I use Linux and / or Mac

Reading some reviews over at Amazon.com about this product, it sounds like the failure rate is near as matters 100%. If it's broken within weeks of being out of the box, it's unlikely it'll be plugged in long enough to actually overheat. Typical Netgear crap.

Of course, that is an assumption, but a good wager none-the-less.

Isn't the world tired of dealing with garbage built in countries where manufacturing is less expensive? Poisoned wheat gluten, toys with lead-laced paint, toys which turn into a date-rape drug, electronics which self-destruct... you would think that manufacturers would be tired of the recalls and bad publicity. You would think that consumers would grow tired of shoddy products.

I remember when the big marketing push was "Made in the USA." While I know that doesn't mean anything to readers on the other side of the pond, it should ring familiar. Products made in our own country mean jobs, money, and a legal obligation when moral and ethical obligations are ignored or neglected.

Seriously, what can we do to China over all of these exploits? And why, if we're so afraid of China, do we continue to do business with them and turn a blind eye to the fact that its Communist government has no interest what-so-ever in the rights and freedoms that many other countries hold so dear?

Paris, because, like China, we just can't seem to pull out.

see above :)

Actually this is just typical Netgear cost-cutting and using substandard components. There are other and decent brands of networking gear, and this is nothing to do with China.

Well, for many reasons. Obviously because the products are cheaper. If Americans only bought American products, then we would have to pay American prices, and everyone would have less stuff. Also, each country would effectively close itself off, (like they have been), creating many small economies instead of one big one. In such a situation, you loose the efficiency of economies of scale. Last but not least, globalization has pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last decade. Wars have decreased, the population explosion has more or less quelled, and as Chinese citizens become more educated and affluent, they more likely they are to push their government to give them freedom, property rigths, etc.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10564141

I think I will wait for some more reliable tech

Made n America to the rest of the world, tends to mean, oversized, inefficient and a short lifespan....

+

" turn a blind eye to the fact that its ...... government has no interest what-so-ever in the rights and freedoms that many other countries hold so dear?"

Pot / Kettle / Black....

Sent my XE103 off - and quite promptly got an XEPS103 in return. This isn't the same kind of thing at all - currently "escalating" my query through netgear customer support to find out if there are any "safe" XE103s.

I note most major online stores have withdrawn their XE103 stock.

I don't agree with the China bashing.

China is a cheap source of labor / manufacturing, but they are not responsible for making poor quality rubbish.

I myself have used a china manufacturing service for a couple of prototype items. You "the customer" tell them exactly what you want .... and they make it for you, pretty much exactly as you request. You give them your budget, and tell them the parts to use. If you say "I want this making for the lowest possible cost" then you are going to get some cheap plastic shoddy item.

I've asked for my items to be made of high quality components, and I have to say, some of the items I have received have been works of art!

I've been using powerline netwirking for a while now, and so far I have had 3 solwise adapters, 2 of which died and were replaced under warranty, and one xe103, which lasted less than a week before it cooked itself. No fire, but a lovely acrid smell eminating from it. The replacement they shipped me is on the recall list. So an overall failure rate of 75% on all my powerline devices. Lucky me. Even luckier Netgear.

With the emphasis on "dead".

Seriously, get a fucking grip. If British Leyland made power line adaptors they'd be 100% safe, but only because they'd all be on strike and your chances of getting one would be zero.

Cue the beardie old stoat who's going to tell me how his Austin Gorblimey ran for 3 million miles, requiring only an occasional smear of lard in the balljoints and an emptying of the ashtrays. Oh really granddad? Well why don't they make them any more then?

Paris, because she's fucked about as often as your average power line adaptor.

Been using some XP-102 modules for a while now. Glad this is not the same model.

By the way, this 100baseT networking bridge hardware does not care whether you are running Windows, MacOS, Linux, or whatever, but it does come with a fancy shiny coaster. Just make sure you lay it on the table with the Windows logo downward.

I've outright given up on this technology.

First I bought a pair of NP210s, and for a while they worked nicely. A month later, one of them died. Disassembled it carefully to find out why - a dodgy capacitor.

Took them back to where I got 'em, and asked him to send them away under warranty. NetComm said they were too old and wouldn't warrant them. (So if they were new to start with, they must've been sitting on the shelf for a long time) Indeed, he had another two on a bench nearby, one of which was also faulty, so I took the two good ones, replaced the failing (but not yet failed) capacitors in those two (which were so poorly made that the screws no longer had plastic bits to screw into) and they sort of worked - transmission range had taken a hit.

Figured best bet was to try a new brand - NetGear. After all, I've had a NetGear hub for 10 years and it has never let me down. No such luck - after one week, one of them XE103 units died. Contacted online supplier, who said contact NetComm. Got an RA number. Posted it back - that was at least 4 months ago. It's never come back, and they've not answered my emailed query about what happened to it.

So, my opinion of this branch of technology is that it is useless, overpriced. Far better off to buy two or three TP-Link Wireless Access Points (or some other brand) for about the same money, and run them in WDS mode. Not as fast but far more robust!

I have a pair of these and I thought that did run a little warm. But this morning I saw that one was dead and its in the bag waiting to go back to PC world.

Still not as hot as Paris...

One of my friends has just phoned me saying his netgear powerline 'WGXB102' just went bang (he said a loud bang and bright blue flash, unit is now dead); this appears to be a different model than the one covered by the recall. He's going to report it to netgear tomorrow.