I wanted to network a couple of PC's so I did some research and decided to buy Netgear's SB105 starter kit. Reasons, It was cheap, the NICs (Network Interface Card, which fits in the PC) are 10/100 so when time to upgrade, only the hub needs upgrading.

Unlike Alanelf however I have had problems. I own a Gateway Athlon Desktop PC into which I installed the first card and tried booting the pc. Nothing, I changed NICs, I moved the sound and modem cards around, i took them out, still nothing.

I called Netgear's free helpline, they told me it was a hardware conflict and I should contact Gateway, this annoyed me because i have been here before with two manufacturers blaming each other and my problem not being fixed. So I dutifully called Gateway, not our problem! Call Netgear.

After another fruitless call with Netgear I called PCWorld who I bought the product from. They suggested trying another manufacturers product and I packed up the network trotted off to PCWorld and swapped it for a Lynksys Starter Kit. It worked straight out of the box, well almost, but at least the cards worked first time without any changes to my configuration! So unlikely it was a conflict eh Netgear!

The Linksys product is an inferior product, the cards are only 10BaseT ( 10Mps ) which should be adequate for the immmediate future, but will require replacing if I ever need to upgrade, unlike the Netgear NICs, however having an actual working network is more important than a theoretical performance benefit and at home you shouldn't need more than 10Mbps anyway.

So my advice, if like Alanelf you have no problems with Netgear installation then I recommend it, if like me you find it impossible to instal, make sure you buy from a reputable dealer who will swap it for another manufacturer.

Good luck!