I've been using a USB dongle for my PC's wifi for some time now, but I've always been concerned thta I'm not getting the best from it. I'm probably right in saying a PCI wifi receiver would be better, no? But does the location of the receiver make a difference? My PC is set below my desk, so the PCI antenna would be quite close to the wall. Would this affect the reception, compared with the USB dongle whcih was set into a USB at the front of the PC tower (previously was on my desk connected via a USB extension lead).

Secondly, which brand/spec is recommended (for PCI card), considering I have the standard Swisscom wireless router (Motorola, I believe)?
Cheers

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Stealing jokes off the internet and passing them off as my own since 1995

I have both for wifi - personally find the PCI card ( Dlink, Zyxel and Netgear ) with an RPSMA antenna was far better and uses less resources ( Interrupt requests ) than a USB version ( Netgear and Dlink ) would.

The USB version has since been relegated to netbooks and notebooks, with a long USB cable for free wifi whilst abroad.

I bought this Edimax PCI wifi card for my desktop after reading the reviews. Performance is rock solid and I personally cannot see the difference in speed between this and my wired connections (even though I know there should be) e.g. I still max out my connection at 2.5 MB/S when downloading stuff off usenet.

Edimax EW-7728IN
Wireless PCI-Card, 300Mbps, 802.11b/g/n, WPA2

CHF 39.95 at Steg

If you get the above card, don't use the supplied Edimax drivers, but rather the RALINK reference drivers.

Got a USB for my old i-mac and it would work just fine, if the landlord could remember the access-codes for his WiFi.

Depends

Try running a speedtest (like this, for example) and seeing if you're getting close to what your connection speed should be.
If possibe, also run it when hardwired to the router, and the numbers should be pretty close.

If you're getting close to what it should be, you don't need to do anything.

If it's not, try changing channels on the router, in case its using a channel that's congested with other folks' wifi too. Can also use something like NetSurveyor to help see which are the congested channels. It will also show how strong or otherwise your own wifi signal is.

If still down on performance, then maybe change to a PCI card.

HTH