using a USB NIC, what to expect?

Praetor

Diamond Member
Oct 14, 1999
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I've had lousy luck lately with routers. I had a wrt54 flashed with dd-wrt that gave me a row of blinking lights after a recent storm. The wrt55ag that I had been using as an access point for 802.11a I discovered had a two bad ethernet ports and needs to be restarted constantly if I do any heavy downloads or at least every other day. And the netgear router I got free just had lousy signal range and couldn't give me a clean enough signal to pass SD-television to a computer.

I have an Epia 800 mhz board in my FS thread that I'm thinking of keeping and turning into a linux-router. The sole pci-slot would go to an atheros-based card supporting 802.11a, but I would still need a second NIC to connect my hub.

My only option thus, is to use a USB NIC (a la this one from the Egg). What kind of performance could I expect using this type of device under heavy load? Would my throughput be consistent or would the bus speed be too slow?

Ideally, I'd like to go this route to save money as I have most of the parts ready now, but I'd like this to actually last.
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
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On USB 1.1 it would yield a Bandwidth similat to a 10Mb/sec. NIC.

I.e. File Transfer or Max. Download of about .8 to 1MB/sec.

You can use the Netgear as the main Router and use the Linksys as an Acces Point only.

So wires would go to the Netwgaer and Wireless to the Linksys.

Wireless Router as an AP - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html
 

Praetor

Diamond Member
Oct 14, 1999
4,498
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I've actually used that guide. :D The other reason I switched away from the netgear router is I had issues with it not always assigning static ip addresses for certain boxes on the network.

Thanks JackMDS for the assistance. :)