WiFi connection cards in laptops

[Chris S]

I am currently combining two old laptops into one.
Am I correct in thinking that the more connectors a WiFi card has the faster it is? One of the cards is only about 3/4 the width of the other and only has about 3/4 of the connectors. The laptop will work with either.

 

[ColinJ]

No!

 

[ColinJ]

Unless you have one really bad card and one really good one and/or you will be trying to connect through about 3 feet of concrete or granite, I don't think that it will make much difference.

I can wander about 3 floors of my house with my laptop, phones, or tablets and get similar speed everywhere. The thing that slows my kit down is the actual broadband signal speed - 15 to16 Mb/s.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

No - firstly - what do you mean by combining 2 laptops into one???

are they the same make and model
what disks/SSds do they have

which one are you using as a 'master'

and WHY??

before that anything anyone says is a guess

 

[Chris S]

No - firstly - what do you mean by combining 2 laptops into one???

They're two Lenovo G50s. One has a broken case and screen, the other is a bit older and lower spec.

So why do some WiFi cards have more connectors than others? What are the extra connectors for?

 

[DCBassman]

So why do some WiFi cards have more connectors than others?

They are almost certainly different grades of wifi standard.
One is probably 802.11A/B/G, the better one will add N to that. If the units are not that old, then they might be N and AC spec. Investigate the model numbers and use the whizzier of the two. I doubt you'd notice much difference anyhow, but the later the standard used, the greater bandwidth it has. But whatever, your broadband speed is your likely limit. You can only make full use of whatever card you have if you are transferring between devices, and even then, you're unlikely to reach the claimed bandwidth.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

So why do some WiFi cards have more connectors than others? What are the extra connectors for?

Because there are different PCI connector standards, some designed to be more compact than others. But the speed of your card is determined by the Wi-Fi standard it meets, not the number of connectors. For certain other types of PCI card it will be faster but for Wi-Fi the number of connectors isn’t a bottle neck.

 

[si_c]

Because there are different PCI connector standards, some designed to be more compact than others. But the speed of your card is determined by the Wi-Fi standard it meets, not the number of connectors. For certain other types of PCI card it will be faster but for Wi-Fi the number of connectors isn’t a bottle neck.

That's not it at all. The connectors mentioned are the antennas, different laptops with different numbers of antennas will have different performance characteristics. Provided at least one antenna is connected however a WiFi signal can be obtained, more antennas usually means a more stable connection in adverse circumstances. They may also have separate antennas for Bluetooth/Wifi so check that bluetooth works as well.

 

[Chris S]

They may also have separate antennas for Bluetooth/Wifi so check that bluetooth works as well.

Yes - that's it, I lose the Bluetooth icon with the narrower card.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

That's not it at all. The connectors mentioned are the antennas,

Well that’s not clear at all, they could be referring to the PCI slot connectors on the cards which are not the antennas.