OK I bought a card a while back but reliability now is random. For some reason it works at times but it drops the signal too much. It’ll be fine for days then other times it goes down every 5mins. I’ve gotten fed up with it. My laptop which is a M11x has the default Dell wireless card (DW 5120) and works flawlessly in the same location always having 4-5 bars. I need something that runs good on Win 7 64bit. The card I have now seemed to have good reviews but it just hasn’t been that great. I have a ATT 2wire wireless router on DSL.
The signal strength on Vistumbler jumps around from 0% to 35% on the desktop while being always over 70% on my laptop. The laptop also sees 10+ access points while the desktop when acting up can’t even see mine. Originally the desktop card was a lot more consistent but it seems like it is dying a slow death.
For a desktop, I would get a cheap router and install DDWRT or tomato on it. They have huge-ass antennas, reconnect on link failure, and can bridge the network to multiple devices, like a NAS or networked printer, etc.
This. I’ve never had a wifi card or usb adapter worth a damn. Lots of times you can find DDWRT compatible routers for around $25, around the same price as a reputable card anyway, and you’ll get something far more reliable, stable, flexible and functional.
