Spec Me A Wireless Nic/USB

[GeordieNo1]

Hard wired Cat5 man here wanting opinions for the hardware, but also wouldn`t mind hearing of any perceivable differences noted by you lovely chaps and chapesses between hard wired to the router or connecting to it wireless (any noticable drop in throughput is most important).

My brain tells me that hard wired is the way ... but I really need to connect wireless tho, new build and I`m moving the whole tower but need a longer patch cable but thought I`d ask for advice on either a NIC or a USB device :)

Educate me! :)

[GeordieNo1]

Haway lads ... it`s not often I ask for anything!

Last 3 times I`ve asked for help went unheeded, help shouldn`t be all one sided ya know ya pack o b*******! :D

[Andrew Moore]

Belkin do a nice wireless device that works worth 64bit vista (not sure about windows 7 however im led to believe the drivers port accorss correct??

anyway its nimo or somin like that.. will find it for you

Andy

[Vic]

Hard wired Cat5 man here wanting opinions for the hardware, but also wouldn`t mind hearing of any perceivable differences noted by you lovely chaps and chapesses between hard wired to the router or connecting to it wireless (any noticable drop in throughput is most important).

If you can wire the connection, you should do so.

TP Ethernet is high-speed (gigabit is cheap these days), but more importantly, it's a fully-switched fabric, so each pair of communicating nodes can have a full-rate, full duplex link between them without impinging on any other pair of nodes. As you network grows, this becomes ever more important.

Wireless is generally lower speed, but it is a shared, simplex arrangement, so you can only ever successfully have one station transmitting at any time. You also have a period after each transmission that is unused, as the NIC switches between TX and RX.

The upshot to all this is that many stations kill your throughput, as do small packets (of the type preferred by gaming apps).

Wireless has its place, but if you don't need wireless access, don't cripple your network by using it.

Vic.

[GeordieNo1]

Aye, but cheap Andy lad ... don`t need a MIMO (N standard) for all my router does just that, G will do :) Was really wanting to know from users if they noticed a drop in throughput using wireless over wired like?

Compaibility ... meh, I`ll get it to work ;)

[GeordieNo1]

If you can wire the connection, you should do so.

TP Ethernet is high-speed (gigabit is cheap these days), but more importantly, it's a fully-switched fabric, so each pair of communicating nodes can have a full-rate, full duplex link between them without impinging on any other pair of nodes. As you network grows, this becomes ever more important.

Wireless is generally lower speed, but it is a shared, simplex arrangement, so you can only ever successfully have one station transmitting at any time. You also have a period after each transmission that is unused, as the NIC switches between TX and RX.

The upshot to all this is that many stations kill your throughput, as do small packets (of the type preferred by gaming apps).

Wireless has its place, but if you don't need wireless access, don't cripple your network by using it.

Vic.

Woah, good enough for me .... geet lang cable to buy :D :D

Thanks Vic lad :)

[Vic]

geet lang cable to buy

You might consider buying a crimping tool & a small reel of cable (Screwfix were bashing it out at a silly price a while back)...

Vic.

[GeordieNo1]

4 sovs for a Cat5e patch cable ;) Does me Vic lad :D

[Ajhayter]

How many people are going to be accessing the wireless?

I only ask because I got a half-decent free netgear wifi from virgin media. Works fine, but my sister started watching iPlayer on the Wii. Didn't affect me (20Mb connection, and I'm hardwired in), but my parents laptop was practically locked out of the wireless because there wasn't enough wireless bandwidth. The only page I could get to load was www.purple.com/purple.html because it managed to send all of it's data before timing out.

[GeordieNo1]

Aj, already wireless here with 1 PC, 2 laptops, a Wii and 3 DS lites using it but it`s just my main PC that isn`t .... I`m a stickler for throughput and the first to complain if my throughput is more than 30% outside FTR, so I`ll stay wired :D