What is a good PCI wireless ethernet card?

[puffpio]

Looking for a good balance of price/performance/reliability/compatibility

 

[ddreams]

As far as I know you are pretty much going to need a PCI->PCMCIA bridge, then you'll buy a PCMCIA 802.11 card (assuming you mean 802.11b when you say wireless).

The ISA->PCMCIA adapters usually get better reviews, though that may be because of linux driver support (haven't looked at windows solutions).

As far as which pcmcia 802.11 card to get, easy to find good reviews. I'm happy with my Orinoco, the Linksys is supposed to be a good card as well.

 

[Rapamatic]

Orinoco (Agere/Lucent) is definately the only way to go. People using these report huge gains in range after using other cards, plus the software is the best. Check out www.practicallynetworked.com for reviews of networking equipment.

I found the Orinoco Silver (64 bit WEP) for $70 at www.provantage.com, which is as good as you can get from pricewatch.

 

[bex0rs]

FYI, you can get an OEM Lucent Silver card at JustDeals for $59.95 plus shipping.

~bex0rs

 

[Dug]

There's reports of the Sony card at compusa for $49 (down from $149)
This uses the lucent chip.

 

[Raspewtin]

many many do not work with win xp. most are based on one chipset with problems. Orinoco definitely does work though

 

[oldfart]

Another vote for Orinoco. You have to get the PCMCIA card and PCI adapter seperately. I like the Orinoco USB version. It gets the wireless nic card out of the belly of the tower, off the floor and up on the desktop. It helps with range. The USB version is cheaper than the PCMCIA + PCI card (last I looked).