Talk Wifi to me: USB versus PCI.

Heartfeltdawn

Moved house in November, first time I've ever had to use a Wifi adapter rather than going straight from the router via Ethernet. I picked up a cheap Trendnet adapter which is bloody awful. Every review I've seen of it says that it's bloody awful and so far it is living up to its reputation. Most annoyingly it appears to be causing enough DPC latency to make audio fragment when being played. 

So a new WiFi adapter is needed as it's impossible to go direct to the router. I honestly have no idea where to start though. Any recommendations for good bits of kit would be much appreciated.  

Finally went up to Windows 10 today as well. Sigh. 

Bridgehouse

Is it just location of router and desktop? You could get a kit to run Ethernet over your power sockets.. some of them are pretty good

Heartfeltdawn

@Bridgehouse is that the power-line adapters I've seen mentioned in a few forum posts online? Something like this?

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/network-wifi/best-powerline-adapters-for-2018-3490638/

Totally location of desktop and router. Router in lounge, desktop in bedroom, no way of changing that. 

Bridgehouse

Heartfeltdawn said:

@Bridgehouse is that the power-line adapters I've seen mentioned in a few forum posts online? Something like this?

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/network-wifi/best-powerline-adapters-for-2018-3490638/

Totally location of desktop and router. Router in lounge, desktop in bedroom, no way of changing that. 

Exactly that - if it’s a single point to point it’s reliable. Usually used to connect a non WiFi device where a WiFi adapter can’t be fitted or to get to a bit of the house with weak WiFi, but in your case it’s a simple way of getting a “no new cables” solution.

Don’t listen to the naysayers - I have one for a hard to reach device and it’s fine. It tends to suffer when you have more than one set installed - for a single pair it’s been as reliable as a direct cable connection

Heartfeltdawn

I shall have to read up then. It's definitely the USB adapter, ndis.sys is causing latency jags quite regularly now. Never had any trouble with that when I was hardwired so I shall have to go back to this. Everyone else in the house is fine with their devices so single point to point for me is perfect. 

Bridgehouse

Heartfeltdawn said:

I shall have to read up then. It's definitely the USB adapter, ndis.sys is causing latency jags quite regularly now. Never had any trouble with that when I was hardwired so I shall have to go back to this. Everyone else in the house is fine with their devices so single point to point for me is perfect. 

Look for one with gigabit if you can afford. TPLink are good - I have a set and it’s plug and play. And make sure it has passthrough power or you lose a socket each end. 

Part of my job involves speccing and designing high level enterprise active networking (Cisco, HP etc) and even I think it’s decent stuff - it’s not as quick as real pukka networking, but in a home environment where you are relying on a broadband routers wifi it’s a more reliable connection and usually quicker..

Bridgehouse

On ndis.sys - ironically, it’s probably your onboard Ethernet causing the issues now you are connecting via WiFi - disable or update drivers and it will probably go away.

darthed1981

Bridgehouse said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

I shall have to read up then. It's definitely the USB adapter, ndis.sys is causing latency jags quite regularly now. Never had any trouble with that when I was hardwired so I shall have to go back to this. Everyone else in the house is fine with their devices so single point to point for me is perfect. 

Look for one with gigabit if you can afford. TPLink are good - I have a set and it’s plug and play. And make sure it has passthrough power or you lose a socket each end. 

Part of my job involves speccing and designing high level enterprise active networking (Cisco, HP etc) and even I think it’s decent stuff - it’s not as quick as real pukka networking, but in a home environment where you are relying on a broadband routers wifi it’s a more reliable connection and usually quicker..

Having solved the same problem connecting my PC, and currently using some TPLink poweline adapters to do it, I can only heartily second Bridgehouse's recommendation.

Heartfeltdawn

Yes it is. I've done all the usual tests with LatencyMon and it's definitely the onboard Ethernet. All the drivers are updated, went for a clean 7 installation last night and then clean 10 today, same problem on both. It's a right bugger when streaming my music collection from my Pcloud account and the spikes affect music being played from the hard drive as well. 

