Wireless Adapter

[Cathbadh]

My son recently received a prebuilt gaming desktop as a gift. I just discovered that it did not come with a wireless connection to my house. As I'm not interested in running cables across the house to plug it into my router, I need a wireless option. I have a small USB adapter I found on an older computer, it says TP LInk on it and is offering awful speeds of .5 to 11 mbps download (my home speed is 20mbps and my own computer easily gets that although it is wired), which is abysmal. I assume there's something wrong with the part as it shouldn't fluctuate like that nor should it be that bad.

Unfortunately I have no idea what to look for. I know wireless isn't ideal for gaming, but I have no intention of trying to run an ethernet cable through a duct or into the floor/basement and across my small house. I see anything from different sized USB related items with antennas up to cards with or without multiple antennas but have no idea what makes one product better than another. Anyone able to help?

[Fascinate]

While those things usually suck, the speeds you are getting dont seem right either. Go into device manager and look under network adapters, then either pick update device software or write the model number down and search for drivers on the net.

If either of those dont fix your issue, this is the part id recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Wirel...s+network+card

There are much better ones on the market, but given your relatively low wired speeds this is plenty good enough.

[Denpepe]

You could check out powerline network adapters so you can use your power lines and don't need to run new wires.

[Nellah]

Three words: 802.11ac beamforming router. Okay, one was a standards denotation, but I picked up a $130 AC router and all of my wireless connectivity problems stopped. All. I could stream 1080p video to my bedroom PC, which on my N router struggled to stream 720p (even with the same crappy single-antenna N WiFi card, only changed the router.) My phone got usable WiFi signal at the stop sign 200 feet from my house. I even dismantled the Ethernet cable run I had going around the edge of my living room to get internet connectivity to my and my wife's gaming PCs and have been gaming trouble-free on the motherboards' built-in AC WiFi connectors, even after we moved to a larger house and our PCs are literally on the opposite corner of the building.

If powerline networking might be too finicky (older house) or you already have a decent amount of WiFi infrastructure already in place - even older G or N devices - a modern beamforming router can solve a LOT of problems. Even if you don't need the speeds afforded by 802.11ac, the connection stability tech present in the standard, especially on mid-tier routers and better, are amazing (coming from a guy who remembers early 802.11g connectivity nightmares.)