5ghz wireless cards

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SuiteLemunaid

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Aug 17, 2010
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I'm fairly unfamliar with the technology surrounding wireless networking and what not, but I recently upgraded my router to a wirless N ( linksys e2000 i believe) and I purchased a new wireless card not noticing that it doesnt operate at 5ghz but rather only at 2.4ghz. I tried looking on new egg and there seemed to only be 1 or 2 cards they sell that do operate at 5ghz. Is the technology not optimal at 5 ghz? I was going to return the card I ordered but I am not sure if I am just missing something. I know on my current card that I had for the G router, my speed is capped at 54 mbps and when I tried to new card that I am considering returning, it did go up to 65 mbps even on at 2.4ghz, bu the connection did seem to be less stable (a lot more lag spikes). Can anyone give me any feedback on this issue? Is there a better place to look for 5 ghz cards? Should I even bother?
 
802.11A runs in the 5 GHZ range.
802.11G runs in the 2.4 GHZ range. (and 802.11B, but who uses that anymore?)
802.11N can run in both 5 GHZ and 2.4 GHZ range.

Most 802.11N devices that can operate on 2.4 GHZ and 5 GHZ are advertized as "dual band" devices. If the device is smart, it can open up multiple spatial streams on each band to help insulate it from interference on the other bands, and acquire greater throughput.

If your wireless access point or router supports "dual band" operation, then investing in matching "dual band" wireless devices will probably give you a more reliable signal and better throughput on the network.

The only real disadvantage of the 5 GHZ range over the 2.4 GHZ range is that at higher frequencies radio waves loose signal faster over distance, so given the same broadcast power a 2.4 GHZ signal will travel further. In the realm of wireless networks, you probably won't notice any difference between the two tho.
 
Okay, so if I'm only looking to service computers around my house with only 2 floors, the range shouldn't be an issue and 5 ghz might be something to invest in for the wireless card then?
 
For example, a lot of the cards on newegg say 802.11b/g and at the same time 802.11n (draft) or draft 2.0. Then when I look at the specs I see a range for the frequency. So rather than 2.4/5.0ghz it shows 2.4-2.484 ghz. That isn't what I'm looking for then if I want to set my router at 5 ghz is it?
 
After looking around some more, it seems that there is really only one wireless card that is "dual band," the Linksys WMP600N card, and most people complained about the drivers and I haven't seen a particularly good comment on the card within the last 3 months or so indicating speeds over 100mbps. Does anyone know of any other cards or if they just do not exist? I know there are USB adapters but isnt the consistency of a USB adapter going to be crappy?
 
SuiteLemunaid said:
For example, a lot of the cards on newegg say 802.11b/g and at the same time 802.11n (draft) or draft 2.0. Then when I look at the specs I see a range for the frequency. So rather than 2.4/5.0ghz it shows 2.4-2.484 ghz. That isn't what I'm looking for then if I want to set my router at 5 ghz is it?
Click to expand...

Correct, that's the 2.4GHz band. They support b, g, and 2.4GHz n. They do not support a or 5GHz n.

Find out for sure what router you have. The E2000 is a "selectable dual-band". That means it can do either 2.4GHz or 5.GHz, but not both at the same time. That means if you buy a 5GHz N card for your PC, but everything else (other PCs, game consoles, smartphones, etc.) is only 2.4GHz, the router can only be configured to support your N connection or the other devices' connections, not both simultaneously. Other routers have "simultaneous dual-band", where they actually have separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios, so they can communicate on both bands at the same time.

Simply changing from 2.4GHz to 5GHz doesn't really affect the networking side of things at all. One is not inherently faster than the other or anything like that. Different frequencies will have different characteristics (range, wall penetration, etc.), so your RF coverage may change. However, the actual TCP/IP networking just rides on top of that, and is the same regardless of what frequency the radio waves are using.

The big reason that people are switching to 5GHz is to avoid interference from other 2.4GHz devices. In an apartment complex you'll find a billion people running 2.4GHz WiFi. A lot of cordless phones use 2.4GHz. Microwaves generate 2.4GHz interference. There's just a bunch of crap in the 2.4GHz band, whereas 5GHz has much less.
 
Also remember that 5GHz gives more bandwidth, up to 300 Mb/s. This allows for data to travel faster between devices. It does not increase the range or distance of the signal over the 2.4GHz frequency.
 
SuiteLemunaid said:
After looking around some more, it seems that there is really only one wireless card that is "dual band," the Linksys WMP600N card, and most people complained about the drivers and I haven't seen a particularly good comment on the card within the last 3 months or so indicating speeds over 100mbps. Does anyone know of any other cards or if they just do not exist? I know there are USB adapters but isnt the consistency of a USB adapter going to be crappy?
Click to expand...

The selection of dual-band NICs is rather small, as is the selection of desktop NICs. Looking for a dual-band desktop NIC just makes it that much harder to find. You might not have much choice other than USB.

I've always really like Intel's wireless stuff - it just works. However, it doesn't look like they're making desktop cards with their chips, just laptop stuff. If you have a free PCIe slot, you might consider finding a PCIe adapter and picking up a mini-PCIe ABGN card. You'd have to adapt the antenna connectors too, so it might end up being a ton of work to get a finished product.


caniba said:
Also remember that 5GHz gives more bandwidth, up to 300 Mb/s. This allows for data to travel faster between devices. It does not increase the range or distance of the signal over the 2.4GHz frequency.
Click to expand...

The bandwidth isn't determined by being 5GHz or 2.4GHz. You can do the full 600Mbps of 802.11n on 2.4GHz if you have the right equipment without a bunch of other 2.4GHz stuff around. Switching from 20MHz channels to 40MHz channels (required to get the full 600Mbps) would take up 82% of the 2.4GHz band, so it's generally not feasible, but it is possible.
 
I mean, the initial N card that I bought like I said only operated at 2.4Ghz, and although there was an increase in bandwidth (54mbps to 65mbps) I expected it to be more towards 100mbps, and the signal showed as being 3-4 bars all the time, whereas with the old G card windows showed it always being 5 bars. I didn't expect this much feedback, lol now I really don't know what I want to do. I was considering doing what invisibill said with the adapter to mini for the intel laptop cards, but I didn't even think about the antennas. I guess getting a "good" card that's 2.4 other than the one I bought initially is another option although I doubt it would be much different.
Thanks anyways guys.
 
For what its worth, Netgear WNDA3100 USB adapters have been working very well for me for 5GHz n. I was in the same situation looking for dual-band PCI adapters. I had needed 5GHz n to avoid interference from all the wifi networks in my condo complex.

I think the price was a little higher than I wanted (about a year and half ago), but overall haven't had any more problems with them than I'd get from any other wireless device.
 
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