Wireless card

[Designer_04]

Hello,
I have a 2003 Dell Inspiron 5100 notebook. Can I use a wireless card?

 

[Guest]

May be able to use Mini PCI (see if there's a hatch and possibly a dial up modem already using the Mini PCI slot).

Should be able to use PCMCIA wireless card.

Will be able to use USB wireless adapter.

 

[roy124]

A 2003 computer may only have USB 1.1 which will not give you a fast WLAN connection. With a 7 year old computer you would perhaps be better off if you put that wifi money towards a new machine.

The new machine will have a faster processor, Win7, larger hard drive, camera, USB 2.0 or higher.

 

[eibgrad]

Yes, you can use a USB wireless adapter. Roy124 makes a good point about USB 1.1, which only supports 11mbps. However, for internet access, you're probably not going to get much more performance from your ISP anyway. My cable is 10mbps, and many ppl have much less, esp. w/ DSL.

If you happen to have a wired 10/100mbps Ethernet port, you could also consider a wireless Ethernet bridge. That would have several advantages, including avoiding any issues w/ USB, eliminating any possibility of driver conflicts (because there are no drivers), offloading all your wireless processing to the bridge, and could be reused w/ your next laptop or any other computer. The only downside is they tend to have a larger footprint making them a bit awkward for laptop purposes. But they do have “travel sized” devices that can eliminate that problem.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320025

Of course, timing is everything. The ASUS WL-330GE was selling for about $35 shipped a couple months ago. There are similar devices from D-Link, TRENDnet, etc.