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usb dongle v wireless card
hi, got a second PC in another room and want to be able to connect the
second one to my wireless router to access the internet. is it best to install a wireless card in the second pc,or can i use a usb dongle(not sure what this is) to do this. XP on first pc, ubuntu 9.4 on the other. thanx for any help/ advice Don |
#2
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usb dongle v wireless card
In article c3e16252-9a07-4a46-9cae-c5bec231fc46
@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com, says... hi, got a second PC in another room and want to be able to connect the second one to my wireless router to access the internet. is it best to install a wireless card in the second pc,or can i use a usb dongle(not sure what this is) to do this. XP on first pc, ubuntu 9.4 on the other. thanx for any help/ advice Don USB dongles are inherently ****e if you've not got a strong signal and I'd be putting PCI in the Ubuntu rig. -- Conor www.notebooks-r-us.co.uk I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams |
#3
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usb dongle v wireless card
On Aug 5, 7:42*pm, Conor wrote:
In article c3e16252-9a07-4a46-9cae-c5bec231fc46 @s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com, says... hi, got a second PC in another room and want to be able to connect the second one to my wireless router to access the internet. is it best to install a wireless card in the second pc,or can i use a usb dongle(not sure what this is) to do this. XP on first pc, ubuntu 9.4 on the other. thanx for any help/ advice Don USB dongles are inherently ****e if you've not got a strong signal and I'd be putting PCI in the Ubuntu rig. -- Conorwww.notebooks-r-us.co.uk I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams thanx for that,think i can get a card for 7lbsterling, just a guy in the market was trying to sell me this 'dongle' for twice that. don |
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usb dongle v wireless card
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#5
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usb dongle v wireless card
wrote:
hi, got a second PC in another room and want to be able to connect the second one to my wireless router to access the internet. is it best to install a wireless card in the second pc,or can i use a usb dongle(not sure what this is) to do this. XP on first pc, ubuntu 9.4 on the other. thanx for any help/ advice Don Some potential advantages of a PCI Wifi card. 1) Room for them to use a separate radio chip. The radio chip may have better performance (they could use CMOS for the MAC, and bipolar transistor technology of some sort for the radio chip - allowing the best technology for each portion). 2) PCI cards may have an external connector offered, allowing the antenna to be connected there. A short whip antenna may be provided, but you can also connect a length of cable and antenna if you want. This PCI card, uses a Ralinktech chipset. The MAC chip is outside the shield area (it doesn't deal with radio signals). Other chip(s) are hiding underneath the metal RF shield. http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...315-041-09.jpg The standard antenna connector on the faceplate, means you can substitute other antenna solutions if you want. "External detachable dipole antenna (Connector: RP-SMA connector, Cable Length: 94 cm)" http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...315-041-12.jpg Some come with a whip that bolts to the faceplate, so you don't have cables dangling. But you cannot easily move this, to experiment with reception. As long as the antenna is actually connectorized and not permanently affixed, you can remove it and substitute something else. So with some products, it is easier to verify that the connector is removable. Or it may be stated as such in the advert. If you saw "RP-SMA" for example, that implies a removable connector. http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...180-030-01.jpg ******* USB dongles vary greatly, even unit to unit of the same model number. Some models of dongle are uniformly bad, while others you can find strong ones and weak ones. You can use the customer reviews on Newegg, as a metric for what kind of product you're looking at. If you have brand and model number information, you can try looking up the product, and see what people think about it. A USB dongle may use an antenna structure, drawn in copper on the PCB of the dongle. That is where the antenna is hiding. I have no idea, how effective these are, compared to the external whip style. My suspicion is, that variable performance could be as much a function of shady silicon, as an actual antenna malfunction. To see an example, you can download documents from the companies that make the chips. For example, this one has a MAC chip that sits outside the shield. The radio chip sits underneath the shield area. The antennas are on the right. The "squiggle" just before the antenna, is an example of the "magic of microwaves". Microwave designers design filter elements, using nothing but the shapes of copper on the PCB. The squiggle for example, could be a filter to exclude unwanted RF energy (not part of what they want to broadcast or receive). Having worked with a guy who does stuff like that, it is a curious science, and their designs are interesting, just for the shapes used. Virtually everything in a design is a "what does that do?" kind of question :-) http://www.atheros.com/pt/bulletins/...NGBulletin.pdf Paul |
#6
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usb dongle v wireless card
In article d63ddc13-1705-428a-924c-8cd017f0a2a6
@j32g2000yqh.googlegroups.com, 66oldgit says... thanx for that,think i can get a card for 7lbsterling, just a guy in the market was trying to sell me this 'dongle' for twice that. don The only problem with the PCI ones is you may need to buy an aerial lead if you don't get good reception with it screwed into the card. -- Conor www.notebooks-r-us.co.uk I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams |
#7
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usb dongle v wireless card
In article , Al Dykes says...
The advantage of the USB dongle is that you can move it around to get a strong signal, even putting it on USB extension cable as far away as 35ft from where you want your PC to be. No you can't. USB spec doesn't allow a cable run of 35ft. It allows a maximum of 5 metres due to the velocity factor of the cable. You can however put an antenna from a PCI one as far as you want away. -- Conor www.notebooks-r-us.co.uk I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams |
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