Netgear RangeMax 240 USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter, Frys: $45. I’ve been using this adapter on my home office PC for a few months now, and its been pretty reliable.
I resisted buying an external wireless adapter for a while because I knew that it would look messy on my desk. It does.
I connect to a Dell 802.11g AP in the basement, which is two floor directly underneath the home office. According to the NETGEAR Smart Wizard I have 6 out of 8 bars signal strength and I connect at 48-54Mbps. More on those speed numbers later…
Note: I don’t own a matching Netgear RangeMax 240 AP I can’t connect at the 240Mbps the packaging says is possible.
So how fast does it go? Not so fast. Copying a 114MB file from my office to a server in the basement consistently takes about a 60 to 80 seconds (16Mbps to 12Mbps). Going the other way and copying the same sized file from the basement to the office takes almost 100 seconds every time (9.6Mbps)
I think I’ll go see if I can find a RangeMax 240 AP and try the speed again.
By the way don’t trust the netgear utility, it always shows the highest of the transmit or receive speeds when it reports your speed, so even if you are getting 1Mbps RX speed it will show you at 54Mbps. See screenshot.
The wizard says its fast at 54Mbps even when the RX speed is 1Mbps!
