Which mini PCI wifi card has the best range?

I hate to ask a divisive question like this, but "which one is best"? I'm not concerned about tremendous speed, the 108Mb technology (or even 54 if it means longer range) is fine for me, and I would prefer a card that has two antenna connectors, as I might have an internal and external antenna I would want to use. so given those requirements, what card in the mini PCI form factor pulls in the best signal?

how important is the TX power rating? I would think that would be very important, yet it seems hard to determine this for most cards.

 

i think the receive sensitivity is the most important if im not mistaken o.o you could also try a high powered card from engenius such as their 200mw or 250mw minipci card

 

Well I've been looking at this one:

http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/xr2datasheet.pdf

which boasts 600mW power. Is that hands-down the best one? the only "high power" cards I can find on ebay that even mention their output power say they're 100mW!

The only thing I didn't like about the ubiquiti card is that it only has one antenna jack, but I could get over that.

 

FYI, I stumbled upon this website and have been finding GREAT information there regarding antennas, cabling, and connectors:

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/index.php

 

You gotta watch out with those high power cards. They are limited by the amount of power they can draw from the PCI port. In an old Asus I put in a 250mw capable card but I was never able to push over 50mw. The limitation was the port.

 

i wanted to get the 600mw one but those are made for OEM usage only -> make a point to point connection between two specialized receivers

unless you can somehow inject mroe power into the pci slot or the card itself.. it wont function properly :\

 

so does "made for OEM use only" mean that XP will not recognize it as a general purpose networking card?

I am unsure about how much power the PCI slots on the toughbook produce.. I will ask if any of the other people in the panasonic forum know. I suppose it might be an option to tap into another part of the motherboard for power, but I'm not sure I want to take it THAT far just yet

 

NO. As with any wireless card XP Will need Drivers to recognize it.

For General purpose means it's for wireless APs and stuff people can build.

I'm sure you'll max out at 100mw as that is the highest I've seen on any note book. Most will let you have 30 - 50mw. Your best bet it to route some cables from your existing wireless card to some HUGE antennas.

 

I'm involved in some wireless development right now and have some experience with a few cards and have done a fair amount of research on them.

I believe that the card manufacturer is Atheros. I've had several card in my my desktop and the Atheros has the highest power as well as the most sensitive front end.

In going through all of this, I've been fortunant enough to learn a couple of things. Speaking of desktops for a moment, I noticed that there really aren't that many desktop PCI card as I thought there would be. This is because most people don't want to open up their machines and install cards. What I found out then was that the best cards are actually made for laptops.

There are two formats of cards Mini-PCI and a narrower Mini-PCI_Express.
If you are considering a desktop card, I'd recommend a Mini-PCI to PCI adapter and use it to hold and Atheros Mini-PCI card. This is what i have in desktop now. I have a T61p on order and when it arrives I will install an Atheros card in it.

There is a dealer in germany who specializes WLAN cards and I recommend him at:

martin hoehne www.minipci.biz I am in no way affiliated with him he's just been very helpful.


Also beware that many manufacturs, Lenovo and HP in particular are locking all but their branded cards out via BIOS Checking. There are workarounds. For an example please google No-1820.

 

I have a T61p on order and in the mean time I am using a Lenovo 3000 which came with an Intel 3945. Last night I received an Atheros AR5006EX and replaced the Intel with it. The BIOS accepted the Atheros card.

I found the two cards to be significantly differently in that the Atheros has a much more sensitive front end.

 

I guess i am confused. I know atheros is a maker of wifi chipsets, as it seems that a good number of mini-PCI cards on ebay feature the atheros chipset. Seems like nearly all of them are either atheros or intel. So does that mean that "any" of the atheros cards will offer good performance? or does Atheros make their own line of mini-PCI cards and I should be looking for those?

 

Atheros does not sell directly so you won't find a card in a box from Atheros itself and there are many wifi card manufacturers.

Atheros cards are relabeled and sold under other vendors names. Lenovo even sells an Atheros card. The card I installed today is an Atheros card sold by Gigabyte. If you are interested in range and sensitivity, I'd strongly recommend Atheros. They have good drivers. They only put out one for their whole range of cards and they are pretty flawless. I know because I'm writing a Vista scanner and so many drivers put out spurious signal data. The atheros driver is clean.