Good value wifi card or USB dongle

mattyfez · 6 Aug 2018 at 20:23

Hey all,
My current WiFi USB dongle is not really living up to expectation, I forget what make /model it is but it was the cheapest N capable dongle by a known brand.
I basically bought it as a stop gap and never got around to replacing it and it's a couple of years old now.. It gets about 2 bars signal and occasionally even iplayer will visibly drop resolution, presumably some sort of low bandwidth mode and sometimes freeze with an 'insufficient bandwidth' error. Seems to sort itself out with a browser refresh but not ideal.

My PC boots up really quick but sometimes it takes a while to initialise the WiFi dongle and get an Internet connection.

Broadband is a standard Virgin router with 3 or 5ghz options.. Ethernet cable and power line connection is unsuitable for various reasons so I'm looking for a better WiFi card/USB dongle.

I have pci/e slot space for a Wi-Fi card if that's better, or could get another USB WiFi stick.

What's good and cheap?

Thanks

mattyfez · 6 Aug 2018 at 22:56

Update
The dongle is a TP link USB, 802.11n USB 2.0

My motherboard supports USB 3 and 3.1 if that makes any difference.

Thanks

mattyfez · 6 Aug 2018 at 23:25

I was thinking maybe this or this

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/addo...200mbps-pci-e-adapter-awp1200e-nw-000-ad.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/addo...00mbps-nano-usb-adapter-awu650-nw-003-ad.html

thanks

mattyfez · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:05

I'm pretty sure this is what I have currently, it works but it's a bit poo.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tp-link-300mbps-mini-wireless-n-usb-adapter-tl-wn823n-nw-081-tp.html

bremen1874 · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:15

Are you looking to connect via 2.4GHz or 5GHz?

mattyfez · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:18

bremen1874 said:
Are you looking to connect via 2.4GHz or 5GHz?

I don't really know the difference, I have the option to connect by either.

mattyfez · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:23

it defaults to 2.4 though if that helps

thanks

bremen1874 · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:26

2.4GHz is much better at going through walls.

5GHz is faster.

Where are you relative to the wireless router?

mattyfez · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:43

bremen1874 said:
2.4GHz is much better at going through walls.

5GHz is faster.

Where are you relative to the wireless router?

through two walls so it seems 2.4 is correct, but it really fluctuates between about 16mbps an zero... it's really odd.

bremen1874 · 7 Aug 2018 at 00:53

This is iPlayer on a wired connection:-

On a wireless connection the speed will ramp as required. So it's no surprising that your connection speed keeps jumping up and down.

mattyfez · 7 Aug 2018 at 01:10

OK that's interesting if that's normal behavior, but it doesn't explain the unreliability I'm getting on boot up and random network drops on wi-fi, so basically what I'm asking is should I spend £25-30 on a wireless ac pci card, as I',m not massively happy with the usb dongle I'm currently using.

cheers

pcfarrar · 7 Aug 2018 at 08:31

mattyfez said:
OK that's interesting if that's normal behavior, but it doesn't explain the unreliability I'm getting on boot up and random network drops on wi-fi, so basically what I'm asking is should I spend £25-30 on a wireless ac pci card, as I',m not massively happy with the usb dongle I'm currently using.

Get one with an external antenna like this Asus then you can place it away from the computer for best performance:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...00-bluetooth-4.0-pci-e-adapter-nw-10a-as.html