Need help deciding between Wireless USB Adapters.

linckmichael · Nov 26, 2013

I'm looking into getting a new Wireless USB Adapter. I'm looking at the following two:
1) Linksys Dual Bank Wireless N Adapter AE3000
2) TPLINK TL WN822N

I'm leaning towards the Linksys, but then I'm put off that it doesn't have any antennas. I know it has a 3x3, but it doesn't have any antenna stick out.

Reason why, is because I'm roughly 25 feet away from my router. My PCI wireless adapter is more or less useful because of the positioning of the desktop (blocked everywhere, 2 out of 5 bars, 9 mbps >>> My Macbook Pro gets 35 mbps....)

Any thoughts? Thanks - I appreciate it!

http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-Dual-Band-Wireless-N-Adapter-AE3000/dp/B007ZLGXA8/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN822N-Wireless-External-Antennas/dp/B00416Q5KI/ref=zg_bs_13983791_4

bill001g · Nov 26, 2013

As you found out the antenna in any form of laptop are superior to most cards. They have lots of room in the back of the screen to put in well designed antenna.

3x3 mimo does you little good if your router also does not do 3x3 mimo....even then you must have a very interference free house to get 3x3 mimo to really work well. Mimo works by intentionally transmitting 3 interfering signals so if you get too many other interfering signals it has trouble recovering the 3 it wants.

Because mimo is extremely dependent on antenna design and spacing you really can't replace antenna anymore so external antenna are not the large advantage they used to be.

I would say the largest advantage to the tp-link card is that it is designed to sit on top of the computer attached by a USB cable. This gets it out of the back of the computer like PCI card.

I would go with the linksys one and use a USB cable to put it on top of the computer. If your macbook works this should work just as well.

linckmichael · Nov 26, 2013

Thanks for the reply, appreciate it.

Yeah the Linksys has dualband capabilities - it's got a docking too for placing it on a desk. This would negate the advantage of the TPLINK.

I've actually got a AirPort Extreme and I believe it emits both 2.4 and 5.0GHz. I suppose this allows me to have the faster speeds... hopefully.

BUT most importantly I'm worried about recieving strong signals. >>> So in terms of signal strength, you would choose 3 mimo over the 2 antennas of the TPLINK???

(I live in an apartment, so there are other signals (upstairs, downstairs, neighbours) that I'd be recieving).

Thanks again!

bill001g · Nov 26, 2013

Well designed antenna make much more difference than the size or if you can see them. Look at how well cellphones work and you never see antenna anymore.
So in this case I got a more interest than normal and went and dug though the FCC database for the linksys device
https://fcc.io/Q87/-AE3000
Was hoping the outright told the antenna gain for the internal antenna. I am sure they do but so far I have not found it other than comment is it is a "printed" antenna whatever that is. One of the interesting things I saw on the internal photos is this device uses industry standard antenna connectors. Means if you really wanted to you could connect external antenna that are used to connect to internal mini pci cards.

I will suspect there is very little difference in the DB gain between the 2 adapters you have listed here antenna. The tplink is also someplace in the FCC database and if you dig long enough you can actually get the numbers for the antennas.

Still the FCC only cares that the equipment does not violate the laws they don't do any actual test that show which work better in real life. Mostly what you want to confirm is both transmit at the legal maximum power including the antenna gain. What they many times do is lower the radio power when they increase the antenna size to not violate the standards. There tends to be a optimum antenna gain and radio power level which is why all manufactures tend to look the same.

When it comes to signal strength 2.4g will penetrate wall and floors much better than 5g so you should stay with that.

The big thing is your house and there seems to be no way to predict why tiny difference in the design of some adapters work good in some houses and work poorly in others.

linckmichael · Nov 26, 2013

Interesting........ Not a house, just an apartment. I'm 1-2 walls away from the airport extreme, or 1 door away if the wi-fi signal does some bouncing and pierces through my door executing an L-shape of around 25 feet.

Okay, I think I was headed towards the Linksys 5.0GHz but I think I will hold back on that and go for TP-Link instead and save quite a bit of money. So I know realize that 2.4GHz is stronger than the 5.0 - and so this might be what I need. Of course, with the USB adapter placed on my table with antenna will help since the wi-fi receiver is in open air.

I hope it performs similar to what the PCI card did when it was exposed in the middle of the room rather than tucked in behind the table, my legs, and a bookshelf, and the huge heavy metal PC case. I guess at the end of the day its wi-fi signal strength that I need to correct the 2/3 bars of signal that I currently have, and hopefully that will come faster speeds.

If you were me, would you choose the TP-LINK 2.4GHz?

>>> And thanks again for the responses and for the research digging! Appreciated!

linckmichael · Nov 26, 2013

WAITT... Can I ask you another question... What is the big difference between these two?

One says high gain, one says high power. One has 3dbi antennas (x2), the other has 5dbi antennas. And they are roughly the same price - but one seems to have a lot more reviews than the other.

1) TP-LINK TL-WN822N Wireless N300 High Gain USB Adapter
>>> http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN822N-Wireless-External-Antennas/dp/B00416Q5KI/ref=zg_bs_13983791_4

2) TP-LINK TL-WN8200ND 300Mbps High Power Wireless USB Adapter
>>> http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN8200ND-Wireless-detachable-antennas/dp/B00ATXJN60/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

allennnn · Nov 26, 2013

To use 3 antennas does the router not also need 3?

Do you really need a new upgrade if you could just get 1 or 2 of these.

Other brands are available.

bill001g · Nov 26, 2013

In theory 5db gain antenna should increase the signal close to double over the 3db...every 3db gains doubles.

Since there is a maximum amount of power you can transmit what they generally do is if they have lower gain antenna they increase the radio power and if they have higher gain antenna they reduce it.

All that really matters is what the total effective power is. That number you generally only find in the FCC site.

Although you can change the transmit power on radios and change the antenna there are certain combinations that are optimum. This is why when people replace antenna with huge antenna on things and it does not improve it much they wonder why.

What you used to be able to do was swap out the antenna on stuff with bigger ones. Since most equipment cannot detect it they would continue to transmit with the same radio power. So you could build your own illegal combinations and likely never get caught. What people found though was the larger antenna put more load on the radio transmitter and caused more errors. So now you have a illegal transmitter that has more power but does not pass any more data.

You can increase the antenna a little without adjusting the radio power down but it does little good to just put the biggest you can find even if were legal.

This was all fine and good when you only had a single radio signal to transmit. Now with mimo they transmit multiple and the spacing and size of the antenna are critical to get this to work. The new 802.11ac has something called beam forming that sets up very special interference patterns between the antenna to focus the power in a particular direction. You don't dare even bend these antenna.

linckmichael · Dec 1, 2013

Thanks again Bill for the insight - though some parts maybe too complex for me to understand.

So I bought the TPLINK 8200 N USB Wireless Adapter and it works MUCH better than my TPLINK PCI 881 Card. NOTE: My PCI 881 card is obviously placed at the back of the computer, thus blocked, and blocked by the table, and bookshelf. The new USB 8200 dongle works a charm, it maxes 5 full bars, hits on average 36mbps DL, 48mbps UL, 3-7 ping. Whereas my PCI card was hitting around 7-18 DL, 36 UL, 3-7 ping.

NOTE: I took me a couple of hours to get this dongle working, it was frustrating to install, maybe cause I already had a PCI card installed with drivers so that may have influenced the dongle not to work initially. Now that it works, it's perfect.

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