Network Card or another?

danceMB

danceMB

danceMB

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Joined
24 Jun 2004
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1,995
At the moment with my rig upstairs and the wireless router downstairs in the kitchen, the only way I have managed to connect it, is that I bought a USB wireless stick to connect it up

As this is starting to grate on me a bit now (seeing it poking out my machine) I was wondering if there is a decent wireless PCI card that is recommended?

Would love to connect it up via Ethernet for maximum speeds, but the location of the router and the PC makes this impossible unfortunately
 
Before you completely write off the Ethernet option, have you considered Powerline adapters?

A wireless PCI card isn't going to look much neater than USB adapter. You've still got the have the antenna(s) sticking out. USB adapters are also easier to position to get a decent signal.

If you really want to buy one which wireless standard(s) does the router support?
 
I'm guessing you have the USB adapter on the front and that is why it's annoying you? At least the antennas would be on the back.

How good are those powerline adapters?

I think you need an n-router to get the most out of the one I'm looking at.
 
My wireless router is the new N-technology, that TalkTalk supplied to me when I signed upto them last month.

Just thought that hooking up wirelessly would be the cheapest option, but dont want to incur any dropouts in the signal. Currently get about 11mb with my current USB stick, with good Ping Rates

Thinking wireless would be faster than going the Powerline route?
 
I prefer Powerline over wireless for fixed equipment. There’s less to go wrong, and Powerline usually offers better performance (especially latency).

If your broadband is only connecting at 11Mbps you won’t be getting anyway near the bandwidth offered by Wireless-N or Powerline adapters.

Can’t you just relocate the existing USB adapter so that you can’t see it?
 
I use powerline adapters as the wi-fi doesn't reach my room. I don't know thr speeds but I can game online on the 360 and stream music or films from my NAS at the same time just fine.
 
If you've got decent wiring there are a good idea.

I used to live in a Victorian terraced house with scary old wiring, I could barely get adaptors to sync, let alone a good speed.
I now live in a new house with modern wiring, and my 200Mb adaptors sync at 170-180Mb.
 
PistolPete said:
If you've got decent wiring there are a good idea.

I used to live in a Victorian terraced house with scary old wiring, I could barely get adaptors to sync, let alone a good speed.
I now live in a new house with modern wiring, and my 200Mb adaptors sync at 170-180Mb.
Click to expand...

I didn't think of that. Luckily we had all the wiring redone 2 years ago
 
I live in a Victorian house myself, so Powerline would probably not be a good idea due to the wiring probably being in a bad state, which would be understandable as its an old house

Did try to use the USB stick at the back of my rig, but it was going at a very slow speed indeed. The only way I got it going at a decent speed was by using one of the USB3 ports at the front, that seemed to be the only solution that worked
 
Cant get away from the idea that connected via Ethernet is the fastest possible connection, and that a PCI wireless card would be the more reliable connection when an Ethernet solution is not available
 
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