What is the best type of Wi Fi Adapter

[Mendoza]

I'm going to be moving into a place where it probably wont be possible for me to hard connect my pc to a router or gateway.

I was wondering what the best kind of wi fi adapter to use for a desktop would be.

I see usb adapters are pretty popular, but some people swear by internal adapters that use a PCI slot.

I have plenty of slots and usb ports so that's not an issue.

This may only be a temporary set up, but if im going to spend money i want to get something that I can hold on to.

I have a windows 7 64bit system.

Any suggestions?

[CRTGAMER]

You can also get a wireless adapter that plugs into the ethernet port. I think the internal would the best if you can get the drivers to work. USB is the simplest to setup.

[Hobie-wan]

I'd recommend an internal one. It will be generally cheaper and you can get one with multiple antennas for better reception. A USB or Ethernet plug one is convenient for a laptop where you might only need it occasionally, but it will be just hanging off the back or sitting on top instead of being securely fastened.

[sneth]

USB is definitely the easiest but you need to look closely at the spec and read reviews.

Some USB sticks will not allow you to connect to windows networks.
You also want one that is USB 2.0
How is the range?

Read the reviews. See how well they perform. I have an N compatible USB stick that works great, but I went through some dogs until I knew what to look for.

[Gnashvar]

I would get a usb one with an extension cord to place the adapter where reception is best.

[Ziggy]

I would go with an internal. I haven't used wireless on desktops in years, but last time I did I remember the USB adapters always being finicky. Internal is the better option in my opinion. I'm sure the only reason USB adapters exist is for laptops and people that can't install a PCI card.

While the USB adapter might have the benefit of moving it around to try and get a better signal, that's probably not even going to help. Unless you have something right by your computer that's interfering with the signal. If the WiFi doesn't hit the room your computer is in, moving the adapter around probably wont make a difference. Unless you use the longest possible length for USB 2.0 (16 feet I think) and get the adapter outside the room or in a closet or something. But in this case, a signal repeater may be a better option.

I'm going to be moving into a place where it probably wont be possible for me to hard connect my pc to a router or gateway.

This may only be a temporary set up, but if im going to spend money i want to get something that I can hold on to.

Good luck. I hope that you can eventually get hardwired.

[Hatta]

Consider getting a wireless router and using it as a bridge. Then you can use whatever ethernet hardware you already have, and your OS doesn't need to know that it's going over the air. You can share your wireless connection with *ANY* ethernet capable device (DOS machine? PS2? Xbox? Dreamcast?). All you need is something that will run dd-wrt. And even if you do get a wired connection you'll probably end up buying a router anyway. You can do a lot extra with a dd-wrt router like throttling bandwith, sharing connections, etc.

If you're not hauling around a laptop, the extra bulk of an external router is no big deal. Do it this way and you don't even have to open your PC. Watch Slickdeals, dd-wrt routers come up quite often for very cheap.

[Ziggy]

dd-wrt

That's the custom firmware, right? Looks/sounds amazing but I've never gotten around to trying it out myself.

[Hatta]

Yep. It's pretty easy to set up. Just get your router into firmware recovery mode and tftp the file over. Then you can just browse to it and configure everything through a nice web interface. If you want to, you can even SSH in and get a Linux command line.
It's also more stable than most router's default firmware, I've never had to manually reboot mine.

[avrame]

If you got the cash, I would suggest a powerline ethernet plug. Using my built in wireless on my PS3 and 360, I barely get enough signal on the opposite side of the house, and constantly get dropped from online matches. We can't drill and reroute cables, as the owner of the home doesn't want to let us renters do that, nor do we want to snake cable across the house and down hallways.

Got this: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Rocketfish% ... rocketfish powerline&cp=1&lp=1

I love it. It's like having a cable routed anywhere in the house. Easily get 2 MB/s when downloading to my netbook hooked up to this thing.