I need a wireless internet adapter

[Rostum]

There are many different variety PCI cards involving video/graphics cards to soundcards, to 10/100Mbps LAN cards to Wireless cards.

You were looking at the wrong PCI card. There are a lot out there that are wireless and don't require an ethernet cable, so I don't know where you've been looking.

For instance:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=12

[Discord]

Umm... I've got a Linksys myself. I certainly like the router itself, but the adapters and mind you, we've got 2 of those, seem to be causing problems with older machines. On the other hand, everybody else says that they're the best ones out there. I'm using an Intel adapter, built into the laptop, and so far the performance has been flawless.

[o_O]

I recommend against D-Link and Netgear adapters. I recommend Linksys adapters.

There are horror stories about every brand, since each account is based on personal experience. My account is partially based on trying to hack them into working on Linux with native drivers, and partially based on Windows experience, such as annoying third party wireless software, stability, etc.
I have worked in an ISP, however, and the most problematic adapters were, without a doubt, D-Link. I had trouble getting Netgear to work under Linux with native drivers and using ndiswrapper, but Linksys worked fine.

So really my point is, don't take personal accounts too seriously. Any adapter should work fine for you if you're not trying to do anything out of the ordinary.

But don't buy D-Link.

[Rostum]

I agree, I tried out a d-link PCI card and it was horrible. I was just linking to that as it was the first I found in google for an example. Netgear I have no problems with (I run Windows XP Professional). Linksys are also a brand I recommend as my friend has a router of there's and he's customized it pretty well so it runs very well.

[Discord]

Now as a matter of fact and to spoit the beautiful conclusion of this post, you might consider getting the adapter of the same brand as your router. Generally speaking, they're made for each other and thus work the best. This is providing you always, or almost always, use the same router to connect to internet.

Since diffent developers put different features into their hardware, which of course only work with their other bits of hardware, you might well miss on things like speed-accelerations and net-lock(or whatever it was called) if you get an adapter of a different brand.

Thus, if you have a d-link router, you might reconsider getting that d-link adapter, even though linksys ones are generally better.

[CimminyCricket]

I landed a nice linksys usb adapter that is compatable with my router and computer. I'm actually using right now, its really slow though, but I guess slow is better than not being there. I appreciate your help. :c)