We have a Dlink wireless router at home. (wireless G) It also supports 4 wired connections also. Until now i had my desktop computer connected to one of the wired ports. but now i feel like going for a wireless connection. Is it good to switch to wireless? Advantages and disadvantages? Will it slow down the internet speed for my desktop? Please note that we have our router in one room and my desktop PC is in my room which is the next room. So the only thing seperating it is a wall. But when i use my father's laptop in my room i dont feel signal losses. Will it be the same for a desktop? i have an Intel DP45SG mobo in my desktop. It has PCI slots. It doesnt have built it wifi. So i think ill have to buy it seperately. Now i have seen people using USB receivers and PCI slot type receivers. Which is better? and why?
if your gaming, a decent PCI card is a must. for general internet usage, a USB dongle will suffice. going wireless will likely increase your ping. by how much depends on your hardware and if your not gaming then its not a problem. my HTPC is connected wirelessly with a PCI wireless adapter which has an external antenna. my router is at the extreme opposite end of the house, in the closet in our computer room. theres several walls separating the two and the HTPC still has no problem streaming HD media from the network.
Wireless is slower than cable, but if you have good Broadband-Router-Wi-fi PCI card shouldn't be a problem. But if one of the three do have an issue, than you'll notice it heavily. I have wi-fi PCI card and a router that are really good, but my broadband is not that good on Wi-fi that I had to switch meters of cable in my previous house. In my present house the only available option for internet is Wi-fi, but the provider is not that great and we do have connections issue.
How big is your house? Its very easy to have problems with wireless reception, I had to buy myself another wireless PCI card and a seperate antenna for my main desktop as we moved some stuff around in the house.
Why switch now? Why spend the money to go wireless when a wired connection is already there? I don't really see the logic, is there something I'm missing?
If you are going to do it then i'd recommend one of these. Edimax EW-7711In 150Mbps wireless 802.11b/g/n 32 bit PCI adapter my router is through at least 2 walls and on 2 floors below my computer and i get a good connection. Its not good enough for gaming but it is for surfing but if you are gonna do it i would reccomend upgrading to an N router and the card below if you are wanting a connection that is similar to a cabled one Edimax EW-7722In 300Mbps Wireless 11n PCI Adapt, this card also supports b and g i think. It is brilliant but its a bit overkill if your router isnt as high spec.
I can't understand why you would go wireless for a desktop machine which I can only assume never or very rarely moves. Some people use laptops at a desk with a wired connection, I can understand the benefit of wireless there, so you could move from the desk and carry on working. Wireless G can carry around half the data rate of 100mb line, but other factors can make this much less. I have 50mb broadband, and get that speed through the wired machines in my house, the wireless N laptops seem to get around 40mb, and the wireless G get 20-25mb. You would think that 54mbit wireless G should be able to carry 50mbit broadband, but in practice it doesn't/rarely works like that. I have a wireless G receiver in my Zotac board, but also have ethernet plugged in (gigabit up to the switch to connect all my stuff via gigabit, but then 100mb from the switch to the router). So the exact same system ethernet vs wireless G, tested right now just for you Wireless G Download: 21mb/s Upload: 4.7mb/s ping: 12ms - This is actually unusually good, but I am currently the only person on the wireless network. And my router is running dd-wrt which has helped massively with general speed. In peak times this can be as high as 30ms+ Ethernet Download: 48.6mb/s Upload: 4.8mb/s Ping: 10ms - About average for the wired machines.
This. Whether or not you will notice the difference will depend largely on your use and demands. If it's a desktop computer that is already wired I see no point in going wireless. Especially if that computer is used for storage of large files and gaming. Also If you plan on using torrents wireless could often cause problems unless you go for a high quality router/NIC. For a laptop used mainly for surfing then wireless is OK.
I agree with Otis on this one. Tried lots of wireless routers but ultimately come back to Linksys/Cisco - easier to set-up and very reliable.
i personally go for netgear, it's down to personal preference/experience. the most reliable routers we ever sold when i was working retail, were netgear routers. the linksys and dlink kept failing. i left out cisco as we never sold cisco branded stuff, only linksys.
i use this rosewill PCI wireless card in my HTPC. i bought it solely based on: A. the external antenna and, B. the price. for only $12 its been a very good card, but i cant recommended the software that comes with it as its junk.
Sorry for taking such a long time to reply. The main reason why i wanted to go wireless was the fact that the cables are lying on the floor, dust gets collected on them, doesnt look nice etc.. But after reading your posts i decided to stay wired because i dont think i would want to sacrifice performance for cables. Thank you all for your help
You won't see a performance degredation unless you have a ridiculously high speed link to the internet, or you are running a gigabit ethernet network and then only connecting to wired assests on the network. Most high speed internet, at least here in the states, is maybe topping out around 45Mbps (about 8.7MB/sec) in theory, and in practice is more like .5-4MB/sec. Uncluttered 802.11G can easily handle that, and can even handle the top theoretical speed if you are near your router and there are no other wireless networks interfering with yours. My desktop is across the room from my wireless router using a USB dongle 802.11n, and I notice no performance impact in speeds of ping time. I still average about 40-60 miliseconds in games for ping times. When I run a wire they decrease on average by about 5ms...I guess it is something, but it is already very, very low. That said, I am running wires in the next couple of months. That however is because I am adding a file server to my network...and 150Mbps is going to severly limit my connection speed to it. So Cat5e getting wired through the house and a GbE switch. Just assembling the last of the parts of the low power file server and finishing some home improvement projects and then the wires are going in to the walls.
My new house has cat6 cables installed already. Only problem is that it's 3 story house with very thick Walls so I use an additional wireless router downstairs so we can use iPad and netbook. Before I got no connection in front room downstairs as the router was on 1st floor in backroom. The Walls defo effect wireless range. Have just got the Superhub from virgin for my 50mb bb so will install that. It's made by netgear and has 5 gigabit outputs. It's gna be sweet with my synology ds1511+ and means I can use one switch rather then two
our connection speed according to the ISP is 512Kbps. But that also changes due to practical effects. So i dont think its wise to go wireless
