I have a Linksys 802.11g 2.4 GHz 54mbps router and am now in the hunt for an ethernet card to hook up my other desktop. I was wondering if the brand actually mattered in speed because there are is a plethora of cards with various price ranges. The Linksys ethernet card is $59.99 at my local CompUSA while they have other ones from brands such as D-Link coming in at $29.99. If anyone could clear all this up, I'd greatly appreciate it!
Your router is wireless but are you looking for an Ethernet card or a wireless card? If Ethernet, then it's not going to make a whole lot of difference. If wireless then it can matter, especially if your router has the ability to ooperate at higher speeds with other Linksys hardware.
Check to see if your router has an "overdirve" feature that will operate at higher than G speeds with a wireless card that also has the "overdrive" feature. I'm not sure what name Linksys uses for this as each company uses a different name for it. If not, then the brand of the card won't make much difference.
If anyone could give me some information really quick, I'd appreciate it. I want to go out and purchase the card before the store closes tonight!
then anyone you pick should do fine then internet doesnt use more than 5mbps or 10mbps and the cards out there are of 54mpbs but thats just for transfering files
So long as it adheres to the 802.11g standards you'll be fine. I was running 802.11b for a long while but we recently updated to 802.11g with the 108Mbps by DLink. I can safely say that my down speed more than doubled with the switch. I would average about 200-230KB/s actual down but now average around 660-690KB/s. Needless to say I wouldn't go back to b standard for anything. We do have a laptop that has a 54Mbps card, also DLink, that runs a tad slower, about 480-500KB/s actual. So apparently there is a difference in how well the signal is carried as well as the actual speed you will get from it.
yep. i used to use a Dlink 802.11b router that screamed "OLD" at me, we bought a new MIMO one (the 2XR router), but its software installation was so... tacky we couldnt get it up and running. returned it to the store, bought the newest (at least in melbourne) Netgear WPNT834 that has 240Mbps speed aranoid:. however, the ppl at netgear made sure that any non-Rangemax products (like my Dlink DWL-G520 that works at a max of 108Mbps) only operate at 54Mbps. still very fast mind you, compared to my 11Mbps i had before, but i really want to get my hands on a 240Mbps Netgear adapter.
Diffrent brands use the same chipsets for the majority of the market. They are so similar that you can use drivers from other makers w/o a hitch, somethimes being a better driver. They arent as exclusive to the same chipmakers as video cards. Chipset is everything. Even specific chipmakers dont allways make good chips, thats why the actual chipset matters and not the brand. Atheros, TI, Zydas, AMD, Intel, Broadcom, ect... I dont buy many Brand-X products, just because they are Brand-X. I usually buy what I like because it has the chip I want with the right design and standard drivers(so I dont have to run a closed source enviroment.)
In my experience, especially with laptops, brand of the wireless card does matter. A better brand will result in a tighter hold on the signal reception. This is important for if you have any areas with a weak signal and obviously it will help increase and stabilize your connection speed.
I don't think brand matters a whole lot. I use Trendnet wireless stuff and it works flawlessly. We also sell a crapload of Cnet brand (not related to the website) networking/wireless stuff and it works great as well with very low rma rate.
Just buy the generic with the same chipset as the name brand, then use the name brands driver Or in linux, it wont matter, the drivers arent for the card, the drivers work with the chipset(including the card makers that use them across the board.) Its like giving HP credit for building a computer, while all they did was use other peoples parts.
