The WiFi card is a device designed to link your fixed PC to an Internet network without using the famous RJ45 Ethernet cable.
To browse, watch a movie and play online without slowing down and without interruption, you must think about the quality of the WiFi card that you are going to install. In the following post, we provide you with a concise guide that will enlighten you on the expected performance of the fixed PC WiFi card.
Wifi: what does it consist of?
Wifi stands for Wireless Fidelity. It is a local data transmission network created in 1999.
This technology, based on radio waves, connects computer devices to a modem and communicates wirelessly to different devices such as a printer, mobile phone, camera or computer, and Smart TV.
Wifi also offers the possibility of making a connected device an access point. For example, you can share the 4G connection from your mobile phone to a laptop or a desktop PC equipped with a WiFi card.
The advantages of WiFi?
Wifi allows several devices to be connected to the modem without using cabling. This eliminates the need for cable installation work that sometimes requires long cables and holes between the walls to get them from one room to another.
Note: Despite the performance of the latest Wi-Fi cards for fixed PCs, the wired connection remains the most efficient (maximum speed in RJ45 cable can reach 1 GB/s against a maximum of 100 Mb/s for a Wi-Fi network.
Thanks to WiFi, members of the same household can share data, play online and connect to the Internet using a single local network.
Installing the WiFi card on your stationary PC is simple. Just plug it into a PCI Express port inside your box (motherboard). Then you install the dedicated driver on your PC, and the connection should work.
With the rise of home automation, Wifi has become essential for sharing the connection between computer devices and household appliances such as the washing machine or the air conditioner.
Wifi card or Wifi USB key?
A WiFi USB key also called a WiFi dongle, connects a stationary PC to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G or infrared. Some think that this device can replace the installation of the internal Wifi card. In reality, it is not effective for a stationary. This is because this key cannot receive and transmit a Wifi signal of sufficient quality.
Wifi and security
The first constraint of the Wifi network is security. Since the waves can propagate beyond your building, third parties can hack your WiFi network.
Fortunately, WiFi standards are more and more secure. The security implemented in the 802.11b and g standards is stronger than that of the first 802.11a standard.
To consolidate the security of the Wifi network, you must:
- Avoid putting your network in DHCP (a protocol allowing to assign an IP address to any station automatically)
- Create a reliable password for the encryption of your network
- Define, filter, and control the IP addresses of devices connected to your network
