Question Best way to upgrade a old laptop from 100 Mbps network card to 1000 Mbps network card?

[pcslookout]

Thanks.

 

[JackMDS]

On almost all Laptops the network card is part of the Mobo and can not be changed.

You have to find maintenance pdf of the Laptop and see if there is info about the Network connection.

Otherwise, if you have a 802.11ac Wireless Router you can upgrade the Laptops Wireless card to ac and get Higher Wireless.

No ac, Wireless, a/b/g/n with a matched card can provide up to 300Mb/sec.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

What model is the laptop?

 

[ch33zw1z]

pretty much not gonna happen. you're only chance it use an expansion adapter like USB-gigabit adapter, PCMCIA gigabit adapter, etc....but of course older technologies may not give you full gigabit anyways

provide: Laptop model, operating system, and why you need gigabit on a older machine

 

[mxnerd]

Yeah, old laptop usually mean you probably have USB 2.0 ports. The highest theory speed is 480Mbps, even if you plug in USB 3.0 Gigabit ethernet adapter or fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter couple with 802.11ac router/AP. You will never get 1000Mbps speed.

 

[SamirD]

A little late to the party, but since I've had to do this a bunch of times I thought I would chime in.

While a laptop of this age will usually not have the bandwidth to transfer full gigabit, they can jump up significantly from 100Mbs.

While usb adapters are the easiest since they can support wired or wireless speeds, they are not as efficient as a direct hardware solution, a lot of times the usb ports are just 1.0. And then short of some sort of factory option for gigabit, the easiest way to do this is via a pcmcia/cardbus/expresscard adapter, which can be had brand new for as cheap as $6 shipped on ebay like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Netgear-Gi...266017?hash=item4442ba0f61:g:t1gAAOSwOB1dRx3V

All of these adapters made by Negear, Trendnet, or US Robotics that I've bought use basically the same chipset, and the speeds will depend on how the pcmcia/cardbus/expresscard bus is connected to the rest of the system as some will be faster than others. Generally, even on older laptops like a celeron 2.0 and a pentium 2.4, I am able to get 300Mbps via these wired adapters, which is a 3x increase in speed. Usually the architecture of the system is the main thing holding it back from going faster, but it's quite an improvement with some serious bang for buck.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just bought a few of these, for newer laptops, that have USB Type-C connectors on them (USB3.x), but lack an ethernet jack. (A surprisingly high number of laptops these days, disturbingly.)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Type-C-Por...-Cable-USB-3-1-Adapter-Blac-C8F7/263825370553