Lane Availability with Wifi adapter question.

[Guidanio]

Hello all!

I made the mistake of buying a motherboard with a poor integrated wifi (msi gaming edge ac z390).

The whole lane thing is quite confusing to me, and I don't want to diminish any performance for the sake of better streaming and downloads. 

I don't really know whether I actually have lanes available or if buying a usb adapter occupies lanes...Anyways...

 

I would like to improve my internet speed by either getting a pcie wifi adapter or a usb wifi adapter.

I am just unclear as to whether doing so will slow down my hard drive/cpu/graphics card/memory performance.

I have both M.2 NVME slots occupied with evo 970 plus'

 RTX 2080 gpu

Intel i9-9900k cpu

4 rams slots occupied for a total of 64gb ddr4 ram.

noctua cpu fan

 

I use my computer for video editing and some gaming. 

If I can get either the pcie or the usb without sacrificing any performance (for instance read/write speeds) that would really help.

Thanks for entertaining my question!

Danillo 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

If you use the pcie x1 slots, those will run off the chipset and won't affect any other devices in any meaningful way.

 

What speeds do you get over the current wifi? Might be an antenna or access point issue. Did you try moving the antenna.

[Guidanio]

Thanks for the quick response Wizardry!

I'm just getting 195 mbps ... I think I might just need something with better range? 

Anyways, does plugging a USB wifi adapter in take up a lane or affect performance? 

I suppose if it isn't too meaningful, I might just go with either the pcie otherwise, I just wasn't sure if I had lanes available or not (and rendering in adobe cc already takes forever so I didn't want to slow it down, or the gpu for games haha)

-Thanks! 

Danillo

[Guidanio]

40 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you use the pcie x1 slots, those will run off the chipset and won't affect any other devices in any meaningful way.

 

What speeds do you get over the current wifi? Might be an antenna or access point issue. Did you try moving the antenna.

Thanks for the quick response Wizardry!

I'm just getting 195 mbps ... I think I might just need something with better range? 

Anyways, does plugging a USB wifi adapter in take up a lane or affect performance? 

I suppose if it isn't too meaningful, I might just go with either the pcie otherwise, I just wasn't sure if I had lanes available or not (and rendering in adobe cc already takes forever so I didn't want to slow it down, or the gpu for games haha)

-Thanks! 

Danillo

[Electronics Wizardy]

45 minutes ago, Guidanio said:

I'm just getting 195 mbps ... I think I might just need something with better range? 

how are you testing this? What speed are you paying for.  Thats pretty good for wifi, so your not getting much more. What access point do you have?

 

45 minutes ago, Guidanio said:

Anyways, does plugging a USB wifi adapter in take up a lane or affect performance? 

usb doesn't need a pcie lane, so no, but also usb will probably be slower than what you have now.

 

I don't think your getting much faster with a pcie adapter, id just run a cable if you want better speeds.

[Mister Woof]

Just 195mbps he says

 

Man times have changed

[Guidanio]

46 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

how are you testing this? What speed are you paying for.  Thats pretty good for wifi, so your not getting much more. What access point do you have?

 

usb doesn't need a pcie lane, so no, but also usb will probably be slower than what you have now.

 

I don't think your getting much faster with a pcie adapter, id just run a cable if you want better speeds.

 

46 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

how are you testing this? What speed are you paying for.  Thats pretty good for wifi, so your not getting much more. What access point do you have?

 

usb doesn't need a pcie lane, so no, but also usb will probably be slower than what you have now.

 

I don't think your getting much faster with a pcie adapter, id just run a cable if you want better speeds.

I apologize for my ignorance, I'm guessing if that's "good" that I'm reading the wrong things, what would be the best way to get a read on my speed?

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 hours ago, Guidanio said:

 

I apologize for my ignorance, I'm guessing if that's "good" that I'm reading the wrong things, what would be the best way to get a read on my speed?

How are you testing your speed now? What speed do you get on wired.

 

Id say 200mbit is pretty good. You won't get much more without very good conditions, so few walls, close distance, and new wifi gear. The rated wifi speed is no where near realistic, and about 1/3 to 1/2 is real world