With this device can I connect my older PC via wifi
 

300 Mbps Wireless USB 2.0 WiFi Network Card LAN Adapter Dongle Laptop PC | eBay

My older XP PC has no form of wifi connection as far as I can see...its connected at present via an Ethernet cable to a Virgin Super Hub,

If I bought one of these dongles are they an efficient way to connect an older PC to the net via wifi and would I need anything else to go with it,

More of an experiment really as my internet has gone slow...its ok when first connected but after about 15mins starts to slow and scrolling pages become jerky,

I am just wondering if maybe my Ethernet board could be at fault...hence trying a dongle to eliminate it.

Nick.

As long as it has suitable drivers for XP....

I've used a device similar to this (of the Netgear species as I recall) in earlier days. It didn't work with every box I tried it on. (a mixture of laptop and desk boxes - it was a while back now).

All of them were using XP OS at the time, even with the then current XP drivers it was a bit hit and miss. I think it was more likely to succeed if the lan security was inactivated initially and re-instated once connections were established.

'Tis not a huge outlay in the financial sense, and it probably would work. (XP drivers appear to be included). Approach it as an experimental adventure.

Remember also that the mere mention of XP can arouse strong reactions in these here parts - so you must promise not to use it after April 7th next year ....:ok:

You've already got your network cable at the machine - and a cabled connection is usually going to be more reliable and faster than a wi-fi link. Why not get a replacement Ethernet card - it costs about the same as the wi-fi dongle and will probably be easier to set up.

I suppose I could just renew the Ethernet card....do these things become faulty with the symptoms I have...pages going slow after being online for a while,

I have fitted new cards for other things in days gone by.

A few things -

That ebay link looks like an imitation of a TP-Link device!

Do you need a 300Mbps device? A 150 Mbps device should be cheaper. Is it compatible with your router / WAP?

Why not get an internal PCI / PCIe wifi card, if you want wifi rather than wired?

If going down the USB route, make sure you get one that has a cable connection to allow the aerial to be located away from the PC - both to improve reception and avoid physical damage. Also allows you to replace it with a better aerial (also applies to internal wifi cards).

I've got one of these: TL-WN722NC - Welcome to TP-LINK and it works well enough.

SD

SD this stuff is quite new to me and I'm not upto speed with the tech side of it,

I think what I am looking for is a device to by-pass my cable connection to eliminate the cable connection side of things,

If I delve to deeply into the spec of things it will just go over my head,

I would just buy a new Ethernet card but again not knowing the spec req I may buy the wrong type....are they all the same I wonder.

An "older XP PC" suggests it will have PCI 2.0 slots, probably with PCIe or PCIx for video.

What's the PC spec? Make & model? Or mobo make, model and revision? From that you can work out what slots you have, and of what type. Then see what you are currently using to see what's left to plug a card into.

SIW (System Information for Windows) by Gabriel Topala is a freeware utility that will provide most or all of the above info, and is one of the few pieces of freeware I have felt grateful enough to donate real money to the author!

SD

I put a USB wifi (150Mbps) dongle from 7dayshop on my old XP machine - works well enough.

Does your old machine have USB? You haven't mentioned it.

Hi yes it has USB,

Been down to my local PC spares/repair shop today...I needed inks,

I was chatting to the tech guys and told him of my idea of using a
dongle...said he could sell me one but no need...saying I can check the operation of my Ethernet connection another way,

His instruction...click start...run...CMD....then in the black box that appears type ping and my IP address which I have just looked up,

Anyway I have given this a go and got the following...maybe you guys can make sense of it,

Packets sent 4...received 4..round trip in m/s...min 0 ms...max 0 m/s

Also tried it with the Virgin web address that's printed on the rear of my virgin hub which is a similar number but not identical to the one windows gives me...windows give 1 extra digit and both give the same result in the test...does it look like I.m doing this test correctly???

At the moment the internet connection is ok...I will try it again when its acting up.

That means it's working. But only that you are seeing as far as the NIC on your PC. Ping the router (gateway) address, (get it by running IPCONFIG) then ping an external address e.g. 4.2.2.1, then an external name - e.g. www.pprune.org.

