USB network adapters

[Tsaico]

Well, my dad's office has these cheap book pc's. They are about a year old and all are starting to have problems. One has a dead networking card, but since it is integrated, i cannot take it out and replace it, and since it is a book pc, i cannot add a NIC, I know there are some usb networking units out there, but don't know about them myself, having never actually used one. Do you guys have any suggestions on them? oh another thing, it cannot be for wireless, since my dad's office is all wired and are too cheap to get any more then they HAVE to...

 

[Confused]

I'm using a USB-Ethernet adapter for my broadband now, as my network card bit the dust!

Before that (and before i swapped motherboards around to one with onboard LAN), i was using it with my in-car MP3 computer. It gave me network connectivity, and I was able to transfer files and get on the internet with it etc, but it took about 5 seconds to copy a 3mb file, so transferring 5gb of music took some time! For basic network connectivity, then it will do the job just fine, but don't expect anywhere near the transfer speeds of 100mbs network!


Confused

 

[Dennis Travis]

Like Confused said, They work fine. They are just a bit slow compaired to any 100 Base-T Network with a normal PCI NIC. I have one in my laptop bag I take with me to work on networks and computers and it comes in handy sometimes when the customers NIC dies or they have no NIC and I want to transfer a few files to or from them. It's more than fast enough for the Internet with DSL or Cable but I did notice with File copy between a normal system with a 100BT NIC and the USB Nic that the speed was a bit less than 10Base-T!! Still more than enough for the net and small files. I think what is going on as my USB NIC is 100Base-T is the USB 1.1 is holding it back. If you could get a USB 2.0 NIC and the system you were using it with had USB 2.0 I am sure it would be as fast as any 100Base-T Nic or at least should be close anyway. I love mine for taking on service calls. It has saved me a lot of trouble many times now!!