Asus P6X58D Premium have no wireless adapter? What are my options?

babachoo

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So I've got a PC that I haven't used in a long time. Asus P6X58D Premium is the motherboard, running Win7 HP. I recently finally made the plunge and bought a wireless router (Belkin N750DB dual band). My laptop (Acer 7740G) picks up the 2.4ghz band from my router, but no luck finding the 5.0ghz band. I suspect this may be because the laptop's wireless card needs to be dual band, or 5.0ghz compatible, but am not sure, so any insight on that would be appreciated. I dug out my desktop described above and was going to hook it up to my wifi, but I'm having no luck.

It shows two network adapters, both Marvell Yukon Ethernet adapters. And device mgr. shows a Teredo tunneling adapter, and I think I remember seeing the word "miniport" somewhere by this device as well. It has a yellow exclamation mark next to it. I tried updating drivers, and it says drivers are up to date, but the device failed to start. Tried uninstalling/reinstalling, same result.

I've been reading around and see others with the same mobo talking about they have PCI (or PCI-E) wireless cards installed. So I'm wondering if that mobo does not come with a wireless adapter at all? I did a little browsing amazon to see how much a PCI-E wireless card would run, and I ran into yet another question/problem. Which PCI(E) wireless card would work with my N750DB router and take full advantage of the dual bandwidth? I see a N600 adapter for Belkins, but it's USB. Most of the PCI cards are other brands, so I'm unsure if they would be compatible. If I need a card, I'd like to get something that would allow me to simultaneously (on the same PC) use both 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz, or is that not even possible?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm jumping into a technology that's new to me, and there are a lot of variables. Any and all help is appreciated.
 
Solution
In order to use both the router's 2.4 and 5.0 frequencies you would need a dual band adapter for whatever device you were connecting. 2.4 is fine for most applications and especially better if you plan on trying to connect from farther distances. Where 5.0 is good for heavy traffic like streaming HD but its not so great when trying to connect from far distances.

If you motherboard does not have wifi built it (most don't) then yes, a PCI-E wireless adapter would work just fine for you. Depending on how much your looking to spend and if you really want to be able to use the 5.0 frequency you have a lot of reasonably priced options for 2.4 adapters, and some okay priced options for dual band adapters.

Really it comes down to what...

skaz

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In order to use both the router's 2.4 and 5.0 frequencies you would need a dual band adapter for whatever device you were connecting. 2.4 is fine for most applications and especially better if you plan on trying to connect from farther distances. Where 5.0 is good for heavy traffic like streaming HD but its not so great when trying to connect from far distances.

If you motherboard does not have wifi built it (most don't) then yes, a PCI-E wireless adapter would work just fine for you. Depending on how much your looking to spend and if you really want to be able to use the 5.0 frequency you have a lot of reasonably priced options for 2.4 adapters, and some okay priced options for dual band adapters.

Really it comes down to what you doing on your network. If you're just connecting two computers by wireless then I wouldn't spend the extra money on a dual band adapter, unless...you wanted to future proof yourself. But in that case I would recommend a dual band bridge instead. This way you could move your dual band bridge to different sections of your home and use multiple devices on it. For example, living room/home entertainment center.


Some examples of different devices below....

Basic 2.4 wireless N pci-E adapter - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166063
Dual band wireless adapter (connects by USB) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156321
Dual band bridge (Ethernet connections) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127256
 
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babachoo

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Thanks for the info. I'm a little confused that my laptop doesn't pick up the 5.0ghz at all, even when it's right next to my router. Is it possible that this laptop's included card can't pick up 5.0ghz, only 2.4ghz? I'm new to wireless routers so I was hoping maybe it was a setting on my router's config that was preventing the 5.0ghz from being broadcast or being broadcast in a manner that my PC's and tv can pick up.

I just got an internet connected 3d tv as well, and just browsed through the widgets earlier, and I'm interested in the ability to stream 1080p 3d content, and it recommends like 6-8mb/s speed, and I only got 3.5mb/s on the tv when I tried the preview, even though my laptop gets 5.3mb/s or so.

