Wifi for desktop computer

[Danath]

One of the computers at my place is connected to the LAN with a lousy, unshielded wire which gets to the room going along next to the telephone wire and maybe others, so it's only getting about 10-20% of the speed. The best solution should be the wifi.

I've been searching and my conclusion is that the best option would be an antenna with a cable connected to the computer. USBs seem to be useful only when you are in the same room the router is.

My questions:
- Can I just connect an antenna to the ethernet card or does the card need to be somewhat special to work with that? (How will Windows detect it as wifi?)
- I'm lost when talking about dBi and dBd, what is desirable?

 

[Seff]

A powerdrill and an old-fashioned wire is how I'd solve THAT problem.

 

[Lord Burgess1]

Seff your Danish, you'd just eat the drill

 

[Seff]

I'm trying to stop that habit, I really am.

 

[HTAPAWASO]

When I moved house I couldn't run a cable to my router, so I got a USB wifi thing.

Was very skeptical about it, but I gotta say it actually works really well. Not in the same room as the router, but I get the same download speeds I did before and never have any connection issues. All for about $15.

 

[Archonsod]

Would be easier and cheaper to just replace the cable with STP, although I doubt having an unshielded cable running alongside the telephone line is the cause of the slowness.

 

[EdwardWellcraft]

I needed Wifi for my desktop for Uni, and I just bought a $20 Wifi card with antennae off of Newegg. It connected just fine to the router that was about 20 feet away and through a wall or two. I think the brand was Ralink Wireless. Or something like that.

 

[Danath]

Would be easier and cheaper to just replace the cable with STP, although I doubt having an unshielded cable running alongside the telephone line is the cause of the slowness.

I doubt I could make a STP cable to run through the wire channel since it's inside the wall. Anyway that comp is not for gaming and I already have a wifi router.

Seriously, nobody even tried plugging one of those antennas to a common ethernet card?