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Wireless Network Card (1 Viewer)

Sum1

Warriors are inferior (read: crybaby) tanks
Joined
Jul 30, 2006
RedCents
5,372¢
Hey all,

I'm finally digging myself out from my recent move, and the office in our new house is further away from the router than I'm accustomed. In the past, I would hardwire the desktop computer to the router with an ethernet cable, but that's not an option this time (unless I bust out walls or drill holes and shit in a rental).

So, the time has come... any recommendations on solid wireless network cards that can be used with a desktop and (hopefully) provide the throughput to run 15-18 accounts? I'm have fios with 100/100 and a brand new Lynksys router, so the only bottlenecks I can see are the wifi signal itself and the as-yet unpurchased network card.

Recommendations?
 
I can box 25 toons on wifi, but my wifi is on board so no NIC to speak of. But when looking I would look for something that supports at least 2x2 MIMO and that your router has that as well since that will get you better speeds overall.
 
Have you considered Ethernet over power line adapters? Performance may vary depending on the wiring/age etc. But I have been in places where I used it and noticed no difference at all between that and Ethernet cable through the house hut noticeably better the the wifi setup I could afford at the time
 
Have you considered Ethernet over power line adapters? Performance may vary depending on the wiring/age etc. But I have been in places where I used it and noticed no difference at all between that and Ethernet cable through the house hut noticeably better the the wifi setup I could afford at the time



I will back this up tenfold, Ethernet over power is way to go. I'm still clueless why power companies havn't offered internet threw their power lines you'll rarely see a drop in speeds unless bad circuits in wiring and even age isnt a huge issue at all.(I live in a pretty old home and no issues using multiple power line adapters)

If power line adapters is something you don't want to do I recommend getting a very nice router that can act as a reaptor but issue here is drop in speeds and possibly packets.

Other then those 2 options my only other option is get a long Ethernet cable
 
if you very handy, and your building is not super old you can run ethernet cables in the same conduit pipes they run power cables, if they did it like that. then just put some holes in the walls and be happy with good stable connections.
 
I would strongly advise against any cable running of your own through existing wires/conduits.

Local rules/regulation may restrict who and what you can run etc, likely you will not have any insurance cover you if there was a fire in relation to electrical faults and it was found unknown cables had been ran through by a non licensed person.
 
I would strongly advise against any cable running of your own through existing wires/conduits.

Local rules/regulation may restrict who and what you can run etc, likely you will not have any insurance cover you if there was a fire in relation to electrical faults and it was found unknown cables had been ran through by a non licensed person.

Yeah I second this.. If its not your place, and they find out you're getting into the electrical conduits, they'll have a shit..

What I used to do at the phone company when I was doing customer facing work, and was in places where the customer didnt want any wall penetrations, was take a long cat-5e cable and tuck it under the baseboard along the wall edge.. there should be enough of a gap where the flooring edge ends, and the baseboard itself covers.. of course you're going to have to run it along the perimeter of the rooms to get from point a to z, but it is an option that requires no cutting of holes or subverting local electrical codes.. and cat5e is cheap nowadays..
 
Just make sure you run some tests and attempt to tweak your wi-fi connection. For example, 5.0GHz is not always better than 2.4. Except when you've got a ton of devices on 2.4. But if 5.0 works for you then try to use 2.4 for everything else in the area so you aren't contending with those devices. Play around with router orientation. I was working on a Nighthawk X6 which had been placed on top of metal ductwork in the basement. At one point we physically turned the router 90 degrees and suddenly even the farthest reaches of the home were getting 400Mb speeds. And that's the bad thing about wi-fi as compared to hard cable, you have to "screw" around with it a lot to ensure you're getting the lowest latency and highest possible throughput.
 
I will back this up tenfold, Ethernet over power is way to go. I'm still clueless why power companies havn't offered internet threw their power lines you'll rarely see a drop in speeds unless bad circuits in wiring and even age isnt a huge issue at all.(I live in a pretty old home and no issues using multiple power line adapters)

If power line adapters is something you don't want to do I recommend getting a very nice router that can act as a reaptor but issue here is drop in speeds and possibly packets.

Other then those 2 options my only other option is get a long Ethernet cable

I may give this a try. I had purchased these when I was living in Germany and needed to get internet to an office on the other side of the apartment, but then I discovered the landlord had installed hardwired Ethernet runs throughout the entire house. I just had to use a small Ethernet cable to connect the outlet plugged into the router with the outlet to push signal to the back office. It was essentially a patch panel next to my curcuit box. It was fucking awesome.

Bottom line is I never used the powerline adaptors.
 
The reason power companies don't offer power line internet is because the way the signal works can have a lot of interference especially if you have multiple breaker boxes. They don't have a way to get that kind of signal into your house easily and keep it separate from your neighbors. Even solving that problem, you need a way to get the signal back to them and at that point it's easier to use a better signal carrier. The signal also degrades very quickly so you need amplifiers to keep the signal going throughout a medium size house. It's just not efficient outside of localized areas. Akin to why cell phone providers don't just offer wifi.

It's worth a shot to try, but highly dependent on your house wiring.

If you don't want to get a wifi card for your desktop, you can also get a wifi extender that has "client access" functionality. Wirless extenders on their own are junk and you're often better off just getting a better antenna, but using it as a client device instead of an extender will allow you to convert your wireless to ethernet without adding a card.

The nice part about adding a wireless access card to your computer is if the signal isn't strong enough you can add an antenna to it. As for recommendations, any of your home routers brands are probably going to be fine for your use case.

Edit: Also, don't run low voltage cable in the same conduit as high voltage cable. It's probably against code in most areas of the US but it can also be dangerous. The baseboard idea is a great idea if you have carpet and if you don't you can run surface mount conduit and paint the walls when you move out (or, better, ask your landlord of it's okay and maybe they'll even help pay for it as an improvement if you do a good job).
 
Thanks for all the recommendations! I’ll have to see what I end up doing. Either way I’m buying new shit .... I don’t have a network card, an old router laying around to convert to a client access device, nor do I have the powerline adaptors.
 
I highly recommend picking up an ethernet powerline kit. I was HUGELY skeptical of these things. I got a box of them for free (two sets) at a convention for winning a prize.

Bro..... it's life changing.

I can be almost 1500 ft away in the garage, downstairs, running at MAYBE half a meg less than my wired connection.

If the idea of doing that (Plug in an adapter at wall by modem and by PC, run a cord to each, it does the rest on it's own) isn't appealing, pretty much ANY of the newer AC modems will give you very strong speeds with almost no loss inside a house.
I can access my WiFi at my neighbors house lol.
 
Thanks for all the recommendations! I’ll have to see what I end up doing. Either way I’m buying new shit .... I don’t have a network card, an old router laying around to convert to a client access device, nor do I have the powerline adaptors.

If you buy some power line adapters, you could take them - unpackage carefull and test them... if your not happy return them claim they don't work for you. Just make sure you buy from somewhere that will accept returns in the week/14 days. I know in australia most places will accept them without much issue, but we do have some reasonably good consumer laws.

Or, i have some old ones if you want to pay for postage...but coming from australia, lol :P
 
$27.99 from Amazon OR (OR) OR...same price from Australia (but you'll get it in 6-12 months). Higher shipping cost if you want it before you move out of that place.
 
Wireless Network Card

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