Best Mini-PCI Wireless (802.11g) card for the money?

msi has one for $20, good card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833158115

There is a thread that talks about the Atheros A/B/G one for $50.00

http://www.netgate.com/product_info....c02795141994e4

5004 MP Atheros 4G: 802.11a/b/g miniPCI Card
This is the preferred card for Dell laptops due to the location of the antenna connectors.


Benefits:

802.11a/b/g
Upto 108 Mbps
Wi-Fi Compliant, fully interoperable. Supports 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11g Super Mode, 802.11a, 802.11a Turbo Mode.
Super G™ and Super A/G™ deliver wired speeds with backward compatibility
This Wistron Neweb CM-9 card is the miniPCI Type IIIb format which is the smaller miniPCI form factor, so this card should fit in miniPCI slots when the larger 5354 cards won't.
Two U.FL (MHF) antenna leads
Can be designed or embedded for OEM project/ embedded systems.
Supports Power Save mode, Wake on Wireless LAN (PC-OEM)
Full interoperability, feature and regulatory certification compliant
WHQL compliant (Microsoft)
Wi-Fi compliant
Features:
Atheros AR5004 4th generation chipset. AR5213 (MAC+BB) + AR5112 (2.4/5GHz radio)

Variable Transmit Output (Maximum
802.11a 17 dBm
802.11g 18 dBm
802.11b 18 dBm all +/- 2dBm


Receive Sensitivity:
802.11a: -88dB@ 6Mbps, -71dB @54Mbps
802.11g: -90dB@ 6Mbps, -74dB @54Mbps
802.11b: -95dB@ 1Mpbs, -90dB @11Mbps


Security:
WPA - 64, 128, 152-bit WEP data encryption
AES (Advanced Encryption Security) Support - AES-CCM & TKIP
IEEE 802.1x Authentication
Supports multi-country roaming (802.11d)
Fourth Generation (4G) Atheros baseband and radio
3.3V Operating Voltage
Transmission Power Control (TCP) to adjust RF output power.
Dynamic Freqency Selection (DFS) support - works in USA, Europe, Japan & China
Manufacturer Support of Windows ME, 2000, XP ONLY. No official support is provided for BSD or Linux (see below).


Note the drivers for this card are currently available via Download only.
Linux support via madwifi driver
Download the FreeBSD driver or look in the kernel tree. See wi, atw, ath(4)
New: OpenBSD now supports Atheros cards. See ath on this page.
New! Compatible with m0n0wall versions 1.2b5 and later only.

Another thread in the dell 9300/xps2 forum talks about another atheros based card, a gigabyte one. It I believe is a newer chipset, like 5005, but doesn't include the A band. I've only found them on the ebay where the guy talking got his and they are $60 with shipping.

I'm highly curious and close to getting one myself. I just wish it was a bit less confusing with Atheros chipsets and all the minute changes in them. Not to mention it seems pretty hard to find retailers that have them, at least in the states.

Tellerve

Keep in mind that in order to take the full benefit of Atheros, the router needs to support it. Such as Netgear and D-links which uses it. If you have a linksys, you can't take the benefit of the 108MBps benefit of it.

Atheros is the best they are better than the rest lol. Well they are the industry leader I wish they were more widely available here is the site that details all their chipsets. The newest is the AR5006 chipset that integrates all the wifi components of an a/b/g card on one chip


The AR5004 chipset is more than enough and still outclasses Intel, the only side effect is that is sometimes blocks other devices, depending on the person that can be good or bad. Also I think it can be used on a higher power setting which drains the battery more but it can also be used at the same settings intel cards can. It seems that wireless routers use atheros chipsets more often than notebook network cards do but with the new AR5006 chipset we can expect to see thinner and lighter wireless routers.

Interesting according to Atheros Pretty amazing and for those that don't know PCI express has a much different architecture from mini PCI or PCI so thats why it is faster read

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topi...us&l=en&s=corp

The downfall of the pci express card.. at least the atherors one is that it lacks "Adaptive Radio to automatically identify clear channels
for maximum throughput and standards compatible operation"

So stick to the mini PCI for laptops at least for now

I agree smilepak, gotta have that router for "full" effect. But seeing as I might want better connectivity and a cooler running chip (I'm not 100% sold that my intel card is the majority contributor to "my" laptop's heat) atheros ones seem like the candidate.

I would also ideally like a gigabit ethernet setup and so I'm looking at the d-link gaming router. Probably I'm thinking is that I'd like to also have a external hard drive and maybe one hooked up to the router for me and my roommate to share. But those, at least the one I know of from maxtor, only hits 100baseT which kinda defeats the purpose.

Still thinking and looking,

Tellerve

I have the DGL-4300 and it's been rock solid so far (which is nice, considering the problems I had with two different DI-624's). The gigibit is great (file server and laptop both have it, iTunes flies and my photo library is a breeze to navigate now).

I'm going to pick up the 5005 or 5006 version of this card and give it a shot at 108 Mbps to see how it works out.

I purchased my Atheros 5005GS off eBay, and had no trouble installing it. I'd like to see some packet sniffing support in Windows, but other than that no complaints. Personally, I can't tell a difference between this card and my old Intel 2915. The range is supposedly better with the Atheros card, and less power and cpu intensive.

I am looking around for a wireless 802.11 b/g or a/b/g card to, I know that the generic Intel card is out there. MSI has one to, does anyone know anything good or bad about the MSI card, or any of the other brands out there.

I am building a barebones laptop, and need to decide on what to do.

thx

is there any cards with b/gand bluetooth???

I doubt it bro. You'll most likely need the dell 350 bluetooth module. You can get it from Dell refurb for $13.00 and easy install. Search the forums to find my post about it. Granted, you have a Dell machine.

I'm in need for a good replacement as well.

I have no problems with Cisco-Linksys WAP54G v2.0 and Intel WLAN 802.11 B/G Mini-PCI (WPA AES)

MSI 6855 is a combo card. but very hard to find.

I did some surfing around the Internet, and I found this wireless card from Ubiquiti.

Sorry, I know nothing.

http://www.ubiquiti-networks.com/sr2/index.htm