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Check back here later for my recommendations on how to tweak your setup to avoid wireless interference.Intel OBL Distribution (Commercial Use) License This LIMITED DISTRIBUTION LICENSE AGREEMENT (“Agreement”) is a contract between You and Intel Corporation and its affiliates (“Intel”). If it’s performance, PCI is probably your best bet. PCI adapter, I recommend you choose based on what’s most important to you between convenience and raw power. If you can’t wait until then to decide on a USB vs. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to run a few tests on my own wireless desktop setup and I’ll report back in a subsequent post with some must-do tweaks to achieve maximum wireless performance. There are other ways to eek even better performance from PCI-based adapters. But a PCI-based adapter, like the Xtreme N PCI Express Desktop Adapter (DWA-556) is an excellent choice if you want top-notch wireless power for a single desktop PC.
Since you have to install a PCI adapter right onto your system’s motherboard, you’ll discover that it’s less convenient than a USB adapter if you ever need to move it to another system. Why? Most PCI-based wireless adapters come with multiple large antennas that stick straight out of the rear of your system and help maximize your throughput in a Wireless N environment thanks to a transmission technique called spatial multiplexing.
But here’s the caveat: A USB adapter might not be able to deliver as strong of a connection over as long of a range as a PCI-based wireless adapter can. Their connective capabilities run all the way up to dual band Wireless N networking, like D-Link’s Xtreme N® Dual Band USB Adapter (DWA-160). Connect away.Īnd don’t let the small size of typical USB wireless adapters fool you.
Plug your adapter into a USB port on a system that needs wireless connectivity, wait for Windows to install the appropriate drivers (or install them yourself), and - poof - up pops a wireless signal. It’s just as easy to operate as a flash drive. And just like some of the laptop adapters I covered last week, desktop wireless adapters also come in two different formats: USB or PCI.Ĭhoosing is actually quite simple: a USB wireless adapter trades a bit of overall power for lots of convenience. But these have all been hybrid methods that often still require a cord of some sort - as in the case when you connect your system to a wireless bridge.Ī desktop-based wireless adapter grants you access to the same kind of wireless magic that’s otherwise built into a conventional laptop or Smartphone. I’ve previously covered a couple of fancier ways to bridge the gap between your wired desktop system and your wireless Internet signal. But you also might not have any Ethernet cable on-hand to make a wired connection - or worse, no room left on your router to plug in another cord. There’s one main reason why you’d want to grant your desktop PC access to the wireless world, and it’s a biggie: You’re sick of stringing ugly Ethernet cables around your house.