Advice Re Wireless Card Wanted

[StuartB]

The PC I have from PCSpecialist has an ASUS® M4A78LT-M motherboard with 2 x PCI slots ( Firewire and Sound Cards ) , 1 x PCIE x16 slot (Graphics Card ) and 1 x PCIEX1_1 Only the latter is unused .

Presently I am using a cable for my broadband connection and would like to use a wireless connection .I do have a PCI wireless card but to use that would mean removing the Firewire card and would prefer not to do that . The alternative appears to be either a wireless card to fit the PCIEX1_1 slot or a USB dongle type adapter ..the latter seems to be the cheaper option and there are a variety available some with cords and some without ,presumably the advantage of the corded ones being that you can move it about to some degree.

Has anyone used the dongle USB ones and can you comment on how well they work or would I be better with a card ?
thx
Stuart

 

[Wozza63]

are you at inconvenience using wired internet, if not then stick with it, you get much better speeds, ping and it is a much more reliable/stable connection

 

[StuartB]

are you at inconvenience using wired internet, if not then stick with it, you get much better speeds, ping and it is a much more reliable/stable connection

Thx for the reply ..I was wondering about that aspect and I'll admit it is just for convenience that I'd be making the change as the wire goes from the back of one room to the front of another ....well until I can get it underfloor anyway . I might well just stick with it as I'm getting good speeds and connections ( 16Mb/s) at present with BE There . I suppose I could try a dongle to see the result as they are cheap enough .

 

[Wozza63]

you could get home plugs, they are reliable and the max is 200mbps although quite expensive, and is that megabytes or megabits? did you get the result from speedtest.net? there are 8 bits in a byte so if that is megabits you should get 2mb/s and if its megabytes thats about 128mbits, so that speed is probably displayed in bits, seeing as the best package available in the UK is 100mbits

 

[StuartB]

you could get home plugs, they are reliable and the max is 200mbps although quite expensive, and is that megabytes or megabits? did you get the result from speedtest.net? there are 8 bits in a byte so if that is megabits you should get 2mb/s and if its megabytes thats about 128mbits, so that speed is probably displayed in bits, seeing as the best package available in the UK is 100mbits

This bits,bytes and megabytes etc gets me totally confused .It was speedtest.net
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1576586752.png

 

[Wozza63]

yeh so you should be getting 2mbytes, so if you decide to get homeplugs it shouldnt effect your speed, although im not sure if it would effect your ping compared to normal wired, it would still be better ping than wireless

 

[Tehmoe]

There was a time when wireless sucked balls, but now days My connection is the same for speed/ping over wireless or wired connection. I get around 23ping with both, tested it with even a 2 bar connection and was still holding up every well. The only thing is that you will need a decent router, right now I have 4 laptops, ps3, tv, bluray and a few phones on the same wireless and its doing great, when I first got wireless my dad couldnt even stream his radio let alone use it for any kinda of gaming.

 

[StuartB]

There was a time when wireless sucked balls, but now days My connection is the same for speed/ping over wireless or wired connection. I get around 23ping with both, tested it with even a 2 bar connection and was still holding up every well. The only thing is that you will need a decent router, right now I have 4 laptops, ps3, tv, bluray and a few phones on the same wireless and its doing great, when I first got wireless my dad couldnt even stream his radio let alone use it for any kinda of gaming.

Thx Tehmoe. Last time I used wireless was quite a few years ago and I wasn't impressed and that was at the back of my mind when considering going back to it but I was also hoping technology had moved on . I also have used Power Plugs as well and didn't think much of that at the time ..in fact I might even have them on a shelf somewhere so again todays product might be much better ..

 

[Tehmoe]

Thx Tehmoe. Last time I used wireless was quite a few years ago and I wasn't impressed and that was at the back of my mind when considering going back to it but I was also hoping technology had moved on . I also have used Power Plugs as well and didn't think much of that at the time ..in fact I might even have them on a shelf somewhere so again todays product might be much better ..

My first wireless experience was just awful and I never ever thought it would get any better, but now I notice no difference between wireless and wired. I would recommend a good router as the cheaper ones tend to play with your connection and drop if it is handling alot of throughput e.g downloading files at max speed. I even game wireless on my ps3/pc and my ping levels tend to be great and unless someone is downloading/uploaded I notice no lag at all, general end up being the host on COD which I play the most.