So I shall be investing in either one of these:

Beastie 1

or one of these:

Beastie 2

Heartfeltdawn

@darthed1981 what TPLink adapters did you go for in the end? Real-world "They worked" stories tend to sway me more than Amazon stars

darthed1981

Heartfeltdawn said:

@darthed1981 what TPLink adapters did you go for in the end? Real-world "They worked" stories tend to sway me more than Amazon stars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BECPIMC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Those ones, according to my order history.

Fun fact, one end of mine is also on a 6-way adapater along with my pc, monitors, speakers etc and works like a charm

Bridgehouse

Heartfeltdawn said:

Yes it is. I've done all the usual tests with LatencyMon and it's definitely the onboard Ethernet. All the drivers are updated, went for a clean 7 installation last night and then clean 10 today, same problem on both. It's a right bugger when streaming my music collection from my Pcloud account and the spikes affect music being played from the hard drive as well. 

So I shall be investing in either one of these:

Beastie 1

or one of these:

Beastie 2

So when you get them you need to remove the WiFi adapter and all traces of it. I’d also update your BIOS and any HW firmware updates you can get your hands on. Win 10 has a habit of causing ndis.sys issues if hardware isn’t on the latest firmware (esp onboard Ethernet and WiFi) 

I’ve found desktops with added on WiFi come across some sort of issue at some point or other if the onboard Ethernet isn’t updated.

Bridgehouse

darthed1981 said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

@darthed1981 what TPLink adapters did you go for in the end? Real-world "They worked" stories tend to sway me more than Amazon stars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BECPIMC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Those ones, according to my order history.

Fun fact, one end of mine is also on a 6-way adapater along with my pc, monitors, speakers etc and works like a charm

The only issue with those is they aren’t passthrough, so you lose a socket

darthed1981

Bridgehouse said:

darthed1981 said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

@darthed1981 what TPLink adapters did you go for in the end? Real-world "They worked" stories tend to sway me more than Amazon stars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BECPIMC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Those ones, according to my order history.

Fun fact, one end of mine is also on a 6-way adapater along with my pc, monitors, speakers etc and works like a charm

The only issue with those is they aren’t passthrough, so you lose a socket

Not an issue for me, but yes maybe for the OP.

Bridgehouse

darthed1981 said:

Bridgehouse said:

darthed1981 said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

@darthed1981 what TPLink adapters did you go for in the end? Real-world "They worked" stories tend to sway me more than Amazon stars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BECPIMC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Those ones, according to my order history.

Fun fact, one end of mine is also on a 6-way adapater along with my pc, monitors, speakers etc and works like a charm

The only issue with those is they aren’t passthrough, so you lose a socket

Not an issue for me, but yes maybe for the OP.

Indeed - it depends on whether you have a dearth(ed) of sockets

Sporky

I have a spare PCI card (2.4GHz only) and a spare powerline set.

Yours for cost of postage...

Heartfeltdawn

Sir, I'd like to take you up on that. 

Bridgehouse

Another happy Fretboard resolution

darthed1981

A Wow deserved for Sporky I think

Sporky

Bah. I didn't think anyone would think I was being nice. It just saves recycling them.

Heartfeltdawn

@bridgehouse here's the funny part. My motherboard has a Realtek RTL8111G LAN controller on it. Going by the Asus website, the last driver update for this was V10.2.703.2015 for Win 10 64-bit. Updating the driver through Windows also showed nothing more advanced than that. 

Out of curiosity, I went to the Realtek site. The RTL8111G is listed on there as a PCI Express Ethernet controller with no mention of onboard m/b LAN controllers. The links at the side take you to the GBE family controller drivers and there's a Win 10 auto installer for the PCI-E controller with a version updated January this year. Well, it'd be rude not to try it, yes? 

Installed it, fired up the Trendnet USB adapter, and started running looped audio through Reaper, a looped Morrissey track through VLC, a stream through Youtube, and BBC radio coverage of the Six Nations. 40 minutes in and LatencyMon has reported no problems at all. Not a single dropout whatsoever running all these different audio streams, a marked difference to yesterday when a 5 minute WAV file was suffering from dropouts. 

Short version: blah