Navigation
Home
Wireless Installation Steps - What To Do First
Wireless Standard - How Fast Do You Want To Go?
What Is A Wireless Access Point?
Wireless Desktop Access - Why?
How To Setup Wireless Laptop Access
How To Setup Wireless Printer Access
Wireless Security - What's It All About?
Where Do I Need Wireless Network Range Extenders?
What Can An Additional Wireless Antenna Do For Your Network?
Privacy Policy
Wireless laptop access makes a lot of sense. You wouldn't want a portable system to be tied down to a wired connection. Also, most systems built in the last 3 years have a wireless laptop network card in them.
If you have a recently built laptop, you are probably ready for a fast wireless connection based on 802.11g. If your system is older but has a wireless connection, it most likely is a card based on the 802.11b standard running at 11Mbit per second.
Three Types of Connections
There are three ways to give yourself wireless laptop access if you don't currently have it or you would like to increase the speed of your connection.
First, if your laptop computer currently has a wireless network card built in to it but running on the slower standard, you could purchase and install a new card for your computer. The disadvantage to this method is that you would have to open your laptop computer to change the card. This is something that is usually outside of the expertise of the average user so it is not recommended. You may, however, get a service technician to perform the upgrade for you.
The only recommendation that I have for this type of card is to purchase it from the manufacturer of your laptop. It will be the easiest to configure for your system.
Second, you could purchase a PCMCIA network card for your computer. You would not have to open the computer to install this card. This can be used on a laptop even if it currently doesn't have any type of network card. If your computer does have an existing card, you need to disable it.
The disadvantage to this method is most laptop computers come with only two PCMCIA slots and you would use one of these for this card.
I have some PCMCIA cards that I recommend, but as before, I would use cards from the same manufacturer as the router I was using for the network.
Third, you could get a USB network card that would be inserted into the USB port on your laptop. This would also not require you to open the computer to put this in. Two advantages to using this as your network card is the ease of installing it and the fact that you can move it to another piece of equipment easily. It would also fit on a desktop computer.
I also have some USB cards that I recommend, but as before, I would use cards from the same manufacturer as the router I was using for the network.
© 2010, All Rights Reserved