wireless pci card brand

[sfleuriet]

i have a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router, and i need to get a wireless PCI card for it. All the namebrand ones are like $50, and the offbrand ones are a lot cheaper on Newegg. Does it matter what brand I get? If its the same frequency compatibility (b in this case), will it work just the same? thanks

[khan]

Brand is completely unimportant (although nicer brands like, say, Orinoco cards will get you better signal reception). Otherwise, as long as it is certified for 802.11b, it will work on your network. 802.11g would work too but that would be more expensive and would operate at 802.11b speeds (802.11g is a newer, faster version of 802.11b)

[sfleuriet]

ok. i totally forgot about this thread. surprising that it took almost a month for a simple response.. thanks :)

[primesuspect]

I totally disagree. I have used a wide variety of brands and find that the more expensive brands do actually work better. For example, at home I had all Linksys cards - WMP11 and two WMP54G cards. I was getting terrible reception and lots of disconnects. Changing nothing else, I swapped one of the WMP54Gs with a Netgear WT311G and it works great. I swapped the WMP11 for a DLink DWL-G520 and I get PERFECT reception wheras before I got crap reception. I've tried this theory out at customer locations as well. Quality wireless equipment makes a difference.

[GHoosdum]

Are you saying that Linksys < Netgear < D-Link? And here all this time I thought it was exacty the other way around.

[primesuspect]

No, actually I prefer the netgear. Linksys is crap. I am done with them. I've had so many bad experiences with linksys products, both personally and professionally, that the only conclusion I can draw is that linksys/cisco makes total crap consumer products. I've had all kinds of failures and inexplicable weirdness with a broad range of linksys products.

[sfleuriet]

yes i agree!!! People have told me "oh linksys totally rocks" but I'm NOT convinced!!! When you have to update the firmware of a simple wireless Linksys router right out of the box... then something is wrong. I too, am done with Linksys. Thank goodness its not just me...

[profdlp]

Everything I've seen is that Linksys was just fine until they fell into the clutches of Cisco. I have nothing against Cisco, but it seems like they are not too focused on their Linksys division. :rolleyes:

[sfleuriet]

well I know nothing about Cisco, except that linksys is a division of them... i've never used Cisco products or anything. But now I know linksys is on my badlist