WiFi Card for PC

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Morgenmuffel

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#311121 16-Dec-2023 09:21

Greetings all

I am having shoulder surgery on Monday, and am probably going to be spending a while sleeping in a LaZboy chair in the lounge, so i need to move the kids computers to their rooms.

We have a mesh system in the house 2.4 and 5ghz and the signal is good down that end of the house,

So basically can i get any old wifi card and it should work fine assuming it can handle those frequencies? as the kids are into online gaming Fortnite/roblox/minecraft stuff

as there is a range of cards available and I don't want to spend more than i need to, especially as one of the computers is on the wayout and I am waiting till after Xmas when prices drop

both computers are over15 years old (I7 870, and a core2Duo quad) but run windows 10 okayish enough, how much of a strain will a wifi card put on the systems

Thanks

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xpd

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#3172239 16-Dec-2023 09:28

PCI/USB wifi card will run fine. PCI generally better than USB based ones on older machines.

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Jase2985

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#3172241 16-Dec-2023 09:46

xpd:

PCI/USB wifi card will run fine. PCI generally better than USB based ones on older machines.

more work to install it into the machine though.

something like this should be ok, offers both 2.4 and 5ghz wifi and decent speeds if you access point has those channel widths available.
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETTPL0012/TP-Link-Archer-T4U-Dual-Band-AC1300-USB-Wi-Fi-Adap

Rickles

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#3172447 16-Dec-2023 18:12

@Morgenmuffel ... where are you?

I have a spare WLAN PCI card (802.11g) you are welcome to. Complete with mounting strip and antenna

Jase2985

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#3172448 16-Dec-2023 18:31

Rickles:

@Morgenmuffel ... where are you?

I have a spare WLAN PCI card (802.11g) you are welcome to. Complete with mounting strip and antenna

No offense and it's a nice offer but no one should be using 802.11g these days. Minimum should be n and ac should be the default.

robjg63

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#3172449 16-Dec-2023 18:36

If wifi signal is strong, i would look at a usb wifi stick.
Easier than trying to install cards.
I bought a couple of these several years ago
https://m.emax.co.nz/300M-USB-WiFi-Wireless-Network-Adapter-Antenna-3557.html

I plugged it into a 10Yo win 10 pc 6 months ago and found it worked really well.

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BadCo

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#3172677 17-Dec-2023 13:57

For online gaming, look at power line adaptors. Might have lower throughput then good wifi but mich better and consistent latency.

richms

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#3172750 17-Dec-2023 15:35

USB on an extension cable will be way better than any PCIe card that has the antennas on the back of the PC. You can lift it up and clear of any obstructions.

IME powerline has been a total dud, cant even hold a voip call over them without it glitching and forget gaming. Netflix worked fine which is all the average persons view of "high speed" is.

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yitz

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#3172754 17-Dec-2023 15:52

Don't forget you can bridge the Ethernet and Wi-Fi interfaces of the (primary) PC with WLAN and share the internet connection between the two PCs over LAN that way saving you needing a WLAN adapter on the secondary PC.

Morgenmuffel

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#3172757 17-Dec-2023 16:12

BadCo: For online gaming, look at power line adaptors. Might have lower throughput then good wifi but mich better and consistent latency.

Hmmm, i do have a couple of ancient NP204s, do you reckon they would be fast enough?

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Reanalyse

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#3172770 17-Dec-2023 17:11

yitz:

Don't forget you can bridge the Ethernet and Wi-Fi interfaces of the (primary) PC with WLAN and share the internet connection between the two PCs over LAN that way saving you needing a WLAN adapter on the secondary PC.

I used a TP-Link Archer C20 AC750 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 5 Router in Repeater mode at 5GHz which gave me 4 high speed ethernet ports. Would that help ?

BadCo

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#3172792 17-Dec-2023 18:04

Morgenmuffel:
BadCo: For online gaming, look at power line adaptors. Might have lower throughput then good wifi but mich better and consistent latency.

Hmmm, i do have a couple of ancient NP204s, do you reckon they would be fast enough?

They are only 200Mbps, but they are free so you may as well give them a go.

yitz

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#3172801 17-Dec-2023 19:44

Reanalyse:

I used a TP-Link Archer C20 AC750 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 5 Router in Repeater mode at 5GHz which gave me 4 high speed ethernet ports. Would that help ?

Of course you can also use a spare laptop (which has wireless and a wired port) for the bridging method I described above, effectively using it as a WLAN adapter.