Budget Wireless Card?

So... Desktop Review is pretty much a ghost town, so I figured I would ask here.

You see, my brother is in need of a wireless card, but his budget is below $30. We of course want one that can reach up to Wireless N. I am not sure what the difference between an internal and USB wireless card is (except for the physical appearance, obviously). I would really appreciate the help here so he can get back on his feet playing Final Fantasy XIV again. He is upstairs in this old house, while the main router with the broadband gateway is downstairs. He is only getting 2-3 bars.

I have a separate DD-WRT router available, but when I tried to connect it to my brother's ethernet port in the back of his desktop computer and tried setting it up, it was a real pain in the trying to get the Repeater Bridge function to work and I couldn't get it going properly.

Any help would be most appreciated!

 

Well, technically this IS NBR... but here is a good cheaper adapter. It's great because it has an external detachable antenna. You can position it any way you want it, or even plug up another type of antenna.

 

That'd be a great card, but like I said, we want one that has Wireless N capabilities.

Would something like this work, or are there drawbacks? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166056

 

Somehow I missed the N part...lol. Sorry. I researched that one a little, and while it get's great reviews for range, it's realtek chipset chokes on large numbers of open TCP connections, especially at longer distances. I personally HATE realtek WiFi chipsets, as they are usually horrible at any kind of performance level.

I know this is like right on the budget limit, but try this one.. It has a Ralink chipset that will give you much fewer headaches. It can handle just about anything.

 

He got the one you just mentioned. Thank you!