All USB nics I've seen have the antenna built into the device. This makes
the antenna smaller (maybe an 8th wavelength antenna), closer to the wifi
chipset (noise bleed), and non replaceable. Also drivers are somewhat
harder to get updated as the generic chipset drivers generally don't support
the USB devices. (seems like all wifi chipsets only directly support PCI so
the converter keeps the generic drivers from working)
All PCI nics I've seem have replaceable antenna so if you want you can make
the antenna move around by buying an extension cable and/or get a better
antenna.
----- Original Message -----
USB uses more CPU then PCI but I wasn't aware this was an issue.
I think quality varies between brand and varies even more between models.
However, if you can move the antenna to achieve better signal then the
transfer rate is usually increased as well.
warpmedia wrote:
Show me a good USB nic with an antenna then? Last time I bought one from
netgear, I found the customer got better reception with the card &
antenna. To be fair, I have the same antenna issues with PCMCIA card on
my laptop but put up with it.
Also I had thought that USB created more CPU overhead than PCI did?
joeuser wrote:
I think they are the same but when you can move the USB NIC around to
obtain a better signal it's a better deal. I use and sell USB NIC's.
Christopher Klein wrote:
I'm moving to a new apartment and will probably go
100% wireless. I prefer cat cable, but I want to keep
this place neat. Is there any difference between a wireless usb nic,
and a pci nic? I see the usb nics are cheaper. Do
they have as high a transfer rate?
Thanks,
Chris
--
Cheers,
joeuser (still looking for the 'any' key)
