Wifi adapters

I haven't bought a wifi card in years...but lately I see all these USB wifi adapters for only $2-$3. Am I missing something here?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-802-11n-150M-WiFi-Wireless-Lan-Network-Card-Adapter-/320814582876?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab20a0c5c

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-USB-Wireless-LAN-Network-Adapter-Card-802-11n-b-g-1476-/120830528346?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c220f8b5a

Wifi cards are only a couple of bucks these days?

So it would seem... but you get what you pay for. I spent £30 this morning getting a proper MIMO Cisco Linksys adapter for someone, I'm pretty sure that it'll work at 802.11n speeds, make use of MIMO and work at ranges greater than 1m away from the AP in a way that doesn't consume 100% of the CPU. Those... I'm not so sure

Interesting, Chris. It had never occurred to me that lesser brands would tax the CPU. I had only figured that they would work poorly, connection-wise.

Jake

AES is processor intensive and it'll be software chipset based. More pricy cards will have some capable hardware behind them.

I bought the shortest one too as one of my 2 Compal JAX10's does not have a proper driver for XP. I did find a download for Aigo P88xx series from Aigo's site but failed to make the built-in WiFi work.

Same thing with bluetooth adapters. Just a little while ago these were expensive but now you can find them on dealextreme (and other places) for a little over a buck.

Well I went ahead and ordered one just for the fun of it...it will be interesting to give it a try and see how cpu/memory intensive it is...

Well I got it in the mail today and plugged it in to both my desktop and laptop. It comes with drivers for XP and newer, Mac, and Linux. It seems to work fine. It takes about 12Mb of memory, but there is zero noticeable effect on other applications. I tried streaming some intensive online video while download some files and playing a couple of games all simultaneously...no problems.

I then plugged it into my laptop and went for a walk. I made it about 80-90 yards with the laptops built in 802.11G wifi before I noticed the signal strength dropping out loosing connection. Then I plugged this one in and turned off the built in wifi card. It really didn't do any better. And it was cold outside too, only 27F. I think that maybe it has a poorer antenna and that must account for something, because as I was walking back, at about the 60 yard mark it finally connected.

Now here is the strange thing...once connected, I was able to walk away again and it kept the connect well onto the 100 yard mark...so my question is that once a connect is established, does that affect performance or signal strength or something?

I'd like to try this with an external antenna...maybe I'll buy one and see. Anyways, for only a couple of bucks, I have no complaints whatsoever...too bad it doesn't have drivers for older versions of Windows, or CE.

These Chinese Wifi cards only last (for me) 2-12 months before they lose performance or die...

May be they are not built well..I don't see how they could for the cost. But they are small enough that they certainly make a good backup. I could put the drivers on a USB drive and store it and the wifi on a keychain for emergency use.

I have one, a generic USB wifi adapter back from 2006 that's still going strong. But that was attached rather permanently to my desktop.

solidus... was it pci or usb?

Finally, my Nano USB WiFi adapter arrived. It works excellently on my Compal JAX10/Aigo P8860 with Windows XP as I could not find the right driver for the built-in WiFi adapter even from Aigo's website. The adapter is so tiny that the rubber cover for the USB jack is even larger. In contrast, my Linux version of JAX10 does have a built-in driver.

Edited by CAuser 2012-01-08 3:55 PM






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It was USB. @CAuser, nice.