Hardware reccomendations

[Ben Nell]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:56:31 -0600, Kenneth D. Merry <ken at kdm.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 11:06:57 -0500, Eric Anderson wrote:
> > Ben Nell wrote:
> > >Hi All:
> > >
> > >I am running FreeBSD 5.2 on a Dell Inspiron 8600, and I am interested
> > >in swapping out the mini-pci wireless NIC.  It's a Centrino machine,
> > >and I believe that the 802.11b card that is currently present is a
> > >Broadcom.  Regardless, it doesn't appear to be supported.  I've used
> > >the NDIS wrapper driver found in current release, but I'm not happy
> > >with it's performance and would prefer to just replace the card with a
> > >well-supported 802.11g card.
> > >
> > >What I'm looking for is a reccomendation of chipset/brand/model from
> > >anyone.  I'm fairly new to wireless networking and would appreciate
> > >any insight or personal opinions anyone would care to share.
> >
> > I bought a 'Netegriti' card (EM-500AG I think), and it works flawlessly.
> 
> I've got one of those as well, and it seems to work well.
> 
> I've got an Inspiron 8500.  It fit in the minipci slot, but was shorter
> than the original Broadcom b/g minipci card.  I think the antenna connectors
> on it were also swapped, when compared to the Broadcom card.  There was just
> enough slack in the antenna wires to connect it up.
> 
> It works fine in A, B, and G modes with the ath driver.  I think the only
> thing missing is working Turbo (802.11a) mode support in the ath driver,
> unless that has been fixed in the past few months.
> 
> Ken
> --
> Kenneth Merry
> ken at kdm.org
> 

Thanks for the advice!  I think the only problem is going to be
finding a reputable source to purchase the card from.

Wireless has been my only issue with this laptop.  With a replaced
wireless card and using Daniel O'Connor's guide to configuring the
8600 (http://www.gsoft.com.au/~doconnor/I8600/) this is simply any
unbeatable setup.