At moment ,I'm using a TP LINK dongle to connect to my router. I've not had any problems with phones or tablet when connecting to router, signal good in any part of house ,and even in car on road. But with all the constant W10 updates, I find that the driver files are being corrupted and I loose contact with my router. Sometimes a disconnects and reconnect works, other times it's a full blown repair on the drivers. And that can be halfway through replying to a post.

Anyone suggest a more reliable dongel ?

Might need a more reliable OS.....😂

what are you using the dongle on, a PC?

 

Dongles using USB seem to be more sensitive to driver changes etc, I'm not a developer so I don't know why this is.

For a PC an internal PCI card can often be more reliable. I assume the connection is simpler with less layers so things seem to work a bit better.

 

Failing all that get a powerline network adapter and use copper cables. The cheap ones will do.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-PA4010PKIT-Passthrough-Powerline-Configuration-Required/dp/B01G5Q9E0O/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Powerline+Adapter&qid=1592898982&sr=8-4

 

Those are 300Mbt (they say 600 but you have to half it because they add up both directions but you can't get more than 300 in any one direction)  which is fine for internet since most peopleonly have 10-50Mb internet.

^^^^^ This

 

I used WiFi dongles on an old PCs for a couple of years, but found they just didn't last very long. When I got my current PC it thankfully had some spare PCI card slots. It was a simple job to source a WiFi card and simply plug it in. Drivers installed automatically and the card supports some pretty high speed WiFi (I've an AC4000 router) and also has decent Bluetooth 5 built in, so I can connect various things to the PC now without the dreaded wire. They are cheap and super easy to install (I managed it!). There are now faster Wifi and Bluetooth standard available for when you get a newer router/mobile phone/earbud etc

Aspman- it's my PC. BT master is in lounge ,so to save any messing  around routing cables through the house , I decided on a dongle as the router is about 2-3 metres below.  No problem with performance (38 down/20 up , on a BTW test on an up to 36 link) . I could easily ( if my hip will let me) , re route the incoming line 2w up to my room, split the ADSL and reroute the phone line back down,. (means only one filter is needed).

Amanda- might have a look at that.

I can't find my exact card, but these are sorts of things I use. I have a Tplink at the moment 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=wifi+pci+card&i=computers&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Lady E- I've found what I think is problem. I had another TP LINK  I had sitting spare -Same model. Possibly coincidence with W10 updates arriving at same time as old dongle going faulty. Changed them over and problem has stopped. No more problems with resets. I've tried the old one back in and problem reappeared.

Problem with this dongle had sort of put me of TPLINK, especially as I've had no response from TP Link . I've spotted a couple of PCIe /PCIe2.0 / ones on PC world  at roughly same price , Tenda as a PCIe2.0,

other TPLINK just PCIe - both with 3 year warranty, so I might keep the dongle as a JIC and try the TENDA .

Next Q for the wise . The cheaper one ( Tenda) is 2.0 whereas the TPLINK one is just PCIe.

 

 

I'm not the person to answer that question I reckon. There are several PCIe specs and each generation got faster, version 2 is quite old now and the speed isn't fantastic. If you have a modern router, you might be better looking at a slightly pricier card that supports 2.4 and 5GHz like an AC1200 or higher. I think the cheapest PCIe cards don't support Bluetooth either, so it might be a nice option to have built in? 

Thanks, Amanda.  I've googled version 2  and still baffled. I'd hesitate on a dual card as this house is old brick and although my signal is  strong- excellent, that from both sides is well down ,even at 2.4. My router is dual and only time I  get to use 5Ghz on tablet is in front room, where router is. Think I'll settle on the Tenda one at moment as funds are low.

With PCIe it all depends if the card is x1 x4 x8 or x16. (ie how long is the gold/copper slot bit that plugs in the motherboard) as this will dictate the speed. But even PCIe (version 1.0) 1x is 250MB a second, even the fastest internet over here (Virgin Media's Gigabyte service at 1000mbps) would only take up half that transfar rate. You're more likely to be restricted by whatever hardware/software on the car is processing the information.

I was thinking if you want to transfer data between devices you might want more speed, plus the better cards also have Bluetooth which is occasionally nice to have. My current router is astonishing (to me at least) how quickly it can move GB about wirelessly  

Thanks -Amanda- I've settled on a Tenda PCIE . I seldom do Bluetooth transfers as I've found Cloud better.