PCIe WiFi card......?

Nathan5660 · March 4, 2018

The attatched picture shows the amount of room....or lack of...that I have in my case. Im after a PCIe WiFi card as my USB antenna is a piece of poo on a stick and keeps going wrong. Either the drivers are borked or the thing itself is I cant work it out. I thought about getting a riser or extender of somesort, so i can have the card lower with enough room for my GPU to breathe still. I cant even move the gpu down as its only the top slot that is a full 16x slot UGH.

So what Im wondering is, would a riser/extender work with a WiFi card? Clearly I will re-do the cables at the bottom of the MOBO as much as i can so it fits as neat as possible. am I right in thinking this would work?

This is the card I am thinking of getting https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006BSPTAQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1 I dont need anything fancy, it just needs to work. I dont play many online games and only very rarley when i do. so 300mbps is fine (my USB antenna is only capable of 150 anyway so this would be an improvement by far, and it looks a lot neater)

THE ABSURD BIRD · March 4, 2018

I recommend an Ac wifi adapter as they are capable of higher bandwidth and are much faster but if you are on a tight budget, go with that. Another option is https://goo.gl/7dLgwP as it seems that the antennas may not be able to fit inside your case (perhaps cause interferences with your GPU).

Lurick · March 4, 2018

The issue is that's a PCI slot, not PCIe.

Maurer · March 5, 2018

I might reccomend something like the Asus PCE-AC56 or PCE-A68. They have an external magnet antenna base that can allow you to reposition the antenna base with little hassle. I use both on my old and new machines and get decent performance. The only issue I have ever had was that you had been to install the drivers to get Windows to recognize the card.

In terms of airflow, I have the same situation as you, the card is sandwiched between two 970s. Neglible temp increases affecting the card (adequate case airflow will off set the minor temp increases) - there was more of a temperature increase from adding in the 2nd 970 than the wifi card. I want to go the extension cable to reposition the wifi card, but no longer have the room with two 970s.

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/PCEAC68/