Low-cost USB WLAN stick with USB 3.0 in practice.
I recently dusted off an old desktop computer at work. It was sufficient for testing purposes, otherwise it would have been disposed of. At home, however, I discovered that although it had Ethernet, it was of no use for WLAN. So I was looking for an inexpensive WLAN stick that ideally also promised somewhat faster data transmission. There are lots of cheap and compact adapters, but they are usually not very fast.
The hardware
In the end, I decided on a more or less no-name product. Cost 15 euros on Amazon, the “Wireless 11AC USB Adapter”. USB 3.0 with support for 5Ghz WLAN. After all, it is supposed to achieve a maximum of 867 Mbit/s, which is a good 100Mbit/s. Well, that is always a very theoretical value.
First and foremost, this thing is big. Besides the already quite large housing, it comes with two antennas. The thing is not fancy, but it is stable.
Commissioning
In addition to the Wifi stick, a short manual and a driver CD are included. Fortunately, the latter is not needed; the stick is recognised directly under Windows 10 and 11. The CD also contains drivers for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 8. If you no longer have a CD drive, the instructions include a download link via Dropbox, which is trustworthy.
A small LED flashes during the connection.
Under Linux, on the other hand, I had no luck at first. I’ll have to see if I can somehow persuade Linux to cooperate. “lsbusb” recognises the stick as “Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL88x2bu”.
Speed
100Mb/s would be the theoretical maximum. Right next to my router I also get just under 32 MB/s, a little further away to just over 20Mb/s. Not a highlight, but OK, the internal WLAN card of my notebook manages a little more. It is sufficient for operation on my desktop.
Conclusion
For 15 euros you get a solid WLAN connection, the thing is quite big, not particularly fancy, but provides a stable connection, the speed is also OK. For Linux users rather nothing.
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