If I can't get my router to broadcast 5.0ghz I may try a different router. And if I do that, and find one that broadcasts both bands well, I may get one of those bridges. At a glance it appears a bridge would effectively combine the bandwidth of both bands of the router and then broadcast the combined double speed signal to all devices on the wireless network. Or was my glance too brief and I read something wrong?
 

babachoo

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Well, I would but there aren't any phone jacks anywhere close or on that wall. And I really don't want to move all my furniture and run ethernet cable under my carpet. It's an option, but it's a pain. The main reason I went wireless is to get rid of cords.
 

skaz

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Why are you confused, does your laptop have a dual band wireless adapter? If it doesn't then it won't pick up the 5.0 frequency.




What do you mean if you can't get your router to broadcast 5.0 frequency? Do you have a device that you didn't mention that has a dual band wireless adapter? Like I first said, in order to actually use the 5.0 frequency you will need a wireless adapter device cable of connecting to it. Also known as a dual band wireless adapter.
 

babachoo

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Well, I assumed that my DB router feeding a signal to a non-DB adapter in my laptop would make it so that I could choose either 2.4 or 5.0 connection, but not both. But you're saying that 5.0ghz is a DB only bandwidth frequency, which answers one of my many questions.

As an update, I did a little more reading and it appears that a bridge is more for connecting nodes of a network for data transfer from one station to another, rather than combining both bands and broadcasting a doubled speed signal, so I don't really need that. I guess I just need to pick a PCI-e wireless card for my Asus P6X58D Premium, anyone have any suggestions? I guess it wouldn't be bad to get a dual band PCI card to let my PC surf on 5.0, my laptop could remain on 2.4, and I'm guessing my TV is not dual band capable, and thus not able to use 5.0ghz, if what skaz says is true. I wonder if you can upgrade a TV's wireless card without tearing it apart? :D
 

skaz

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A Bridge can be used for a lot of different things. For example if your TV has a an Ethernet port you could use a bridge as a way to upgrade the connection between the tv and router without having to "tear" it apart.

Okay, think of it this way - your router is outputting two different networks. One on the 2.4 frequency and one on the 5.0 frequency.

So basically,
2.4 wireless NIC can only connect to 2.4 frequency network.
5.0 wireless NIC can only connect to 5.0 frequency network.
Dual band (2.4 and 5.0) wireless NIC can connect to ONE of the networks. Either 2.4 or 5.0 frequency network.
 

babachoo

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Thanks for the replies, skaz. I'm probably going to pick up a USB wireless adapter tomorrow. It appears that they don't make one for the N750 though, though they do have an N600 adapter. So I guess I'll try that out. I'm a little disappointed I can't use the dual band to double my speed on one computer, but at least I'll be able to double it by using a separate computer on each band. I never thought I'd need more than my ATT elite DSL (6Mb) connection, but now that I've stepped into the world of streaming 3d blu-ray movies and having everything in the house connected to the web, I find myself wanting 50Mb/s+ speeds I see some people posting. It's a shame that cable internet is so rediculously overpriced, and that somehow services like Fiber Optic and ATT Uverse have been around for forever, but still haven't found their way to my neighborhood.

Anyway, thanks for the guidance. Have a great day. :)
 

skaz

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No problem. I understand your need for speed. :D

QUICK EDIT: Your not bound to use the same manufacture when you choose wireless adapters, although I'm sure they recommend it for compatibility/or more $ for them. They are following a standard and so should any wireless adapter. So feel free to look at other wireless adapters besides Belkin.
 
Suggest you watch the following, there's no way I'd hook-up any wireless to a Desktop, HTPC, or anything except a Notebook, Tablet or Phone.

Note: the newer Powerline are twice as fast. Therefore, Powerline or CAT-5/6:

[flash=640,480]http://www.youtube.com/v/Sue1Zvmh8JA[/flash]