USB or PCI?

[misterPK]

I've been asked by a friend to find a cheap and cheerfull way of connecting her Dell Vista desktop to her Orange Livebox wirelessly instead of having a nice blue network cable trailing through her house.

Looking around it seems that you can get both USB and PCI adaptors for roughly the same price. Now i'm guessing one plugs in easily but takes up a USB port, but the other will get a better signal with its bespoke aerial and cant be accidentally unplugged.

Is there anything else I should be aware of?

PK!

 

[bledd]

i always 'trust' pci for network connections, when i see a usb one, it's more of a "i hope this works"

 

[mynsa]

less chance of issues using pci than usb - never looked into the speed comparisons though

 

[VeNT]

Plug and Pray

 

[swinnie]

Plug and Pray

I have always used PCI (or Express/PCMCIA cards for laptops). I have recently gone back to good old CAT5 (finally got the building work finished)...but to get me through the 8 months in between the two phases I popped into my local PC Shop and bought a RaLink Wireless Card for around £15 and it even as an external antenna with 1metre of cable. It is more powerfull than my old laptops wireless card too.

 

[hp7909]

Having used both, have to agree that PCI is better. Found the USB less reliable & sort of 'clumsy': managed to bend it IMO only good for temporary use & not something permanent.