Which would be faster or better as a wireless network solution for a notebook; PCMCIA wireless network adapter, or a USB wireless network adapter?

PCMCIA is faster than USB, but I don't think you are going to get any faster Wifi speeds from one over the other since the PCMCIA card and the USB adapter will both be limited by the speed of the Wifi connection.

I prefer PCMCIA because with some PCMCIA Wifi cards you won't even have to remove them from your laptop while you are moving it. With USB, the whole receiver will be sticking out from the port.

I would recommend looking at your Wifi router to see if it offers an special speed increases if used with the same brand Wifi card or USB device. If it does offer speedbooster technology or increased speeds above 54Mbps, it will only provide the increased speed with a card or USB device that has the same technology (usually the router and the card are manufactured by the same company).

That is what I would look for first. If not, then look for a cheap well known brand (Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, etc.) and buy whatever is cheaper.

I have the Linksys WRT330N wireless N gaming router so I would imagine the WPC300N PCMCIA adapter will work the best

Yeah, your router and that PCMCIA card were designed to work together. I think you will get the best performance from the WPC300N.

Thank you for your input. I kinda thought that PCMCIA was a little better than USB just wanted to verify that as laptops are not my thing.

I like your router and I would like it a lot more if I could determine if a rumor I heard is true or not. I'll explain the rumor with my example. I have media server and a media center and at one time I used a wireless G router to transfer video from my server to my center, both of them connected wirelessly.

I found that my transfer rate would max out at 11Mbps on my G router because my router could only transmit and receive data from one wireless client at a time. When I hooked my server up to a wired port of the router I was able to obtain a maximum transfer rate of 22Mbps between the server and the center.

The rumor I have heard is that this issue of slowing down due to multiple wireless clients communicating has been corrected for small networks and lessened for larger networks due to 802.11n MIMO technology. I would like to know if this rumor is correct or not and if it works with G clients. I have read many articles about 802.11n, but I have been unable to confirm this rumor. Maybe it is just a rumor.

Right now I only have 2 computer connecting wirelessly, both are at 802.11G. One is my sons Laptop and the other is a desktop. I also have 4 lan connections at the same time, 3 other computers and a printer.

How would I check to see what speed they are downloading at now and then again, once I throw the new 802.11N card into the mix???

Open your Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and go to the networking tab on one of the computers that is connected wirelessly. Transfer a large file from the wireless computer you are on to the other wireless computer and you will see the network monitor show you the percentage of the connection. The network connection monitor will show you the speed in percentage of 54Mbps and hopefully it will top out as much as 40 to 45%.

If the rumor is not true, it will top out closer to 20%.

A single N card will not affect the transfer to another computer using a G card. Only two N cards will have an effect on the performance to higher than G speeds.

Highest speeds - all N devices
Medium speeds - N router, N devices, G+B devices
Lower speeds - N router, G+B devices

mnemonicj wrote:

Open your Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and go to the networking tab on one of the computers that is connected wirelessly. Transfer a large file from the wireless computer you are on to the other wireless computer and you will see the network monitor show you the percentage of the connection. The network connection monitor will show you the speed in percentage of 54Mbps and hopefully it will top out as much as 40 to 45%. If the rumor is not true, it will top out closer to 20%. A single N card will not affect the transfer to another computer using a G card. Only two N cards will have an effect on the performance to higher than G speeds. Highest speeds - all N devices Medium speeds - N router, N devices, G+B devices Lower speeds - N router, G+B devices

I transferred a 4GB file and it stayed around 20% 48Mbps continually. So the rumor is false.

I found that Qcheck is a great tool for testing exactly how fast your network is. Lots of nice features.

But yea, you'll probably get the most performance with that PCMCIA card. On the other hand, unless you're going to be doing lots of media streaming, a G adapter would be much cheaper and still fine for browsing the internet and moving files occasionally.