Make my laptop Wifi friendly

[limbo]

Good tip, thanks Carlton, first beers on me when you make it to Samui

[OCgringo]

I got a USB WiFi stick for my home computer before I got my own broadband , worked great,

plus like aid before you can get an extension cable to put it where you want for best reception ,

 

It works the same in a laptop,

 

Do you know if your laptop has USB 1.1 or 2.0?

 

also you can use the slower WiFi set-up, its still faster then the signal you are using,

 

here are a bunch on ebay to show you what they are

 

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=usb+wifi

 

OC

[Mekong]

The wifes old Laptop didn't have WiFi and we used the D-Link DWL-G60+ PCMCIA Card that worked well, still got it lying around in "The Office"

[limbo]

OC, don't know about the UDB quality. Any advice how to find out?

[carlton68]

limbo,

 

you're running Win XP on your computer? If yes, then it's quite easy to find out. Just connect any USB device that you know is capable of USB 2.0 (should have that red and blue 'certified HiSpeed USB' logo somewhere on the packaging and manual of the device). Plug this device into your computer. If your computer tells you 'this device can transfer faster when connected to an USB 2.0 controller' then you know your computer is not capable of USB 2.0.

 

Your laptop is 2 years old, it should have USB 2.0 which has a transfer rate up to 480 Mbps (60 MBps), theoretically.

The usual broadband connection speed times is 1 or 2 Mbps. So if you look at it, for surfing and downloading the bottleneck is not the USB (even USB 1.1 at only 12 Mbps) interface but the broadband connection.

 

A few numbers more. Most of the Wlan equipement works according to 802.11g- (or 11g or 54g) standard. This says it has a theoretical capacity of 54 Mbps. However this is never reached.

I ran a few tests in the past (not representative).

Router and Wlan adapter according to 54g standard, connection quality 80% - 100%, WPA-PSK encryption enabled, USB 2.0 for Wlan-USB-sticks.

Just surfing, no difference between Lan or Wlan. Didn't use a stopwatch, just checked how it felt. Tried with a DSL test site on the net, which of course only gave me the limit of the DSL line and not the Wlan.

Then I transferred the equivalent of an DVD-R (4.4GB) between two computers connected to the same router. One computer connected via Lan, the other via Wlan.

Average transfer speed using a Wlan-USB-stick was around 8Mbps (1MBps).

Average transfer speed using a Wlan-PCI-card was around 11Mbps (1.35 MBps)

Average transfer speed using a laptop with build-in Wlan (a centrino package, so Wlan was a mini-PCI-card) was around 11Mbps (1.35 MBps)

Never tried a PCMCIA card, however this should be close to the PCI-cards.

I have only little experience with the faster Wlan equipment (108 Mbps) that's available. I got the impression that you'd need to get it from the same manufacturer (router/access point and Wlan adapter) to make sure it works at high speed. I remember that I read somewhere the actual performance gain to 54g is less than 50%.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[limbo]

Hi Carlton,

 

Found a card, but do I need a router as well? That makes it a lot more expensive all of a sudden.

[carlton68]

Limbo,

 

if you need a router/access point, how will I know. Depends.

If you want to use your neighbours broadband via his unprotected Wlan then you don't need a router - he has one ::

If you want to connect to a hotspot at airports and such, you need the configuration data but they have the access point.

If you want to create your own wlan at home you need some equipement.

So what are your plans?

 

Cheers

carlton

[..]

Limbo, just exactly what are you trying to do?

 

WiFi is not normally just floating out there for free (unless you are near a hotspot or someone else's unsecured wireless network). So if you want to use WiFi at home, you need a broadband connection (DSL) and a wireless DSL router (example) or access point (example) to broadcast the signal to the card in your laptop.

 

Think of the WiFi card in your laptop as a radio. The router/access point would be the radio station. If there is no station broadcasting music, then your radio is pretty useless.

 

Let me describe my home network. I have True DSL coming in thru a Zytel modem (provided by True) which connects to my desktop via USB. I have an access point (same as the one in the example above) that connects to the desktop via an Ethernet connection (network card in desktop required). The access point allows be to use my WiFi-enabled laptop to surf the net from my balcony, bed, front porch, etc. Or I can surf the net from my desktop.

 

If you have a DSL router instead of an access point, you can eliminate the who desktop thing as the router serves the same purpose as the modem and desktop in my above example (i.e., the DSL line plugs directly into the router).

 

Of course, access points are about half the price (~B2K) of a DSL router (~B4K).

 

Got it? Or too techie?

 

Cheers,

SD

[Mekong]

I have similar set up to SD but using a Combined Modem / Router

 

If you just require WiFi for the laptop and don't have a desktop this would be the way to go, but you do need a network card in your (or a borrowed) laptop to configure the device, simple web based configuration.

 

Cant remember the exact price between 3~4 K from Data IT in Panthip.

[OCgringo]

Is the laptop at one place or are moving place to place ?

 

I get some Wifi out my hotel window from Magestic Grande but I need a password to log in,

 

You are going to need the WIFI card or USB WiFi anyway

 

Get that working and see if there is Wifi around to "borrow"

 

If not then you will need to sign up for a internet service like True and get a wireless router to send the signal to your laptop,

 

clear as mud ?

 

OC