Wireless and ethernet on motherboards?

bSlick

I'm looking to build a pc after having used a laptop for the last 4 years. What is the deal with pcs these days when it comes to wifi/wireless and ethernet...do you need to buy separate components to receive wireless and use ethernet or is the capability built into the motherboard?

Solitaire

All modern motherboards have some form of ethernet; always 10/100 and the majority of modern mobos have at least one full Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port at the back.

WiFi is another thing altogether Very few mobos have any integrated wifi; a few luxury ATX and niche m/p-ITX mobos have 802.11a/b/g but I can't think of any that have draft-n support. The vast majority of conventional mobos don't have any whatsoever.

kenon

I dont think you can buy a mobo with built in wifi, I could be wrong but Ive never seen it. Ethernet is standard.

You can normally buy an add-on PCI card that will give you wifi functionality.

PogMoThoin

kenon wrote: »

I dont think you can buy a mobo with built in wifi, I could be wrong but Ive never seen it. Ethernet is standard.

You can normally buy an add-on PCI card that will give you wifi functionality.

I've got one, the Asus P5KDeluxe wifi, although I don't use it at all, I've it disabled in the bios. Asus do loads of mobo's with wifi.

kenon

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I've got one, the Asus P5KDeluxe wifi, although I don't use it at all, I've it disabled in the bios. Asus do loads of mobo's with wifi.

I stand corrected...

bSlick

So can someone recommend me a wifi card? I haven't a clue what to get, are there differences in quality? The last thing I need is to end up with a half arsed card that gives me a dodgy connection.

PogMoThoin

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=306151

Although I usually recommend Linksys, the only thing I can say bout this is that its not a great idea to have an antenna hidden in behind a pc, it should be on Your desk, exposed and cabled to the back of Your pc.
Whatever You do my advise is to avoid Belkin like the plague, this is what PCWorld and the likes will recommend

Unregistered.

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Although I usually recommend Linksys, the only thing I can say bout this is that its not a great idea to have an antenna hidden in behind a pc, it should be on Your desk, exposed and cabled to the back of Your pc.
Whatever You do my advise is to avoid Belkin like the plague, this is what PCWorld and the likes will recommend

Can anybody else second this??

darealtulip

Yes, I use Linksys myself. Belking is really bad.