod the driver. Switch off SECURE BOOT in BIOS as it creates problems. NOVEMBER 2019 UPDATE: I have revised it to a 2 star rating. One for Amazon and one for Netgear. Read Further. With the 5.3 series kernel there hasn't been any updated driver on github. You will be forced to use 5.2 series the last being 5.2.18 with this device. I reckon it will work nicely with 4.19 on the new Debian but most people aren't gonna use that. Realtek does NOT officially provide any apt support for the RTL series devices for LINUX. The A7000 uses the RTL8814AU chipset which is excellent but has pathetic support with the new kernel. DO NOT get this device or any of the RTL series because it will not work with fedora 31 or other newer distros. So much for performance, so little for being useless. Even the ALFA 1900 which uses the same chipset is nothing more than a fancy brick to look at. I also have the TPLINK T2U nano which has the RTL8812AU and that too is useless at the moment.

Non reconnu par Linux Pas de pilotes pour faire fonctionner internet

Top Gerät, super Empfang!

Have been using this device for a couple months now, and it has been working beautifully. I had a cheaper USB key before which had slower speeds and kept dropping in and out at random times, but this one is perfect. When you turn on your computer it is already connected to the last wifi network, speeds are great, haven't had any drop outs! Range is also REALLY good.