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    Best, highest powered miniPCI wifi card?

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by aaron7, Nov 24, 2012.

  1. aaron7

    aaron7 Notebook Consultant

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    Ok, it's 2012. MiniPCI is definitely dead. No major technological advancements ahead I'm sure.

    That said, there must be a hands-down best wifi card by now. 600mW this, engenius/broadcom/intel that... so much info and most threads are 5 years old now.

    What has the best range? Fastest connection? I'll be running it paired with an external antenna.

    So... recommendations?
     
    aaron7, Nov 24, 2012
    #1
  2. downloads

    downloads No, Dee Dee, no! Super Moderator

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    What would be the reason for the purchase?

    Are you looking for better range, transfers, reception?

    BTW- there's no "best card" unfortunately- there are good cards for different usage-patterns but there's no all-rounder.
     
    downloads, Nov 26, 2012
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  3. ajkula66

    ajkula66 Courage and Consequence

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    In the mini PCI format, these are your choices:

    Broadcom BCM43222 Mini PCI 802.11 a/b/g/n 300M Wireless N WiFi Card New | eBay - not affiliated with the seller in any way, proceed at your own risk

    or:

    Newegg.com - TP-LINK TL-WN861N Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n 32-bit Mini PCI Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128/152 bit WEP, WPA/WPA2/WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK,Wireless MAC Filtering, WPS

    I run the latter one in my older ThinkPads and am very happy with it, although it's 2.4 only. Broadcom is both 5 and 2.4 but lacks Linux support which I find important.

    Good luck.
     
    ajkula66, Nov 27, 2012
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  4. aaron7

    aaron7 Notebook Consultant

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    Better reception I suppose. It isn't terrible now but I'd really like to be able to connect to further wifi if I have to when I travel!
     
    aaron7, Nov 27, 2012
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  5. Aluminum

    Aluminum Notebook Consultant

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    Late reply but anyways...

    Take a look at the Mikrotik R52Hn, its an AR9220 mini-pci card, I have a pair in a routerstation pro running openwrt. Ath9k is probably the best linux supported chipset at the moment.

    It uses MMCX which is far more durable and the pigtails are usually lower loss than U.FL/hirose.

    It is slightly longer than a standard card, so it may not fit some laptops.

    In general beware of marketing claims of "very high power", there are a lot of "600mW" or "1W" or even "2W" cards/usb dongles out there that claim to be amazing, but if you actually look inside you realize they are just using an extra amplifier which honestly isn't the same. I'm not aware of any cards that are really much more than 300mW on standard bands.

    Using the best antenna for the job is a lot more effective than trying to boost power in my experience, directional can do wonders.
     
    Aluminum, Dec 10, 2012
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  6. aaron7

    aaron7 Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the replies! My plan is to find the optimal (range, I guess) card and build an antenna threaded mount into the side of the laptop so I can switch between a cantenna or a standard stick-looking style and play with designs!
     
    aaron7, Dec 15, 2012
    #6