Wireless USB adapter suggestions?

[Xeogred]

It could just be the range between my PC and our router in the house, but who knows. I'm at my breaking point and willing to spend a few bucks to maybe get another adapter that might work out better. The thing is both my 360 and PS3 connect and STAY connected perfectly fine with good rates in the very same room, but my PC connection is constantly dropping dozens of times throughout the day. Constantly having to repair it off and on, etc. I think I've done everything I can and figure it's gotta be hardware or something, though googling around it sounds like a weird common issue some people have with Win7 for some reason.

Anyways, this is what I have now, maybe the $10 says something:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833166041

Our wireless router is a real cheap EnGenius 1EEE802.11 b/g (at least it looks cheap and crappy, lol). So maybe that doesn't help either. Probably in my dad's jurisdiction though so I don't know if I can replace that. I had much better connections back on my laptop when I used my own Linksys.

My parents also say they have fine connections in their room which is like 5 feet away from mine.

So yeah, anyone have any suggestions or good brands to look out for? Maybe ideas on what's going on? I've thought about maybe buying a repeater to put somewhere in the house, but they certainly aren't too cheap.

[Hobie-wan]

Is this for a desktop? If so, put an actual wireless card in, not a USB one. You can get ones that are still pretty cheap but will have 2 antennas which might help. You might also check if you're having an IP conflict with something. Maybe set a static IP that is a higher number so less likely to fight with something else that's obtaining one automatically.

[Xeogred]

Desktop, yeah. I've got a slim case though so I'm seriously not sure if there's even room in there for something like this, haha... it's that packed and small. Perhaps there's room though. For whatever reason here's what I have:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883113112

(definitely hoping to upgrade and get a real beast this year!)

I definitely tried setting a static IP on it for awhile, it didn't seem to really do anything. I tried setting one to all the stuff I have connected in my room once but yeah, nothing really changed. But I do get an occasional IP conflict error sometimes when I have to repair the connection, this is a bit rare though. The most common one I get is "Default Gateway is Not Available".

[Hobie-wan]

What is your signal strength like?

I don't see anything saying the expansion slots are half height or anything. Network cards aren't very big, so as long as it takes a full height card for the edge bracket, a network card will fit in there and as I said, you can get cheap ones with 2 antenna.

[Xeogred]

Right now I'm looking at 54mbs with an Excellent signal. I have no idea why it's all of a sudden been great these past few days, but knowing it it'll probably be back to crap randomly in a few days for awhile or whatnot. lol, it's usually only 2-3 bars, sitting on 2 pretty often.

My video card had to be low profile though, so maybe they do need to be half sized? Though I imagine like you're saying these things aren't big at all.

[Hobie-wan]

Just low profile inside, or is it half height brackets? Specs pages didn't say anything that I noticed.

[Xeogred]

Sorry I kind of don't even know what I'm talking about myself here, haha. But yeah I think it needs half brackets, I remember my video card came with two and I had to use the smaller sized one.

My case is about 4 inches wide, lol.

There's one slot open under my video card, not sure what it is but I think that's the only open slot for something.

When and if I get a new PC this year I'll make sure it's got an internal card... haha.

[Hobie-wan]

Fair enough.

[Xeogred]

So should I just put up with these issues until then, or would getting a different USB adapter maybe help?

[deathsled]

Instead of a new network card/adapter how about just getting another cheap router/access point and setting it up elsewhere in the house as a repeater to give everyone better signal and expand range?