Hardware reccomendations

[Kenneth D. Merry]

On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 14:03:40 -0500, Ben Nell wrote:
> 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.

I got mine from Discount Technology.  Make sure you get the card that does
a, b and g.  They have another, cheaper card that only does a and b.

http://www.discountechnology.com/

They're selling them for $100.  Keep in mind that this card doesn't do the
super-G stuff (i.e. double speed G), but will do 108Mbps in 802.11a, since
it has an Atheros chipset.  (Although, as I noted above, the ath driver
wasn't working in Turbo mode as of a few months ago.)

> 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.

My 8500 has been fine, but the 8600 definitely looks nice.  (The Pentium M
probably generates less heat than the Pentium 4M.)

Ken
-- 
Kenneth Merry
ken at kdm.org