USB WIFI dongle - any recommendations?

kamion

kamion

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Hi guys,
Anyone use any USB WIFI dongle? I've taken a quick look around and found the Netgear WG111 which has less bad reviews than the others.

Netgear WG111 here

Any opinions on this Netgear one? Thanks.
 
Might be me or my system but I have this one and just couldn't get it to work consistently. It kept dropping the connection and only connecting at low speeds despite having a Netgear router.

Ending up buying a Belkin PCI adapter and it works very well.
 
Ive got the Netgear WPN111 USB wifi dongle and its fantastic, im using it with a WPN802 wireless access point, theyn connect at 108mps through 2 floors of my house and the connection is rock solid.

The ability to stream....... movies..... from my downloading media center box in my living room to my laptop in my bedroom (attic) is great.
 
Does it need to be the pen type or will any usb thing do?
I usually buy/install ones based on the RALINK chipset as i've had very few problems with these and they work well will most linux distro's too.

might even have a spare one or two if your willing to buy second hand?
 
I have a Buffalo USB dongle and a Buffalo PC-Card for my laptop and a Netgear PCI card in my desktop. The USB dongle has the worst performance , bad coverage and drops to low speed much sooner than the other two. Speaking as amn elecronics designer , trying to get the RF performance into such a small package is going to be a squeeze :)
 
I've got the WG111 and couldn'tr get it to work properly, especially on USB1.1 Couldn't be bothered to play around, so chucked it in a box.
 
My belkin one used to repeatedly cause my Desktop to crash, to the point where I just had to bite th bullet and buy a proper internal card and a router.

That was probably my dodgy desk-top though, it has hissy fits sometimes!
 
Well, it's for a laptop... my housemate's Windows (not sure which version) PC laptop so I have no idea what spec it is (USB1 or USB2). Would a PCMCIA card adaptor be better?

From all the reviews and feedback from people I've got it's either:

1) Works great, no problems
2) Doesn't work at all, rubbish

Worrying.

Thanks for all your comments, guys!

Brummie, what type do you have spare? I'm really looking for a USB stick or maybe PCMCIA card type for portability.
 
kamion said:
Well, it's for a laptop... my housemate's Windows (not sure which version) PC laptop so I have no idea what spec it is (USB1 or USB2). Would a PCMCIA card adaptor be better?

From all the reviews and feedback from people I've got it's either:

1) Works great, no problems
2) Doesn't work at all, rubbish

Worrying.

Thanks for all your comments, guys!

Brummie, what type do you have spare? I'm really looking for a USB stick or maybe PCMCIA card type for portability.
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i have a couple spare but as its a laptop the only one really is Asus WL-167g. Its 802.11G with WEP and WPA. have a google and see what you think. I'll test it later to make sure its all ok. Its fully boxed etc with manual CD etc inside. But it is used.
 
You need to make sure that your USB Wifi dongle is the same brand as your router to ensure maximum compatibility.

I used to run a D-Link G604T wireless router with an Edimax cardbus adapter on my laptop. The connection dropped at LEAST 20 times per hour. Replaced it with a [more expensive] D-link cardbus adapter, everything's been great ever since.

I've since discovered that Edimax stuff is pretty crappy anyway, but the guys at CCL recommended that you keep the same manufacturer throughout your network whenever possible.

For what its worth, I use the following without any problems:

D-Link G604T wireles ADSL router
D-Link DWL-G122 USB wireless adapter (desktop)
D-Link DWL-G650+ Cardbus adapter (laptop)
 
they all should adhere to the same standards so that would only work for products that didnt. I have never had a problem mixing brands etc

Nowt wrong with edimax TBH, Infact i have a PCi one here. Working 100% with a Linksys router.
Reason i'm using it is because of the RALINK chipset works great with Ubuntu.
 
Well, for anyone who's interested, I'm using a Microsoft brand router I picked up cheap from US about 3 years ago and I just bought a Belkin F5D7000uk PCI Wifi adaptor and it works really well.

brummie, I think my housemate has decided to get it from Amazon. It's only £20~. Thanks for the offer though. Hope you haven't gone through the trouble of testing it yet.
 
kamion said:
Well, for anyone who's interested, I'm using a Microsoft brand router I picked up cheap from US about 3 years ago and I just bought a Belkin F5D7000uk PCI Wifi adaptor and it works really well.

brummie, I think my housemate has decided to get it from Amazon. It's only £20~. Thanks for the offer though. Hope you haven't gone through the trouble of testing it yet.
Click to expand...

nah not yet :D

good luck anyway hope you get sorted soon
 
I think I would've gone for pcmcia card anyway, aving a dongle dangling out the back of a desktop is one thing but stuck out the side of a lappy is just asking for trouble!!!!!
 
Gandhi said:
I think I would've gone for pcmcia card anyway, aving a dongle dangling out the back of a desktop is one thing but stuck out the side of a lappy is just asking for trouble!!!!!
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Yes but its stuck in one position and a pen type can be used with a USB extension lead to sit anywhere. Mine sticks to the top of the lappy via velcro using a v.small usb lead. Much better than the old PCMCIA one i used to have which also has to stick out the side of the laptop.
 
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