Wireless network - Which is best? Oldish PCI adapter or new "N" USB dongle

Alex R

Alex R

Alex R

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Joined
1 Jun 2005
Posts
532
Hi,

I've had to move my desktop PC away and I can no longer hook it up by cable to my Belkin modem/router.

I am using a Netgear 108 Mbps Wireless PCI adapter WG311T (got it several years ago now with a mobo) to access the net right now. Is this better than the USB "N" wireless dongle that came with the modem/router? Or would I be better off using that?
 
Depends what you mean by better. PCI is a more suitable interface for network adaptors, and having the circuitry on a card inside your PC is generally preferable to having it crammed inside a USB dongle. But a USB dongle on the end of a cable could offer improved reception, and support for 802.11n could mean faster transfer speeds over your wireless network, though your router and any other devices would obviously have to support it as well.

Bottom line if what you're using now works, your router doesn't support 802.11n, or you don't shift lots of data around your wireless network, then there's little point changing.
 
Right thanks. No cables anymore. The modem/router is an N one, the dongle came with it. But yeah, I don't move huge amounts of data between PCs on my network. Also, I dual boot XP/W7 and I've just found a problem getting drivers for the dongle to under W7 64bit.

I was just wondering if there were any other reasons to use the dongle, complete ignoramus ont he networking front here.
 
As a general rule of thumb i find internal cards are better than usb sticks but it's easy enough to test them one at a time and see whats best for you :)
 
Well usb2 operates at 480Mbps where as 802.11n operates at a maximum of 300Mbps iirc. If you have an "N" router then either PCI or USB will be fine.

However, your wireless adaptor is only 108Mbps
 
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