You won't get a response from pprune, but you should see the IP address resolution. If so, then DNS is working and everything is AOK.

You can also check that the physical link light on the NIC is on and the activity light flashes - and also check the corresponding router / switch port light is on.

SD

Hi SD..tried that an get an average ping of 25ms..min 20 max 35ms and at the moment the pc is working ok,

How does that look to you,

Can you tell me what NIC is please.

NIC = network interface card.

What are you pinging?

SD

I pinged pprune.org

Ok the PC is acting up now...pinged PPRuNe Forums - Professional Pilots Rumour Network and got...request timed out,

Sent 4 rec 0 lost 4 100% loss

Does that give any clues to my problem.

Reply packets received = good
Reply packets not received = bad

Response time in the 10s of ms is fine.

I never get a response from pprune.org. Not all sites respond to ping, so you may get no replies even though the connection is OK.

Question is, did you see the address resolved to an IP address?

You need to do this in order:

Ping loopback address 127.0.0.1
Ping local IP address (self)
Ping other local IP address (if possible)
Ping gateway / router IP address
Ping external IP address e.g. 212.58.244.67
Ping external host name e.g. www.bbc.co.uk

See where it fails.

SD

A definite YES to that question. Ethernet cards are usually dirt cheap and simple enough to replace.

Have you tried checking to see if your operating system has recorded a fault? Go -> Control Panel -> Device Manager -> Network Adaptors ... then select your card and double click on it.
Under the menu heading "General", there will be a box in the lower part of the window that is headed "Device Status".
This box will advise you whether Windoze reckons the device is working properly, or has identified a fault.

I think that the gradual slowdown is more likely to be a software rather than a hardware problem.

If you have netstat on your XP PC you can run that with -e to show layer 3 stats.

Cold start your PC, run netstat -e -t 30 > C:\netstat.txt (this will run netstat every 30 seconds and pipe the output to the text file) and operate normally until you start to see the sort of slowdown problems you mention.

Stop netstat and look at the text file to see if the number of discards or errors has increased over the duration of your connection.

If it has, then the NIC could be at fault (not necessarily, but possibly).

Also check the event logs - system and application - to see if there's any errors or warnings concerning the network.

There is also the free MS Network Monitor available to you - you would need to download and install it and read up about how to use it to capture network statistics - there are MS troubleshooting KBs such as Advanced network adapter troubleshooting for Windows workstations with the steps outlined.

SD

Onetrack had a look at device manager...says Ethernet card is ok...I wonder does that show a history of faults or only if there are any at that moment in time,

SD I haven't tried all those ping tests yes...hopefully later...what I did see on the last crash was the MS error..the one where it asks if you want to send a report to MS,

It lets you look at some error info and mentions 2 files...

Local 1 temp wer99b8 dir00 IEXPLORE .EXE and

Local 1 temp wer99b8 appcompat txt

Do they mean anything to you.

Device manager is not going to tell you anything further than the network card has been detected and that an appropriate driver has been installed.

It may indicate that there's a fundamental failure of the card, as in not detected - but if that's the case you wouldn't get any network connection at all. It certainly won't detect or log any network issues.

The content of the 2 files is more valuable than their names - however, given the names, it seems that Internet explorer has crashed and the second filename suggests an application compatibility problem, I'd concentrate your efforts on finding what's wrong with IE and the various add-ons that you've got installed - whether knowingly or not.

Why not download and use a completely different browser and not use IE to see if your browsing is more stable?

I'd also recommend a thorough virus & malware check followed by a good spring clean of the system - preferably a wipe and clean install.

As I said, my money is on a software problem, not a hardware problem.

SD

SD I am beginning to to think your right its a software prob...

Today I have tried twice going back 2 months then 3 months in system restore...but it wont do it...something is stopping it,

I did consider sticking in an XP CD to attempt a repair...that I bought for my last PC but its gone missing...I suspect the license number being different to this one might not let me go down that route if I could find the CD,

My daughter has given me her old PC...win 7 when I say old its about 4 years old and not had much use and is of a higher spec,

The thing that bothers me about using that PC is weather I can use all the software I have for XP...I wonder how much will be compatible,

Should I shouldn't I and just get this one sorted.