Samsung NC10

benifa wrote: »

EDIT: Sorry smccarrick, our posts crossed.

Lol, great minds think alike!

Blade wrote: »

Cheers lads, I'll have a closer look on ebay. That crowd charge 26 dollars shipping and I think that might be per item. They even have a "Spicy Pink Faux Alligator Skin with shoulder strap", haha I'd look cute with that

Someone should import the damn things into Europe, says on their ebay ad that they are made in Korea not USA.

Having imported crates of IT goodies from Hongkong/Japan- you'd have coronary heart failure at what normal shipping rates from the region come to (and don't even get me started on duties and taxes chargeable as its coming from outside the EU). I know its galling to have to pay $50 or $60 when anyone in the US can get it for half that- but seriously, if someone in the EU was charging EUR40- they would be hardpressed to make anything reasonable on it after all the taxes etc were taken into account....... I used get boxes of things like this from the likes of Success HK etc- I just gave up- its not worth it.

There have been problems with the Windows 7 sound drivers particularly (including the problem with headphones working but speakers not), give it a check with XP before sending it back.

Blade wrote: »

Is the range any better with this Intel?

My router is in the front of the house and out in the back garden I get 1 bar but the signal breaks up a fair bit and I get disconnected. It's a pretty long house though with a couple of solid walls in the way and I'm using the normal Eircom netopia silver with 2 antennas.

Do you think I should somehow boost the signal from the router or replace the card? I don't want to move the router cause it's hard wired into my main PC in the office.

The card is only one element of equation regarding range.

Possible things to have a think about:

1. the antenna cable in the NC10 could be replaced- what you'd do is feed a long cable into the chasis around the screen. To be honest- while its very effective- I wouldn't recommend it.

2. the Intel 5100 or 5300 can be set to transmit and receive using up to 5 times more power than the Atheros card- purely in the software settings for the intel card. Its a doddle to manipulate- and very effective. It will of course, shorten the battery life if you're using wifi.

3. Look at the other end of the equation- your wifi router. You can pick up replacement antenna up to 20 dbi on ebay with a packet of universal antenna fixtures for most common sockets. In theory- you could increase the range of your wifi network up to 10 fold doing this.

If you decide to do this- make sure you change your default router settings to use less common channels (in an Irish context perhaps channel 3 or 4)- or else you'll have the neighbours wanting to murder you.

4. Look at the wifi router again- the Netgears and some others have upgradeable firmwares that can be modified to specify much higher broadcast powers than would be normal. Its naughty- but a highly effective way of increasing your signal strength and network coverage.

5. There are routers out there which can double up multiple broadcast channels using a technology colloquailly known as MIMO. If its a feature of your router- activate it.......

What I'm saying is a cheap wireless card is not necessarily the reason for poor wireless reception- your router and how you have it configured is a far more important factor. Its far better to invest a reasonable amount in a decent router- than it is to start modding your laptop. Any router that advertises itself as a 'gaming router' would as a generalisation- be optimised to the best of its capabilities. Sure- it'll cost you double what you can get a bog standard router for- but you do get what you pay for.........

S.