Wireless Card

[Tommer]

Hi all.

I recently brought a new machine [link] to get rid of the bottleneck P4 experience I've been suffering

[Datasheet]

I had a £100 budget and so i'm left with £30, and I want to get a desktop wireless adapter (IE one that is plugged into the motherboard rather than a usb port) with the intention of getting a stronger faster, more reliable signal.

The machine will already have 2 slots used, a 8800GT using a PCI-E slot and a SoundBlaster Audigy 2ZS using a PCI slot

slots Wrote:7 (max. 312 mm), 1 x PCI Express x16, 1 x PCI Express x4 (mech. x16), 1 x PCI Express x1,
4 x PCI 32-bit / 33 MHz

From this i'm guessing the Wifi card will have to be either a PCI 32bit from one of the 3 slots left, or a PCI Express but i'm not sure which type since i'm not sure the type of the graphics card.

If anyone could help me with my decision it would be a greatly appreciated

[◄Chuck►]

I would go for a PCIx1 card.

Video cards always use the 16x port, hence the length of the slot, the 1x ports appear ridiculously small but it will do the job.

I'd also look out to get some card which allows an external (remote) antenna to be connected, maybe alternatively to those "plastic sticks". 99% of such devices allow the antenna to be unscrewed and replaced by something else.
For instance, my older Asus board had an on-board WiFi chip, but the shipped antenna was this.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/cpu/core2...wifi-s.jpg
The farther away the antenna is placed from the pc, the better.

I would personally go for that one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-PCE-N15-Wir...515&sr=8-6

Or the eco edition
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TL-WN781...515&sr=8-4

[Tommer]

Hm yeah I was thinking of getting one like this but my main problem is that I know my graphics card runs at around 75 c with nothing around it.. and I had to move my audio card away from the GPU before because the GPU caused interference (screeching sound coming out of audio) which would lead me to suspect there might be problems with putting the wifi so close too. (the x1 pci slot is next to it)

Would there be any particular drawbacks with using one of the 4 32 bit slots?


Also, the router my house uses is just a single band 2.4ghz wireless n thing I think, so i'm guessing there would be no benefit in getting a pci card with 2 antennae?

[Cola]

Have you got any opportunity of using a cable? That'll ensure much more stable connection.

[Tommer]

The short answer to that would be no.

[Kayla]

(2012-09-12 06:45)Tommer Wrote:  Also, the router my house uses is just a single band 2.4ghz wireless n thing I think, so i'm guessing there would be no benefit in getting a pci card with 2 antennae?

The amount of antennas isn't there for single band or dual band. Most cards use 2 antennas to change between them and use the one with the better signal. WLAN afaik uses 12.5cm waves, and so it can happen that 1 antenna gets nearly no signal, while the other one gets quite a decent signal. So you can always benefit from 2 antennas.

[Tommer]

Got this on it's way to me

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370644656081?s...1497.l2649

Hopefully won't take tooo long to arrive since it's far away haha