Adding wifi to pc tower

[keeper2scout]

I do not have internet service at my house unless I connect laptop by smart phone hot spot.
I would like to have wifi on my pc tower. Did not realize it did not have it until I got the phone. Thought all new equip had wifi. My error. Please tell me how I can either add something to pc tower to get wifi signal from smart phone or from my neighbor(best friend) who lives about 1000 feet away but a wooded area separates us. If I could pick up her wifi, I could download printer driver to printer that is connected to home pc. Please reply in non-tech English or I will be lost. usb long range device...ethernet...not sure what difference is.

 

[13thmonkey]

buy a wifi card

 

[keeper2scout]

buy a wifi card

where does wifi card go? Is it something I can do myself?

 

[ss202sl]

It's easy. You can do it yourself. You can also get a USB wireless card - even easier to install.

 

[MotherFerJones]

Wifi cards are unexpensive but you may need a little tech knowledge to install one. Basically you motherboard (green plastic with chips and small tubes coming off of it) should have a PCI, PCIex1, or PCIex16 (look like plastic slots coming up from your motherboard) slot open to even consider adding a card. You would have to open your PC and look inside to see if any are open. I have a PCIex1 wifi card in my tower, its the smallest of the plastic slots, like 2 inches long at most (guessing). Really all you do once you know what PCI slots you have open is buy the correct card for the slot, then go ahead and stick it in the slot. I'm sure there are better guides with pictures on the internet but i'm at work right now and dont have time to look.

 

[deadlockedworld]

Hey there,

Sorry to reset from top, but you need to establish some process here:

1. 1000ft is an extremely long way for wifi. Not realistically going to happen with common hardware.

2. There are two ways to add wifi capability to a PC. One is a little USB dongle that plugs in, the other is a card that fits inside the PC permanently. To install inside the PC you would need a free PCI express slot (most PCs do). You will need to look up information about your PC to find out if you have that. Feel free to post here about your computer specs if you decide to go with that.

Here is a random (i am not endorsing) example of one of a card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704058
Here is a random (i am not endorsing) example of a USB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833555010

3. Don't expect internet from your phone to be fast, reliable, or anything like landline internet. It will be ok for checking mail and occasional web surfing, but not really more than that. You will also need to watch out for data caps on your plan.

Additionally, while I understand the technical limitations when adding to the PC, I do not understand the compatibility requirements of your phone. You will need to look the phone up or talk to your provider to make sure there are no additional limitations when linking the phone.

p.s. it is quite likely that your phone provider sells some sort of USB/wifi dongle like the one I mentioned above. If they do you should buy the one from them that is guaranteed to work with your phone (and then rely on them for tech support to get it going).

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833381014&Tpk=gamebase

Buy this adapter ^ Super Range and Reliable

 

[cadder]

I have run my home PC on wifi for a couple of years. For most of the time that we had internet my computer and my router were in the same room but in opposite corners. I bought a 50' network cable and ran it around the room- along the bottom of the wall, up and over the outside door, along the wall, up and over the garage door, etc. When my wife had the room repainted she didn't want my wires running everywhere so I bought a UBS wifi dongle and put it on the computer. It is approximately the same size as a USB thumb drive, with an antenna the size of a pencil that mounts to one end. It worked but it didn't have 802.11g so it was slow. It was plenty fast for internet but if I tried copying files through my network from one computer to the other it was slow. I bought another one recently and it is much faster. I bought mine on newegg for under $20. I read the reviews and picked one with good reviews and so far it is working great.