ExpressCard/54 WiFi

[psydT0ne]

Heya,

Anyone out there seen or know of a manufacturer that produces an expresscard/54 wifi with external antenna?

I've looked everwhere on google and can't find jack shit.

HELP!

[stingwray]

USB seems to be how things are going now, because of the ability of being able to use multiple USB ports to get more power to the device.

Have a look at the Alfa Networks 500mw USB, seems to be the best around at the moment.

Express Card doesn't really seem to have a place anywhere at the moment, except for tasty FPGA cards. I can see these kind of slots on laptops dying soon, especially with netbooks not having one (I believe the S10 and Mininotes only carry them). I'm surprised Apple haven't killed it on their notebooks yet, seeming how happy they are to kill interfaces.

[vector]

here you go

ubiquiti srx 300 i have 2 of these 300mw atheros 5006x chipset with mmcx antenna connection. not cheap though gonna run you about 150 bucks a pop, but its the most powerful express card you can get. and the only one ive found with an external antenna port

[Matt Lestock]

ExpressCard slots is really useful for people who don't have a WWAN card built into their machine.

In addition, companies like ASUS are using them for things like their external graphics card, and more.

The benefit is the amount of bandwidth that the expresscard slot offers. Expresscard slots using the PCI-E bus have a max of 2Gbps, where as those using USB are limited to 480Mbps.

From the wikipedia entry... "ExpressCard slots can accept Firewire 800 (1394B), Serial ATA external disk drives, Solid-state drives, Wireless network interface cards, TV tuner cards, soundcards, additional memory and memory card readers, among other things. Asus has recently revealed an external graphics card that can be connected to laptops through the interface, the XG Station."

So while they may not be used everyday by you, there are plenty of reasons for manufacturers to include them so that we the users have some level of expansion.

Matt

[vector]

ExpressCard slots is really useful for people who don't have a WWAN card built into their machine.

In addition, companies like ASUS are using them for things like their external graphics card, and more.

The benefit is the amount of bandwidth that the expresscard slot offers. Expresscard slots using the PCI-E bus have a max of 2Gbps, where as those using USB are limited to 480Mbps.

From the wikipedia entry... "ExpressCard slots can accept Firewire 800 (1394B), Serial ATA external disk drives, Solid-state drives, Wireless network interface cards, TV tuner cards, soundcards, additional memory and memory card readers, among other things. Asus has recently revealed an external graphics card that can be connected to laptops through the interface, the XG Station."

So while they may not be used everyday by you, there are plenty of reasons for manufacturers to include them so that we the users have some level of expansion.

Matt

um yeah the express 54/34 slots arent going anywhere anytime soon.

[stingwray]

ExpressCard slots is really useful for people who don't have a WWAN card built into their machine.

In addition, companies like ASUS are using them for things like their external graphics card, and more.

The benefit is the amount of bandwidth that the expresscard slot offers. Expresscard slots using the PCI-E bus have a max of 2Gbps, where as those using USB are limited to 480Mbps.

From the wikipedia entry... "ExpressCard slots can accept Firewire 800 (1394B), Serial ATA external disk drives, Solid-state drives, Wireless network interface cards, TV tuner cards, soundcards, additional memory and memory card readers, among other things. Asus has recently revealed an external graphics card that can be connected to laptops through the interface, the XG Station."

So while they may not be used everyday by you, there are plenty of reasons for manufacturers to include them so that we the users have some level of expansion.

Matt

I'm not doubting the bandwidth benefits of ExpressCards, however, the number of applications that need that bandwidth is very limited and with USB 3 around the corner, and the expected quick adoption that it will have the bandwidth card is lost.

ExpressCard slots are not useful for people without WWAN, the majority of WWAN devices are USB powered because of the cheapness of the interface. The majority of people receiving the device will use what they get given because of the subsidy they will receive when signing a monthly contract as they are still quite expensive separately. Also given the poor quality of most WWAN services this isn't a high priority to have a completely separate interface.

Firewire is dying, 800 was hardly adopted by anyone, eSata ports will eventually become standard on laptops, although the take up on that has been shamefully slow. The only other peripheral there in that list that needs all that bandwidth is the graphics card, external graphics cards have been around for a long time, and never really got anywhere except for in the professional world with things like external Quadro arrays from nVidia which contain multiple graphics cards. Which don't use ExpressCards as they require more bandwidth and arn't designed for mobile applications. Laptops come with inbuilt graphics that can rivial many a desktop computer and unreadability has never been a priority of laptops, with both ATIs and nVidias graphics slots for laptops dying.

The best use of ExpressCard slots if have seen so far is a place to store your remote for your laptop. Thats about it. Every other application doesn't need it, because there will be a cheaper alternative to it using USB probably.

The downside to USB, well its something sticking out of your laptop, which most people for the saving, will accept.

[psydT0ne]

Thanks guys fo your help.. ..funny it didn't even occur to me to look at a usb option.

The alpha certainly looks promising.

I've contacted a local distributor to see if we can get something like this in Australia...otherwise i'm looking at buying it from the states.

Anyone know what chipset is in it?....i've seen a couple of duplicate brands GSKY being one, that have realtek chipsets..

[stingwray]

The alfa is an atheros chipset, can't remember which, but it works very nicely with all the wireless tools and backtrack etc.