Improving laptop wifi - USB wifi adaptors

[AI1601]

Broadband speed is 55mbps and I pretty much get that on my iphone but my laptop when upstairs only gets about half if I’m lucky. I believe it only connects on the 2.4GHz band so is open to a lot of interference. Laptop is a 2012 Samsung and no new drivers are available. Can anyone recommend one of them USB Wifi adaptors?

[bangerhoarder]

Does the laptop have USB 3.0 ports? That’s right on the point of them becoming widespread. If not, forget a USB adaptor entirely, 2.0 is useless.

Best bet is to replace the card itself. Sometimes there are BIOS restrictions on what works, but you may be able to fit a better, later PCI-e card depending on the model.

[AI1601]

bangerhoarder said:

Does the laptop have USB 3.0 ports? That’s right on the point of them becoming widespread. If not, forget a USB adaptor entirely, 2.0 is useless.

Best bet is to replace the card itself. Sometimes there are BIOS restrictions on what works, but you may be able to fit a better, later PCI-e card depending on the model.

Yes I have the blue USB SS ports, I presume they’re 3.0?

[bangerhoarder]

Yes. In terms of ease of upgrade, they will help a lot as USB 3.0 is duplex rather than half-duplex so much more suitable for the job.

A Wifi 5 (802.11ac) adaptor should be cheap and a worthwhile upgrade. Will obviously help if your router/AP is decent and modern too.

[AJB88]

Does your router support 5 as well,or just 2.4

[AI1601]

bangerhoarder said:

Yes. In terms of ease of upgrade, they will help a lot as USB 3.0 is duplex rather than half-duplex so much more suitable for the job.

A Wifi 5 (802.11ac) adaptor should be cheap and a worthwhile upgrade. Will obviously help if your router/AP is decent and modern too.

Got one of the latest BT broadband hubs. Is it worth going for an established brand (i.e. Netgear) over some of the cheap £10 chinese ones on Amazon?

[AI1601]

AJB88 said:

Does your router support 5 as well,or just 2.4

Supports 5 too. Think it’s BT broadband Hub 4 or 5.

[bangerhoarder]

AI1601 said:

Got one of the latest BT broadband hubs. Is it worth going for an established brand (i.e. Netgear) over some of the cheap £10 chinese ones on Amazon?

The difference will be in support - Netgear consumer stuff isn’t any better made than the non-brand IMO but at least they have a website. Look to see if the one you’ve seen has a support page.

[AI1601]

To update then, bought the Foktech one from Amazon for £12. Came with drivers on a mini CD oddly, which was no use to me. Plugged in and it was instantly recognised and I connected to my router but speed was slow. Disabled the built-in wifi and still slow, so I downloaded installed the driver set from the Foktech website (Realtek drivers) and it did the job with pretty much full speed.

[S6PNJ]

If you want a 'tidier' approach, why not swap out the internal WiFi card? I have a Samsung laptop of similar vintage (NP350V5C family) and I bought one of these from eBay (£10) and simply swapped them over. A couple of screws and that was it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-7260-HMWG-R-Wireles... - £45 from Amazon

[AI1601]

S6PNJ said:

If you want a 'tidier' approach, why not swap out the internal WiFi card? I have a Samsung laptop of similar vintage (NP350V5C family) and I bought one of these from eBay (£10) and simply swapped them over. A couple of screws and that was it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-7260-HMWG-R-Wireles... - £45 from Amazon

Cheers, ordered off eBay, can't go wrong with £15! Where did you download the drivers from?

I'm pretty sure I have an NP350V5C too, works fine almost 10 years on.

[S6PNJ]

AI1601 said:

S6PNJ said:

If you want a 'tidier' approach, why not swap out the internal WiFi card? I have a Samsung laptop of similar vintage (NP350V5C family) and I bought one of these from eBay (£10) and simply swapped them over. A couple of screws and that was it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-7260-HMWG-R-Wireles... - £45 from Amazon

Cheers, ordered off eBay, can't go wrong with £15! Where did you download the drivers from?

I'm pretty sure I have an NP350V5C too, works fine almost 10 years on.

I think it just 'found them' via Windows -
My NP350 is still holding out - an i3-3110M - hinges are a bit bust but I've upgraded it to 10GB RAM and an SSD - does all I need!

[AI1601]

It works! I changed the settings in Device Manager so it only connects on the 5Ghz band. A great solution for £15.