A question for anyone who's desktop PC is on Wi-Fi only, not Ethernet

If your computer is running like this do you have the antenna right on the back of the case or do you use an extension cable to get the antenna up higher in the room?

USB plug-in to the back of the computer. The WiFi is about 20 feet away.

I have my wifi box with all antennas pointing straight up and the wifi turned on the computer. My wife and I were getting bumped a lot losing signals, but when I upgraded our computers three months ago, the problem went away.

Adapter plugged directly into the back of the computer.

I have an Asus PCE-AX58BT card in my tower. I’ve used wifi with it on occasion (usually I’m using Ethernet) and it worked very well.

https://www.asus.com …rs/All-series/PCE-AX58BT/

It has an external antenna connected by a cable that allows you to move it around a bit for the best result.

I mainly bought the card for Bluetooth 5. The range is awesome.

Hi,

We have several computers, laptops, tablets, phones all wireless on wifi via 5Ghz wifi router. Signal is great for all our media stream and file transfers from our server (FreeNAS, Plex onboard).

The key to a good home wifi is to go to 5ghz and make sure there's no major high density or large electric fields between the router and the device (ie, don't try to use wifi through your refrigerator, microwave, etc on a wall between the two devices). 5ghz makes a big difference in general compared to older protocol and its faster. No need to raise antennas way up high, etc. Simply good line of sight without major obstruction (again, like a microwave between it and the router on the wall).

Very best,

FWIW, our ISP (and television) added a WiFi repeater to the other side of the house wired into the modem to ensure a good signal. for everything.

You may wish to use a utility to see what is best with antenna positioning. See the article at https://www.howtogeek.​com …-on-any-operating-system/ For some suggestions for Windows 10 and Mac.

I’ve used the NIrSoft’s WifiInfoView to position an antenna on a desktop in my basement at the end of the house opposite the router.

I installed a Linksys Velop mesh system in our house last year. I get full bars everywhere in the house now and while it seamlessly switches from node to node and between 5 and 2.4 GHz, I’m typically on 5.

There are other good mesh systems out there (and a few that aren’t so good). If you want great WiFi coverage it’s worth considering.

I too have a question for anyone who's desktop PC is on Wi-Fi only, not Ethernet .
Why would you chose to do it that way?

I've upgraded recently to a very spiffy mesh system, but it still would never occur to me to use wifi for a device that is inherently NOT mobile, and NOT wireless in any other way.

Just curious.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19227229
I too have a question for anyone who's desktop PC is on Wi-Fi only, not Ethernet .
Why would you chose to do it that way?

I've upgraded recently to a very spiffy mesh system, but it still would never occur to me to use wifi for a device that is inherently NOT mobile, and NOT wireless in any other way.

Just curious.

Well, most of our machines are on wifi but a few are not. My primary workstation and my server are both wired. The rest are wireless. We have 5 computers running in the house virtually 24/7 and a few other devices that are on the wifi 24/7 as well. Not every room is setup to have a wire put through the roof or walls to send ethernet through the entire house all from a central location where the router is. So for the difficult (read: too much effort for me to care) rooms to wire, wifi serves fine there, because its 5ghz, plenty fast for anything they're doing with headroom to spare and its super convenient with no latency to even notice. For my wired machines, they're in the same room as the router. They are all on the same network and see each other of course fine and can share information, some wirelessly some wired. While ideally I would have everything wired, it's not convenient and not possible in every room. And lots of these devices travel around the house. The only time we need a wired connection is with intense throughput needs such as copying large files or large amounts of data. Most people simply don't need that. My wired machines are wired for this reason, as my imaging sessions are anywhere from 60~250Gb per day (video) even for a short session, and that definitely matters on a wifi signal, so wired works best there. But for everything else, my wifi signal on the other machines is plenty fast sustaining over 7~8MBps which is well beyond the needs of any normal computing other than large file/data transfer, with very low latency on my local network. My observatory for example is external from my house, where my router is, so it's connected to my network wirelessly and that way I have normal access and internet out there which is great. But I do not try to transfer an imaging session wirelessly for obvious reasons and I don't wire it due to lightning potential out there and for cost of conditioning that wire, so I transfer with a portable SSD for that. Otherwise, I could stay wireless for almost everything.

Very best,

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19227229
I too have a question for anyone who's desktop PC is on Wi-Fi only, not Ethernet .
Why would you chose to do it that way?

I've upgraded recently to a very spiffy mesh system, but it still would never occur to me to use wifi for a device that is inherently NOT mobile, and NOT wireless in any other way.

Just curious.

At home, I didn't want to run good ethernet to where the computer is now. When I had the local cable company providing internet, the modem was next to the computer. Truthfully, it seems many sites are slow, but not from the connection since other sites at the same time are responsive.

At work, we move the computer around on a cart to use the web cam on a virtual demo. I've started using it for other tasks while waiting for a run to get done. The purifications are done so fast now it isn't worth walking to my desk half-way down the building anymore. The wireless connection is just easier to work with.

I use PCI WiFi on my 2 pc's and their antenna is just at the back without issue. If I can use ethernet, I will, but there is no way I can route the cables.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19227229
I too have a question for anyone who's desktop PC is on Wi-Fi only, not Ethernet .
Why would you chose to do it that way?

Simply put, in my case no Ethernet is available without running some cable, a complex task at best. So why not use WiFi? It works fine for a laptop, just because we think of a desktop as being anchored, does that mean we have to limit the technology?

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19227229
I too have a question for anyone who's desktop PC is on Wi-Fi only, not Ethernet .
Why would you chose to do it that way?

I've upgraded recently to a very spiffy mesh system, but it still would never occur to me to use wifi for a device that is inherently NOT mobile, and NOT wireless in any other way.

Just curious.

I guess I do it cuz I don't know no better?? Can you share a link to the system you use? (I think I saw you post one up earlier, if I am recalling correctly.....63 years of gray matter clutter, y'know)