wifi laptop or adapter

[12noon]

This might sound like a silly question, but i don't know the answer.

Do i need to buy a wireless laptop card to run at high speeds wireless or will the wi-fi in my laptop be good enough to cope ?

[Cobbydaler]

Depends what router you have. If you have an 11g 54Mb/s model then your laptop will handle it if it's reasonably new.

If your router uses one of the technologies that gives 108Mb/s then you'll need a compatible card to get full speed communication...

[dragon]

Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

Depends what router you have. If you have an 11g 54Mb/s model then your laptop will handle it if it's reasonably new.

If your router uses one of the technologies that gives 108Mb/s then you'll need a compatible card to get full speed communication...

Exactly so if you have something like 802.11n (preN) then your laptop will connect but only at 54Mbit/s (802.11G)

However if you put an 802.11n card in it would connect at the full speed providing the signal is strong enough.

[12noon]

My laptop is a WiFi enabled Dell Inspiron 1501 - AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile laptop. I'm just bidding on routers on ebay at the moment.

[Cobbydaler]

Originally Posted by 12noon

My laptop is a WiFi enabled Dell Inspiron 1501 - AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile laptop. I'm just bidding on routers on ebay at the moment.

That has 802.11g 54Mbps wireless built in, so if you get a basic 11g router you won't need an additional card. If you get one of the flavours of 108Mbps routers then you'll need a compatible PCMCIA card...

[Graham M]

Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

That has 802.11g 54Mbps wireless built in, so if you get a basic 11g router you won't need an additional card. If you get one of the flavours of 108Mbps routers then you'll need a compatible PCMCIA card...

Or not, but it just won't run at top speed

[Cobbydaler]

Originally Posted by 12noon

This might sound like a silly question, but i don't know the answer.

Do i need to buy a wireless laptop card to run at high speeds wireless or will the wi-fi in my laptop be good enough to cope ?

[Graham M]

It depends what you call High Speed Cobby, I find that 108MBit wireless rarely runs at full speed unless you are sat next to the router

[dragon]

Originally Posted by Zeph

It depends what you call High Speed Cobby, I find that 108MBit wireless rarely runs at full speed unless you are sat next to the router

I find that 54g is usually fast enough for the internet anyway

Not sure how it handles 20mbit + connections tho.

[12noon]

Thanks, i think that answers my question.

If i buy a 54Mbps router, then my wifi laptop will be fine by its self, but f i buy a faster router (108Mbps) i would also need a card to fit in the side of my laptop.

[dragon]

Originally Posted by 12noon

Thanks, i think that answers my question.

If i buy a 54Mbps router, then my wifi laptop will be fine by its self, but f i buy a faster router (108Mbps) i would also need a card to fit in the side of my laptop.

Not quite

If you buy a faster router you'd need a card if you wanted it to connect at 108Mbps however if you were happy with connecting to the router @54Mbps the builtin wireless should still work fine.

[12noon]

After reading all this yesterday afternoon, i went out and bought a Netgear WGR614. It should be good enough to surf the net on my 4meg cable broadband.

Thanks for all you help.

[dragon]

Originally Posted by 12noon

After reading all this yesterday afternoon, i went out and bought a Netgear WGR614. It should be good enough to surf the net on my 4meg cable broadband.

Thanks for all you help.

Don't forget to enable the wireless security features, preferably wpa-psk or wpa2-psk

stop other people "borrowing" your connection.

If you want a really secure wireless code try

http://www.kurtm.net/wpa-pskgen/

then save it into a text file or something because the chances of being able to remember it are pretty slim