A wireless network adapter should match the speed of your router or better. You can't push your internet speed beyond what your ISP allows with any device. Size should have no correlation to speed. Yes, you'll have to buy one of these devices.Īs far as the sizes go. I'd buy something in the medium price range from either Cisco or Linksys. I wouldn't buy the lowest cost hardware I could find for that reason. Much of that extra money is spent solving issues with firmware and drivers. Many companies put a bunch of money into the products they make, so they cost more. I've had bad luck with Netgear and D-Link. Cisco bought Linksys a few years back, so they are the same company now, but I've always had good luck with them. I also have an old Cisco USB wireless adapter that keeps going and going.
I have old Linksys WRT 54G routers at my house that keep going and going. Keep in mind that many of the reviewers are clueless, mistaken or just plain frustrated. I doubt they use the same brand, so when you do buy something look closely at the products reviews for complaints about equipment that breaks quickly or doesn't work fresh out of the box. You have a router at home and an access point at school. I do this out of the mostly mistaken idea that the same brands work better together. I try to buy network adapters that match the brand and speed of my router. They'll keep the laptop for a week or two and and then ship it back to you. You'll have to trouble shoot the problem with one of their techs first, and then if the problem isn't fixed ship the laptop back to the manufacturer lock stock and barrel. If your warranty period is greater than eighteen months you could have a warranty claim.
I don't think you have a driver issue here I think the device is dead and will need to be replaced with an external device. I mean it seems to have worked then worked intermittently then died. I've assumed you have laptop with built-in wireless networking that used to work. The probable reason you don't have the '802.11' listed in Device Manager under Network Adapters is your wireless network device is broken. Removing the driver for that device and rebooting your computer and letting Windows reinstall the device driver won't help in this case not that you've been asked to do that. If I'm not wrong the Atheros AR8152/8158 PCI-E FAST ETHERNET CONTROLLER is your built in wired network controller. If that does not fix it, then the built in adapter is suspect, can be replaced at cost, or then the option is to buy the TP-Link USB version.
The adapters have a driver disk in the box, so you just follow the easy instructions to install the files for your Windows, be it XP, Vista or 7.īut it would be better if you could get the adapter that's built in, to work again, and by uninstalling the driver (802.11g) it will force Windows to install it again from it's own backup.
I tried a very well known brand USB adapter, I won't name, it just failed time and again.
but when I tried a 'TP-Link' brand I had no problems at all, in fact I bought 3 of them over a few months for family pc users.
It's more likely you have 'Wireless G' standard, so you can use a 'G' or 'N' USB adapter. If you do choose to use a separate Wireless adapter in a USB port, the brand won't matter at all, but you can get more speed if you are using 'Wireless N' with the router AND the wireless adapter. Ok, not sure which windows version you are using, but in Device manager, click on the arrow to the left of 'Network adapters'.